Riverview Elementary School kindergarteners during a Spanish class in Glenwood Springs, Colo. (Nick Cote for The Washington Post)
More students attend schools with children of different races than ever before, a Washington Post analysis has found. Over the past couple of decades, integration took hold across the country in smaller school districts whose student bodies had been predominantly white.
But in many big cities and across the South, students remain in districts that are deeply segregated.
This comes as the nation reaches a demographic tipping point: In 2020, there will be more children of color than white children in America, according to Census Bureau projections.
[See how the changing face of school integration is playing out in two Colorado communities.]
To explore the changing makeup of the nation’s school districts, The Post measured diversity and integration using student race data from two years: 1995 and 2017.
Diversity is a measure of the overall racial makeup of a school district. A district is considered diverse when no one race constitutes more than 75 percent of the school system’s student body overall.
Diverse district
If the district was
highly integrated,
each school would be similar
to the district’s makeup
If the district was
not integrated,
schools wouldn’t reflect
the district’s diversity
Districts that lack diversity are not shown
because they cannot be integrated
Diverse district
If the district was
highly integrated, each
school would be similar
to the district’s makeup
If the district was
not integrated, schools
wouldn’t reflect the
district’s diversity
Districts that lack diversity are not shown because they cannot be integrated
Diverse district
If the district was highly
integrated, each school would be
similar to the district’s makeup
If the district was not
integrated, schools wouldn’t
reflect the district’s diversity
Districts that lack diversity are not shown because they cannot be integrated
Diverse district
If the district was highly
integrated, each school would be
similar to the district’s makeup
If the district was not
integrated, schools wouldn’t
reflect the district’s diversity
Districts that lack diversity are not shown because they cannot be integrated
Diverse district
If the district was highly
integrated, each school would be
similar to the district’s makeup
If the district was not integrated,
schools wouldn’t reflect
the district’s diversity
Districts that lack diversity are not shown because they cannot be integrated
Integration determines how well that diversity is reflected across the individual schools. An integrated school leads to better academic performance for students of color without affecting white students’ performance, according to decades of research analyzing test scores and graduation rates. And it offers an array of cultural and social benefits to all students, regardless of race.
The Post looked at the racial makeup of each of the country’s public school districts in 1995 and 2017 to see how the growing diversity of children was reflected in their schools. Private and charter schools were excluded from this analysis.
Each circle represents one of more than 13,000 public school districts, sized by the number of students they serve. Districts range from the large with hundreds of thousands of students, like New York and Los Angeles, to the small, like Teton County in Wyoming with less than 3,000.
In 1995, 45 percent of students went to school in a diverse district. These districts tended to be in large cities and the South.
The rest attended schools in districts that were undiverse or extremely undiverse. Nearly a third of all students were in these extremely undiverse districts, which are made up almost entirely of one race. These districts were typically more rural, sparsely populated and almost uniformly white.
By 2017, there was a dramatic movement of districts toward diversity. More than 2,400 districts became diverse after being undiverse or extremely undiverse in 1995.
These newly diverse districts were typically in smaller cities and suburbs that had been predominantly white but experienced an influx of students of color, particularly Hispanics.
Offering students an opportunity to identify as multiracial also has reduced the dominance of a single race in districts.
A small number of districts that were diverse in 1995 no longer were in 2017. These districts disproportionately serve students of color. Many, such as Los Angeles, have become almost uniformly Hispanic.
In 2017, 66 percent of students attended schools in diverse districts, up from 45 percent in 1995. There was a nearly parallel decline in students in extremely undiverse districts.
The number of students in undiverse districts stayed about the same.
Districts that lack diversity cannot be integrated. So to measure integration, The Post looked only at districts that were diverse in 2017. Districts also needed to have at least 1,000 students and more than five schools.
Integration evaluates how evenly a district’s diversity is spread across its schools. District diversity is less meaningful if children are not encountering that diversity at school.
The Post used the variance ratio to calculate an integration score for each district. Districts were grouped based on their score into highly, somewhat and not integrated.
In 2017, nearly 11 million children — the most ever — were in districts with highly integrated schools. That is nearly double the 5.8 million students in districts with schools that are not integrated.
The remaining 10.3 million students were in districts with somewhat integrated schools.
It makes a difference how long a district has been diverse. Districts that became diverse after 1995 have more highly integrated schools compared with districts that were already diverse in 1995.
In these historically diverse districts, students are more likely to learn in schools that are not integrated.
Persistent lack of integration in many big cities
A 1971 Supreme Court ruling established an era of forced busing as part of court desegregation orders. Over the next 20 years, integration steadily grew in places where courts interceded. Transporting students of color to majority-white schools, and vice versa, broke the powerful link between segregation in housing and schools.
However, in the early 1990s, Supreme Court decisions eased a path out of desegregation orders. Many school systems previously under court orders — such as Charleston, S.C.; Tuscaloosa, Ala.; and Denver — saw reversals in integration gains. By 2017, Denver ranked among the bottom 2 percent of integrated school districts. That marked a dramatic drop from 1995 — the year the court order was lifted — when it was in the bottom third of integrated districts.
Chicago, which was not released from court-ordered desegregation until 2009, continues to be among the least integrated school districts in the country. Spring Branch, Tex., was never under a court order but has grown even less integrated in the 22-year period.
