TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hanushek,Eric A.
AU  - Kain,John F.
AU  - Rivkin,Steven G.
TI  - New Evidence about Brown v. Board of Education: The Complex Effects of School Racial Composition on Achievement
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8741
PY  - 2002
Y2  - January 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8741
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8741.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Eric A. Hanushek
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA  94305-6010
Tel: 650/736-0942
Fax: 650/723-1687
E-Mail: hanushek@stanford.edu

John Kain
Director
Cecil and Ida Green Center for the Study of Scienc
Mail Station GC21
P.O. Box 830688
Richardson, TX  75083-0688
Tel: 972-883-2555
E-Mail: N/A user is deceased

Steven G. Rivkin
Department of Economics
University of Illinois at Chicago
601 South Morgan UH725 M/C144
Chicago, IL 60607
Tel: 312.413.2368
E-Mail: sgrivkin@uic.edu
AB  - Uncovering the effects of school racial composition on achievement is difficult, because racial mixing in the schools is not an accident but instead represents a complex mixture of government and family choices. While the goals of the integration of schools legally inspired by Brown v. Board of Education are very broad, here we focus more narrowly on how school racial composition effects scholastic achievement. 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 student abilities and family background. The results show that a higher percentage of Black schoolmates has a strong adverse effect on achievement of Blacks and, moreover, that the effects are highly concentrated in the upper half of the ability distribution.  In contrast, racial composition has a noticeably smaller effect on achievement of lower ability blacks, of whites, and of Hispanics -- strongly suggesting that the results are not a simple reflection of unmeasured school quality.
ER  -