109
AND
SOCIAL
SOCIAL
SCIENCE
POLICY
A Response to "The 'White Flight' Controversy"
IANE
"The 'White
in the
SpringRavitch's
issue of article,
The Public
Interest Flight'
includesControversy,"
many misleading
and inaccurate points which need to be corrected. It is also almost
two years out of date. I would like to emphasize at the outset, however, that her central argument with regard to Coleman's work is
correct. Despite all of the methodological
critiques,
competing
analyses, and reanalyses, the major argument of the Coleman, Kelly,
and Moore study, "Trends in School Segregation, 1968-73," has been
substantiated
empirically by the most recent works. My own updated and expanded study, "Assessing the Unintended
Impacts of
Public Policy: School Desegregation
and Resegregation,"
(now including Southern school districts and data through Fall 1975), as
well as recent works by Farley, Armor, Roberts, and Cloffelter, suggests that the implementation
of a school desegregation
plan, if it
involves the busing of whites to black schools, significantly increases
the decline in white public school enrollment in the year of implementation-averaging
out to be a doubling of the "normal" white
enrollment decline in the North and a tripling in the South. Although Ravitch scorns the suggestion in my first study that there
appear to be less-than-normal
white enrollment losses in post-implementation years, Coleman and his colleagues also found the same
effect. Indeed, of the four most recent studies which have examined
this phenomenon
longitudinally,
three have found strong "positive"
effects after implementation.
At the end of four years, the net effect
of school desegregation
on white public school enrollment is "nonnegative" for most school districts and most plans. If she is going to
criticize me for this finding, she should be fair enough to mention
Coleman's similar finding.
In her criticisms of my first study, as well as in her own presentation of white enrollment data, Ravitch does not seem to understand
social science research methods. In order to detect the impact of a
policy on a phenomenon
being studied (for example, the impact of
a job-training program on unemployment
rates or the impact of income redistribution schemes on the level of poverty), it is necessary
to isolate the long-term trend from the impact of the public policy.
The failure to do this is the most common mistake made by journalists, and it is precisely the error Ravitch has made both in her cri-
110
THE PUBLIC INTEREST
tique of my study and in her own "analysis." To use an analogy: No
scientist of any merit would attempt to determine the effect of a
daily vitamin pill on a normal child's growth by measuring his or
her height at one point in time and then again several years later,
attributing the observed growth to the daily vitamin pill. Yet that is
exactly what Ravitch has done.
Although Ravitch refers to my statistical method throughout her
article, she does not even discuss the actual statistical method I used
-the interrupted
time series with a non-equivalent
control groupand falsely implies that I simply examined change in percentage
white intuitively. Nobody trained in social science research methods
would make such an egregious error. In reality, her only criticism
of my study is of the way in which I measured white enrollment
change, not of my statistical method. To measure white enrollment
change I used change in percentage white, rather than proportional
change in white enrollment, because I thought it might control for
historical accidents, such as the closing of factories and subsequent
unemployment
which would cause both blacks and whites to move
out of the city but would not change racial proportions. As it turns
out, this was unnecessary
and I now use proportional
change in
white enrollment as my dependent
variable.
Nevertheless,
my earlier study was not wrong because I used a
measure of white enrollment change that has smaller units than the
one Ravitch suggests I should have used. My conclusions were
based on a test of significance (of the change in proportion white
with desegregation, when compared to the pre-desegregation
trend)
and comparison with a control group. Since all cases and points in
time are in the same units, changing the size of these units makes
little or no difference in my findings because the comparative relationships remain the same.
Let me demonstrate
with the six desegregated
school districts
Ravitch pulled out of my 86-city study (Table I). Column A shows
the significance of the Mood test using the dependent variable I am
TABLE I. Comparison of Significance
Dependent Variables 1
of Mood Test Using Differing
Column A
CITY
Pontiac
Berkeley
San Francisco
Denver
Pasadena
Boston
Column B
SIGNIFICANCE OF CHANGE nq
SIGNIFICANCE OF
PROPORTIONAL CHANGE
IN WHITE ENROLLMENT
PROPORTION WHITE WITH
DESEGREGATION FROM PRIgDESEGREGATION TREND
WITH DESEGREGATION
FROM PREDESEGREGATION TREND
Significant (.05 or better)
N.S.