In districts that are not integrated, few schools come close to matching the racial makeup of the district
The proportion of white students in elementary schools of high and low integration districts for the 2016 - 2017 school year
0
25%
50%
75%
100%
Not integrated school districts
If this district were perfectly
integrated each elementary school
would be about 44% white
0%
white
96%
white
Charleston, SC
Chicago
Denver
Spring Branch, TX
Tuscaloosa, AL
Highly integrated school districts
Barrow County, GA
Lexington, MA
Mustang, OK
Richland, WA
Roaring Fork, CO
In districts that are not integrated, few schools come close to matching the racial makeup of the district
The proportion of white students in elementary schools of high and low
integration districts for the 2016 - 2017 school year
0
25%
50%
75%
100%
Not integrated school districts
If this district were perfectly
integrated each elementary school
would be about 44% white
0%
white
96%
white
Charleston, SC
Chicago
Denver
Spring Branch, TX
Tuscaloosa, AL
Highly integrated school districts
Barrow County, GA
Lexington, MA
Mustang, OK
Richland, WA
Roaring Fork, CO
In districts that are not integrated, few schools come
close to matching the racial makeup of the district
The proportion of white students in elementary schools of high and low
integration districts for the 2016 - 2017 school year
0
25%
50%
75%
100%
Not integrated school districts
If this district were perfectly
integrated each elementary school
would be about 44% white
Mary Ford
Elem. is 0% white
Sullivan’s Island
Elem. is 96% white
Charleston, SC
Chicago
Denver
Spring Branch, TX
Tuscaloosa, AL
Highly integrated school districts
Barrow County, GA
Lexington, MA
Mustang, OK
Richland, WA
Roaring Fork, CO
In districts that are not integrated, few schools come close to matching the racial makeup of the district
Proportion of white students in elementary schools for the 2016 - 2017 school year
0
25%
50%
75%
100%
Not integrated school districts
If this district were perfectly
integrated each elementary school
would be about 44% white
Mary Ford
Elem. is 0% white
Sullivan’s Island
Elem. is 96% white
Charleston, SC
Chicago
Denver
Spring Branch, TX
Tuscaloosa, AL
Highly integrated school districts
Barrow County, GA
Lexington, MA
Mustang, OK
Richland, WA
Roaring Fork, CO
In districts that are not integrated, few schools come close to matching the racial makeup of the district
The proportion of white students in elementary schools for the 2016 - 2017 school year
0
25%
50%
75%
100%
Not integrated school districts
If this district were perfectly
integrated each elementary school
would be about 44% white
Mary Ford
Elem. is .007% white
Sullivan’s Island
Elem. is 96% white
Charleston, S.C.
Chicago
Denver
Spring Branch, Tex.
Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Highly integrated school districts
Barrow County, Ga.
Lexington, Mass.
Mustang, Okla.
Richland, Wash.
Roaring Fork, Colo.
In newly diverse districts, more integrated systems
Newly diverse districts are spread across the country: from small cities such as Richmond, Wash., to the outer suburbs of Oklahoma City and Atlanta.
In Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, across the Rocky Mountains from Denver, Hispanics grew from 12 percent of students in 1995 to 56 percent in 2017. Racially integrated housing and thoughtful school boundary assignments have produced schools that largely reflect the small district’s growing diversity.
[See how The Post’s analysis compares to other studies of school segregation.]
Newly diverse districts are diversifying at a time when the overtly discriminatory housing and mortgage practices that set housing patterns in big cities are no longer in place. Research also suggests that whites hold less racial animus toward Hispanics than blacks.
Most newly diverse communities remain majority white, and research suggests whites may be more comfortable with diversity as long as they remain the largest group. Once that flips, whites may start to leave.
As these communities continue to grow more diverse, it’s an open question if integration will grow with them or if they will come to look more like their historically diverse and not integrated peers.
Explore your school district
Find out the overall racial makeup of your school district and how well that’s mirrored in individual schools. The map currently shows the diversity of school districts. Use the toggle underneath the map to view integration.
Diversity
Use two fingers to pan around the map.Pinch to zoom.
Tap a district to see details
Show indicator
Show districts
Most school districts are unified, serving children from elementary through high school. But some communities divide districts into a lower, typically made up of elementary schools, and an upper, made of middle and high schools. Switch views to show unified districts along with their upper or lower counterparts.
Integration's new frontier. This story is part of an ongoing series on how the nation’s increasing diversity is changing our schools.
The changing face of school integration What's your experience with school integration? Six findings in The Post’s analysis of diversity in school districts. How The Post's analysis compares with other studies of school segregation.
Ilana Marcus contributed to this report.
About this story
This analysis used the Common Core of Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Charter and private schools were excluded because the government has limited control over them. Virtual schools were also excluded.
The Washington Post used data from the 1994-1995 school year, the earliest near-comprehensive data, and from 2016-2017, the latest available data. Findings were checked against interim years at a five-year interval.
Diversity was defined by the proportion of students in the dominant racial group. Diverse districts are places where fewer than 75 percent of students are of the same race. Undiverse districts are where 75 to 90 percent of students are the same race. In extremely undiverse districts one racial group constitutes more than 90 percent of students.
Black, Asian, Native American and white data excludes anyone with Hispanic ethnicity. Asian includes Asians, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders. Multiracial was not a racial category in 1995.
The Post measured integration for diverse school districts that have at least six schools, more than 1,000 students and where the sum total of black and hispanic students was at least 5 percent and no more than 95 percent of students.
The variance or correlation ratio, also referred to as eta-squared, was used to measure integration. The ratio calculates how isolated a racial group or groups are while controlling for the demographics of the district. The variance ratio was computed for black and Hispanic students because of the history of exclusion and achievement gaps faced by these groups.
Integration groupings were defined by calculating Jenks breaks, a classification method for optimally determining data groupings, for the most recent data and applying it to earlier data.
The Post confirmed findings against an analysis that looked only at elementary schools, a method some researchers use to better control for differences in race across age groups and the typically smaller number of upper-level schools.
Geographic classifications are from NCES. Geospatial data is courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau.
The code for this analysis and the output data can be found here.
