Private Choices, Public Consequences: Private School Choices and Racial Segregation in Public Schools

Salvatore Saporito

Surprisingly little is known about the relationship between private school attendance and racial segregation in public schools. This study addresses this issue by showing if, how much, and why the choices of families to leave local, neighborhood schools for private schools contributes to the racial segregation of public schools. To calculate segregation in public schools, computerized maps of public school attendance boundaries (for elementary and high schools) were assembled for 60 of the largest school districts in the country. School boundary maps are combined with block-level 2000 Census Data, enabling a count of the number of school-aged child (by race) who live in each public school attendance zone. Based on this, segregation levels are computed across school attendance areas (i.e. what levels segregation would exist if all students attended the local, public schools serving their neighborhoods). Segregation in public school attendance areas is then compared with actual rates of segregation across the schools serving each catchment area; this comparison is completed by merging demographic information of schools (available from U.S. Department of Education’s Common Core of Data) with the demographic information of school attendance areas. The results will provide crucial statistical evidence that individual choices for private schools may (or may not) contribute to racial and economic segregation in public schools.

About Salvatore Saporito

Salvatore Saporito completed his doctorate in Sociology at Temple University. His research agenda investigates how much familial choices for public, private, magnet, and charter schools are racially motivated and if these choices influence segregation across different types of schools. His most recent work, recently published in Social Problems, examines why magnet school choices influences racial and economic segregation in neighborhood schools. In 1997, he was supported by a Spencer Dissertation Completion Fellowship and, in 1998, he was awarded “Most Outstanding Graduate Student Paper” by the Sociology of Education section of the American Sociological Society. He is currently an assistant professor of sociology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.