The effect of interracial contact in public schools on the enrollment of whites has been an important concern in assessments of desegregation since the 1970s. It has been feared that "white flight"--meaning exit from or avoidance of racially mixed ...

This paper presents measures of segregation in public schools for metropolitan areas. It shows that, not only are metropolitan areas very segregated, most of that segregation is due to racial disparities between districts rather than segregative patterns within districts. Metropolitan areas in...