New Evidence about Brown v. Board of Education: The Complex Effects of School Racial Composition on Achievement

Abstract

Although the goals of school integration legally mandated by Brown v. Board of Education are very broad, here we focus more narrowly on how school racial composition affects scholastic achievement. Uncovering this effect is difficult, because racial mixing in the schools is not an accident but rather an outcome of both government and family choices. Our evaluation, made possible by rich panel data on the achievement of Texas students, disentangles racial composition effects from other aspects of school quality and from differences in abilities and family background. The pattern of estimates provides strong support for the notion that a higher percentage of black schoolmates reduces achievement for blacks, particularly those with higher initial achievement, while the coefficients for whites are typically much smaller and not significant at conventional levels. Given the existing level of segregation in Texas, racial composition appears to explain a meaningful portion of the racial achievement gap. The underlying causes of the link between achievement and peer racial composition remain uncertain, but the evidence indicates that racial composition does not serve as a proxy either for peer academic achievement or for unmeasured school quality.