Public school segregation in metropolitan areas

This paper presents measures of segregation in public schools for metropoli tan areas. It shows that, not only are metropolitan areas very segregated, most of that segregation is due to racial disparities between districts rat her than segregative patterns within districts. Metropolitan areas in the S outh and West tend to have larger districts, and thus feature less fragment ation by school district Segregation at the metropolitan level appears to v ary systematically with size, racial mix, and region. Because larger metrop olitan areas tend to have more jurisdictions and exhibit greater difference s in racial composition among jurisdictions, measured segregation rises wit h size, as measured by school enrollment. (JEL 121).