School desegregation, academic attainment, and earnings

Voluntary and enforced compliance by school districts has reduced the segre gation of U.S. public schools. A key question is whether desegregation prog rams have raised lifetime earnings for blacks, either through the Expansion of interracial contact or improvements in school quality. This paper uses information on school demographic composition, district desegregation effor ts, school resources, and the academic performance of nonblacks to investig ate the impact of school desegregation on academic attainment and earnings. The results provide support for the belief that raising school quality is likely to be much more effective than the reallocation of students among sc hools as a means to improve academic and labor. market outcomes for blacks.