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Background Despite accounting for 3% of the student population, multiracial students are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the United States. Aligning with new federal guidelines, in 2008, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) revised its single-race reporting scheme for the Common Core of Data (CCD), permitting students to identify as two or more races (i.e., multiracial). Study Objective The addition of a multiracial reporting category to the NCES CCD permits students to more accurately represent their racial identity. By creating categories that are not strictly comparable to their historical counterparts, however, it may problematize longitudinal analysis of trends in the racial composition and segregation of schools, which are of perennial scholarly and public interest. In this study, we examine the extent to which the reporting change affects estimates of segregation over time. Research Design We compute annual values of racial/ethnic segregation (i.e., isolation and dissimilarity) among elementary schools for 5,357 public school districts using data from the NCES CCD Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey from 2000–01 to 2013–14. Before 2008, we compute segregation for the five monoracial groups tracked by the CCD. After 2008, we compute segregation using the two analytical approaches to the treatment of multiracial students that have been employed by scholars of segregation. We estimate the effect of the racial/ethnic reporting change on estimates of segregation via a series of multilevel longitudinal fixed-effects models. Results We found that the NCES CCD's addition of a multiracial reporting category has problematized longitudinal analyses of segregation, particularly racial/ethnic isolation. Models revealed abrupt changes in most dimensions of segregation in the year immediately following the reporting change. Moreover, the reporting change has complicated interpretation of segregation trends since 2008, because seemingly minor analytical decisions may lead to contradictory conclusions: When multiracial students are excluded from calculations, isolation appears to be increasing for all racial/ethnic groups; however, when multiracial students are included in calculations, isolation appears to be decreasing for all racial/ethnic groups. The reporting change has a weaker, but still significant, effect on certain dimensions of racial/ethnic dissimilarity. Conclusions In this study, we found that the NCES CCD's recent addition of a multiracial reporting category has resulted in estimates of segregation that are not longitudinally comparable and may vary in magnitude and direction depending on relatively minor analytical decisions. We urge scholars to take particular care in calculating and interpreting segregation trends and offer recommendations for educational research and practice.

Since the Common School era, states have maintained truancy laws to ensure that students attend school. However, we know little about the severity of these laws and their relationship to st...

In this study, I employ geospatial techniques to assess the impact of school attendance zone “gerrymandering” on the racial/ethnic segregation of schools, using a large national sample of 15,290 attendance zones in 663 districts. I estimate the effect of gerrymandering on school diversity and school district segregation by comparing the racial/ethnic characteristics of existing attendance zones to those of counterfactual zones expected in the absence of gerrymandering. Results indicate that the gerrymandering of attendance zones generally exacerbates segregation, although it has a weaker effect on the segregation of Whites from Blacks and Hispanics. Gerrymandering is particularly segregative in districts experiencing rapid racial/ethnic change. However, gerrymandering is associated with reductions in segregation in a substantial minority of districts, notably those under desegregation orders.

Considerable attention has been devoted to the resegregation of public schools over the 1990s. No research to date, however, has examined change in school segregation since 2000. Using the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD), we examine longitudinal trends in racial/ethnic segregation in 350 U.S. metropolitan areas from 1993 to 2009. We find that worsening segregation over the 1990s has given way to a period of modest integration among all racial/ethnic groups since 1998. However, decreases in segregation were smaller in the formerly de jure segregated South and in metropolitan areas with large increases in racial/ethnic diversity. In addition, since 1998, the relative importance of segregation among non-Whites has increased, while the proportion of segregation that lies across district boundaries has stabilized.