Frankel (above) and Volij's new measure revealed that segregation between black and white students is about as high today as it was 20 years ago.

School segregation has been measured since the 1950s when public schools in the United States were first integrated. While original methods of measurement were adequate for the times, they no longer accurately capture the nation’s rapidly changing, multiethnic public school systems.

Iowa State University professor of economics David Frankel, and professor of economics Oscar Volij of Ben Gurion University, Israel (formerly at ISU) have co-authored research that offers a new and more effective way to measure school segregation. “We wanted to build a better mousetrap,” says Frankel. “To study a problem, you first need to measure it.”

Their research is soon to be published in The Journal of Economic Theory, considered one of the best journals at presenting theoretical research in economics. “The editor thought our work was very definitive,” says Frankel.

While ethnic diversity in the United States has increased since public schools first integrated, Frankel and Volij’s measure shows that public school desegregation hasn’t kept pace with those changes. Information like this is important, says Frankel, because there is “evidence that the gap between black and white wages is due to segregation in public schools.”

Minorities in the United States earn lower wages, and have weaker job prospects than Caucasians. Further research shows a link between minority students who were schooled in segregated districts and lesser employment options.

Desegregating public schools is one answer to improving minority school achievement and employment. “Minorities seem to have better academic outcomes when they attend integrated schools,” says Frankel.

Their research offers a new way to measure segregation that provides a more sophisticated view of the current public school landscape - and ultimately may serve to better solve issues of minority achievement and job opportunity.

How the measure works

Frankel says there are currently about 20 ways to measure segregation. While many of them “are appealing because they’re simple and easy to grasp,” they often aren’t adequate to reflect the broad changes that have taken place in the United States since schools first integrated.

He and Volij measure segregation using the axiomatic approach common in economics, which he says is “more formal and concise” than sociological measures. The new measure satisfies some new properties and incorporates the best of the former approaches.

“In the 20th century we have many ethnicities that we need to take into account,” says Frankel. The new measure includes these ethnicities, where other measures only compared segregation between black and white students.

It also permits a broader look at segregation within different geographic levels, with the capacity to look at a single school district, or to compare districts, cities, and states to each other.

The measure draws all of this information into one index, viewed as a whole. This whole view can then be “decomposed,” where detailed levels of information are broken out as a portion or percentage.

Frankel says it’s similar to the way nutritional content of food is broken down for closer examination. “It’s a unique way of looking at the information that has never been done before,” he says.

New findings

Use of the new measure and the unique decomposed view has already revealed some important findings.

Ethnic diversity in the United States has increased over time, and most ethnic groups have become more integrated with each other. In contrast, Frankel and Volij learned that segregation between black and white students is about as high today as it was 20 years ago.

They confirmed that within cities, most segregation occurs between school districts rather than within them. They also learned that there is more segregation between central cities and suburbs, and less segregation within central cities or within suburbs. Finally, the new measure revealed that the high levels of segregation between states is due mainly to concentrated Hispanic settlements in border states.

When it comes to making some thoughtful choices that could impact educational outcomes for minorities, he says this type of information will be useful. Frankel has already started to see an impact on other work in economics at the theoretical level, and hopes economists studying public school districts will soon discover the new measure.

“This may have the potential to impact policy,” he says. “Our hope is that experts in the field will start using these tools.”

He also says that individuals can use the information to empower their own decisions about where to live and have their children schooled.

Frankel originally studied sociology before earning his doctorate in economics, and has always had an interest in issues of racial inequality.

“It’s important that we do more to equalize opportunities,” he says. “It bothers me that there are kids who are disadvantaged by no fault of their own.” 

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