N.S.
N.S.
Significant
Significant
xSource: Author's calculations.
Significant
Significant
N.S.
N.S.
Significant
Significant
BUSING
AND
"WHITE
FLIGHT"
111
accused of using to minimize the effect of desegregation.
Column B
shows the significance of the Mood test using the dependent
variable Ravitch argues I should have used so that I would have seen
the real effect of desegregation.
These results indicate that the use
of one dependent variable rather than the other has changed the
results for only one case, Berkeley, a small, atypical, university
town.
We can more clearly see the relative importance
of these two
variables by examining multiple-regression
equations analyzing data
from my updated and expanded study. These are shown below in a
simple equation using variables implicitly controlled for in the interrupted time series.
TABLE II. Effects of Differing Dependent
Regression Equations I
CHANGE
INDEPENDENT
VARIABLES
Variables
IN
on Multiple-
PROPORTIONAL
PROPORTION
CHANGE
WHITE
ENROLLMENT
WITH
DESEGREGATION
Percent Black
Southern City School District
Unemployment Rate
Crime Rate
Proportion Students
Reassigned ( Deseg.)
P
Observations
x Source: Derived
from author's
study "'Assessing
School Desegregation
and Resegregation."
2 F ratio--significant
at .01 level_.
IN WHITE
Beta
-.23 g
-.10
-.222
-.04
Beta
-.57j
-.15
-.152
-.10
-.542
.36
109
-.39'
.53
109
the
Unintended
WITH
DESEGREGATION
Impacts
of Public
Policy:
Thus even in the updated study using a different methodology
the use of one dependent variable, rather than the other, makes no
difference in a finding of a signficant relationship. Had a significant
relationship
between desegregation
and white enrollment change
existed in my sample (Northern districts only) and during the time
period studied (through Fall 1972), I would have found it regardless of the dependent
variable used. Thus when Ravitch states,
"Rossell has selected a statistical method that will show small declines even in the face of large absolute movements," she would be
correct only ff I had intuitively examined the data as she did.
-Christine H. Rossell
Diane Ravitch replies:
In my article, I sought to show the nature of the response to
James Coleman's finding that court-ordered
desegregation,
under
certain circumstances,
was accelerating
"white flight" from largecity schools. Proponents of busing, instead of addressing the problem Coleman raised, attacked him and his work. I examined in
detail Christine H. Rossell's "School Desegregation
and White
Flight," which appeared
in Political Science Quarterly
(Winter
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THE PUBLIC
INTEREST
1975-76), because it was widely cited as the definitive refutation
of Coleman's thesis. Rossell's major conclusion was that "school desegregation causes little or no significant white flight, even when it
is court ordered and implemented in large cities," and she held that
her data "contradict almost every claim Coleman has made regarding school desegregation
and white flight."
One beneficial consequence
of Rossell's letter is that the central
issue in my article is now settled: Rossell agrees that Coleman's
controversial
study "Trends in School Segregation,
1968-73" was
substantially correct. This is a useful development, because I have
found that there is a widespread belief, inside and outside the academic community, that Coleman's work on "white flight" had been
thoroughly discredited. Now Rossell acknowledges that "the implementation of a school desegregation
plan, i[ it involves the busing
of whites to black schools, significantly increases the decline in
white public school enrollment in the year of implementation .... "
Thus, there no longer is disagreement
between Rossell and Coleman on this key point, and that issue can be laid to rest.
But, having retracted the maior conclusion of her 1975-76 article,
she excoriates me because, first, I should have known that she had
revised her views, and second, I criticized the way she arrived at
her erroneous conclusion. I learned of Rossell's changed views from
three unpublished
manuscripts
that she sent me after the appearance of my article; the one she mentions, "Assessing the Unintended
Impacts of Public Policy: School Desegregation
and Resegregation," did not become publicly available until August or September
of 1978. Had I written my article in the Fall of 1978 instead of the
Fall of 1977, I would have known and noted that RosseU had come
to agree with Coleman that school desegregation,
under certain
conditions, increases "white flight." But even so, her original article
would still have been an appropriate
illustration of the response to
Coleman.
