Minorities, mostly Hispanics, flock to suburban schools
— -- Minority enrollment in suburban school districts has exploded since the early 1990s, and Hispanic students account for most of that growth, a report released Tuesday finds.
But the data show that while districts outside urban and rural areas have seen remarkable gains in black, Hispanic and Asian students from 1993 to 2007, schools within some of those districts have grown more segregated.
"In spite of the rapid demographic changes at the level of the school district, when you actually look at the schools kids attend, there still might be issues of racial and ethnic balance," says Richard Fry, a senior research associate for the Pew Hispanic Center and author of the report.
The findings come as enrollment in suburban schools has increased by 3.4 million during the past decade and a half. Meanwhile, the number of white suburban students slipped by 1%, reflecting a shift in the once largely white enclaves that defined suburban schools.
Once accounting for nearly three-quarters of enrollment, white students now make up 59% of suburban districts. At the same time, non-white enrollment rose by 13 percentage points, up from 28% in the 1993-94 academic year.
"These findings point to the fact that for many decades, the issue of racial and ethnic balance has been on the agenda," Fry says.
Sean Reardon, an associate professor of education at Stanford, says the Pew findings are consistent with other research and show that "a lot of this growth has been in the suburbs, and a big part of that growth has been minority enrollment."
Suburban schools in the Midwest and South — Illinois, Tennessee, Minnesota and Georgia — had the highest rates of Hispanic student growth. But districts in some of those same states, including schools in Chicago and Atlanta, were among the most segregated for Hispanics and other races.
Researchers measured such levels of segregation on both exposure to minority students and the "dissimilarity" of students within a district.
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