Annual Reports and Information Staff (Annual Reports)

Extent of Racial, Ethnic, and Economic Segregation

“Segregation, both economic and racial/ethnic, poses one of the most formidable barriers to educational equity. Under conditions of economic segregation, low-income students disproportionately attend schools with high concentrations of other low-income students. Schools that are marked by concentrated poverty often lack the human, material, and curricular resources to meet the academic and socioemotional needs of their populations. Segregation also brings racial differences in exposure to concentrated poverty, leading to nonwhite students being in schools with higher rates of concentrated poverty than other students. This situation exacerbates racial disparities in educational outcomes”.¹

Segregation has been associated with limiting the opportunities that children need to develop important life skills, such as interacting effectively with diverse groups,² as well as with limiting the resources available to students from racial/ethnic minority groups and low-income families.^{3, 4} This domain, Extent of Racial, Ethnic, and Economic Segregation, is examined in relation to one indicator— public elementary and secondary school students’ exposure to racial, ethnic, and economic segregation—using data from the Common Core of Data (CCD) and the Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE) program. These indicators are based on recommendations in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) framework. The NASEM report notes that some of the recommended indicators have limitations. Currently, the Equity in Education Dashboard provides data based on published products. Because data in our published products do not always perfectly align with the recommended indicators in the NASEM report, we have indicated where our data differ from recommendations in the report. More findings will be added to the Equity in Education Dashboard over time. Whereas the NASEM report uses the term “segregation” in this domain, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports measures of the “concentration of low-income students and “racial concentration”; thus, the findings throughout this domain follow the terminology used in NCES reporting. Group differences in this domain are examined across two educational equity dimensions: race/ethnicity and school locale, wherever the data allow.⁵

Key Findings on the Extent of Racial, Ethnic, and Economic Segregation

The Segregation indicator examines two constructs: the concentration of poverty in schools; and racial segregation within and across schools

For public elementary and secondary school students, there were differences in the concentration of low-income students in the schools they attended by both race/ethnicity and school locale⁶ in 2021.

Compared with the national averages, higher percentages of Hispanic, Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Pacific Islander⁷ students attended high-poverty and mid-high⁸ poverty schools.
A higher percentage of students who attended city schools attended high-poverty schools (36 percent), compared with students who attended town schools (18 percent), suburban schools (15 percent), and rural schools (13 percent).

There are different levels of racial concentration within schools by student race/ethnicity.

In 2021, more than half of Hispanic, Black, and Pacific Islander students attended public schools in which the combined enrollment of students of color was at least 75 percent of total enrollment.
Forty-two percent of American Indian/Alaska Native students, 41 percent of Asian students, and 22 percent of students of Two or more races attended schools in which the combined enrollment of students of color was at least 75 percent of total enrollment. In contrast, 6 percent of White students attended such schools.

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¹National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2019). Monitoring Educational Equity (pp. 7-8). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25389.

²Pettigrew, T.F., and Tropp, L.R. (2006). A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751-783. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.751.

³Owens, A., Reardon, S.F., and Jencks, C. (2016). Income Segregation Between Schools and School Districts. American Educational Research Journal, 53(4), 1159-1197. https://doi.org/10.3102%2F0002831216652722.

⁴Rothwell, J.T., and Massey, D.S. (2010). Density Zoning and Class Segregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas. Social Science Quarterly, 91(5), 1123-1143 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2010.00724.x.

⁵Not all equity dimensions, such as race/ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status, English learner status, and disability status, are examined for all constructs.

⁶Data exclude students in schools with missing locale information.

⁷Within this domain, Pacific Islander includes data for Native Hawaiians and any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.

⁸Although the percentage of students of Two or more races who attended mid-high poverty schools was also higher than the national average (though both rounded to 22 percent), the percentage of students of Two or more races who attended high-poverty schools was lower than the national average.

Enrollment Free or reduced-price lunch Locale codes National School Lunch Program Public school or institution Racial/ethnic group

Common Core of Data (CCD): CCD is the U.S. Department of Education's primary database on public elementary and secondary education in the United States. CCD is a comprehensive, annual national database of all public elementary and secondary schools and school districts.
Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE): This program designs and develops information resources using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and spatial data collected by NCES and the Census Bureau to examine social, economic, and housing conditions for school-age children and their parents.
School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap: This report uses National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2011 Mathematics Grade 8 Assessment data and 2010–11 CCD data to explore the Black-White student achievement gap.
Student Population Has Significantly Diversified, But Many Schools Remain Divided Along Racial, Ethnic, and Economic Lines: This Government Accountability Office (GAO) report examines the extent of racial, ethnic, and economic divisions in K-12 public schools as well as student demographic shifts as a result of district secession.