As to methodology, my chief criticism was that Rossell measured
white enrollment change by looking at change in percentage white
on a yearly basis (she notes, correctly, that I made no reference to
her method-the
interrupted
time series with a non-equivalent
control group). As I argued, the change in percentage
white can be
misleading. When minority enrollment is growing while white enrollment is fairly stable, as it was in Boston in the 1960's, the percentage of white students drops even though no "white flight" exists;
when "white flight" did occur in Boston during the implementation
years, it appeared to be merely a continuation of a long-term trend,
rather than a significant movement. Furthermore,
the ehoice of this
particular measure systematically
understates
the extent of "white
flight" where it does exist, and this may be one reason why Rossell
could find little or no significant "white flight" in her early work.
The criticism must not be entirely irrelevant, because Rossell notes
in her letter that she no longer uses change in percentage
white
as her dependent variable but has adopted proportional
change in
white enrollment.
BUSING
AND
"WHITE
FLIGHT"
113
My doubts about Rossell's assertion that "white flight" rarely
occurs after the imposition of citywide desegregation
are sustained
by her latest study. According to Rossell, the greatest "white flight"
occurs in the year of implementation.
When those who object most
to the desegregation
plan have left, "white flight" diminishes. In
districts that are less than 35 percent black, white enrollment losses
return to the pre-desegregation
rate or even lower, while in districts
that are more than 35 percent black, "white flight" continues in the
years after implementation
(at a rate less than the peak of the implementation
year). Where we differ is in the implications of this
finding. Rossell sees the eventual slackening of "white flight" after
desegregation as an indication that citywide racial balancing may be
a good strategy for guaranteeing
racial stability in American cities;
additionally, she concludes in her latest study that "all school desegregation plans show a net benefit in interracial contact, and paradoxically this benefit is greatest in school districts at or above 35
percent black despite the fact that these are the school districts with
the greatest white enrollment loss." But I am concerned that citywide racial balancing in a big-city district that is already predominantly non-white ( and most big-city districts are at least 35 percent
black) may leave few white students to integrate. Ultimately, then,
the issue in the "white flight" controversy is not one of technique
but of social policy, where reasonable people may disagree.
David 1. Armor comments:
Diane Ravitch's review of the "white flight" controversy underscores the perils faced by researchers who question the efficacy of
desegregation policy. The attack by certain social scientists and educators on Coleman's "white flight" report was of a ferocity unprecedented in the treatment of a scientist of Coleman's stature. What
is especially noteworthy, as Ravitch brings out, is that none of these
well-publicized
critiques-which
pounced
on Coleman's
alleged
methodological
mistakes-presented
anywhere near as careful an
analysis of the "white flight" phenomenon
as did Coleman. For example, while Coleman's analysis shows that the "white flight" effect
is substantial only when desegregation
is accompanied
by several
conditions, such as large district size, a high percentage
of black
enrollment, and availability of white suburbs, none of the major
counter-studies
by Reynolds Farley, Christine Rossell, and Thomas
Pettigrew and Robert Green attempted to control for these crucial
factors.
What Ravitch does not mention, however, is that later and more
detailed analyses by both Farley and Rossell yielded results quite
consistent with Coleman's. (Farley's paper was presented
at the
American
Sociological Association
meetings in September
1976,
and Rossell's first presentation
was at a Boston University symposium in April 1976. ) It is to their credit that both Farley and Rossell
have admitted, publicly, that Coleman's original findings are essentially correct (Pettigrew and Green, whose critique relied heavily
upon the original Farley and Rossell studies, have not been heard
114
THE
PUBLIC
INTEREST
from.) On the other hand, neither of these two newer reanalyses
has been circulated beyond soecialist circles or published, so perhaps Ravitch cannot be faulted for failing to cite them. The important question is why none of the agencies who expedited publication of the early critiques-the
National Institute for Education,
the Brookings Institution,
the Harvard Educational
Review, the
Political Science Quarterly-has
been anxious to get the word out
on these latest studies. The failure to do so prolongs confusion and
ambiguity as to the actual state of social science on this issue. Worse,
it raises the question of whether these agencies, entrusted with accumulating and promulgating objective scientific knowledge, are in
fact bending to political pressures or ideological preferences.
A more important difficulty with the Ravitch review is her presentation of eight-year white-loss data in the 29 largest cities. A
careful reading reveals that Ravitch does not claim all of these losses
are due to busing; she acknowledges that some of the losses are due
to other factors associated with declining white populations
in
urban centers. However, this type of data is frequently misunderstood, since many commentators
have confused total white losses
with the "white flight" due to busing. Coleman's report evaluated
the effects of desegregation per se, above and beyond losses caused
by other factors. In order to do so, it is crucial to separate losses
due to desegregation
from losses due to declining white births and
outmigration arising from events unrelated to desegregation.
Since the Ravitch review may well raise many questions about the
true magnitude of busing effects, it might be useful to summarize
the results of a new study of "white fright." (See David J. Armor,
White Flight, Demographic
Transition, and the Future of School
Desegregation.
The Rand Corporation. P-5931. August 1978.) This
study focuses specifically on court-ordered
mandatory
desegregation in larger school districts (over 20,000 students)
with a significant minority enrollment (over 10 percent). It seems relatively welldocumented that "white flight" is not accelerated in districts adopting voluntary desegregation plans, nor in districts with a very small
proportion of minority students. The issue of district size is somewhat more complex, but certainly the larger districts raise the more
important policy implications, since they encompass the vast majority of black students. The reason for singling out court-ordered
cases is that they raise the most likely conditions for "white flight."
Rosselrs recent studies have shown that the number of white students reassigned (or bused) seems to be the crucial determinant
of
"white flight," but in fact this rarely happens to any significant degree without a court order. A court action also signifies considerable community opposition to certain types of desegregation,
expressed through the elected school board.
The unique feature of this new study is that it attempts to pin
down the total long-term effects of court-ordered
mandatory
busing by using a demographic projection technique to estimate what
the white enrollment would have been in the absence of desegregation. While the original paper should be consulted for details
BUSING
AND
"WHITE
FLIGHT"
115
about methodology,
it suffices to say that the technique uses actual white births and pre-desegregation
white outmigration
rates
(from census data) to project the school-age population. From this
projection, the "natural" rate of white enrollment
decline can be
estimated. Like Coleman and the later Farley and Rossell studies,
my study concludes that the "white flight" effect is strong in most
court-ordered
districts that have more than 20 percent minority
students and available white suburbs.
The first important finding is that there is a substantial anticipatory effect the year before the start of desegregation,
with the actual
rate of white loss more than double the projected rate. This finding
makes one of Rossell's methods, which predicts post-desegregation
loss rates from pre-desegregation
rates, very hazardous indeed, with
a likely underestimation
of "white flight." Second, the first-year effect is truly massive, with a loss rate four times higher than it would
have been without desegregation.
Finally, according to my findings
the long-term effects are also substantial, with actual white losses
still nearly twice the natural losses four years after the start of
desegregation.
The effect of accelerated white losses on "resegregation"
is substantial in most of these cases. In a majority of these school districts,
more than half of the total white loss over periods of seven to eight
years is attributable
to desegregation
events. Further, in many instances the effect of court-ordered
desegregation is to speed up the
"tipping" process, whereby a district becomes predominately
minority; in a few cases, such as Boston and Denver, it is possible that
the districts would not have tipped at all without the court orders.
There is no question that some experts will question these findings on the size and duration of "white flight" effects; all methods
for determining
desegregation
effects must make assumptions, and
while mine seem reasonable, they can be challenged. In fact, I agree
with Ravitch that we will never know with certainty the precise
impact of these court actions on white losses.
Nonetheless, debates over methodology must not be allowed to
obscure the central policy issue. Most of the school districts I have
studied are losing whites at a rapid rate. While part of the cause is
demographic,
the court action only increases the risk of "resegregation." For persons who sincerely desire to increase the total amount
of integration,
this risk has to be disturbing. At precisely a time
when policies are needed to halt or reverse the normal white declines in urban areas, we have instead court actions which are exacerbating
the condition. Although the effects may be relatively
small in some cases, in other cases they are large. In either case
they seem inappropriate
during an era when most urban experts
are urgently seeking ways to attract whites back into cities. Clearly,
other school desegregation
remedies must be considered.