A Demographic Paradox: How Public School Students in New Orleans Have Become More Racially Integrated and Isolated Since Hurricane Katrina

Abstract

Following the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans public schools underwent a variety of changes including a mass influx of charter schools as well as a demographic shift in the racial composition of the district. Using school-level data from the Louisiana Department of Education, this study examines the extent that New Orleans public schools are more or less racially integrated, racially segregated, and concentrated by poverty almost a decade after Katrina. The study utilizes exposure indices, inferential statistics, and geospatial analysis to examine how levels of school integration and segregation have changed over time. Our findings indicate that though a greater share of New Orleans schools are considered racially diverse than prior to Katrina, a greater share of minority students are now attending dually segregated schools, where over 90% of students are classified as minority and are receiving free/reduced lunch.

Keywords

charter schools choice school choice educational policy urban education

Charter schools hold significant promise as agents of integration by virtue of their ability to decouple housing from school enrollments (Kahlenberg & Potter, 2012). Yet, the presence of charter schools has often led to increased racial segregation (Frankenberg, Siegel-Hawley, & Wang, 2011). Charter schools are typically small sectors of a district’s public education landscape, but some urban settings have particularly large charter saturation (A Growing Movement, 2015). In these cities, charter schools are key forces in determining student composition of public schools. Given the extensive literature indicating a negative relationship between concentrations of low-income, non-White students, and educational outcomes (Mickelson & Nkomo, 2012; Rumberger & Palardy, 2005), it is vital that policy makers and communities understand the impact of charter schools on student segregation and integration.

This study focuses on racial and economic segregation as well as racial integration of the New Orleans public schools, a district that now leads the nation in the percentage of public school students attending charter schools (over 90%). New Orleans is a unique longitudinal test case for examining the impact of mass charterization on school segregation given the rapid district and demographic transformation following the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. Natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina disrupt local life in key ways and thus can act as a pivotal point in time to study. In the case of New Orleans, the most vulnerable low-income populations were greatly affected through the loss of property, jobs, and even community schools. Some stakeholders saw this tragedy as an opportunity to disrupt the shortcomings of the public education system in New Orleans such as low-achievement and extreme segregation by race and poverty (Inskeep, 2005). As the demographics shifted, there was some hope that New Orleans could create more racially diverse schools while also drawing in more private school students who tend to be more White and higher SES. Thus, this study examined school racial integration and segregation almost a decade after Hurricane Katrina.

By analyzing the demographic changes in New Orleans schools, this study makes a unique contribution to the literature on urban education, charter schools, and issues of desegregation. Given the unique post-Katrina policy context, New Orleans itself has been extensively studied in terms of district governance, teacher labor, and student outcomes (Author, 2008; Jabbar, 2015; Mirón, 2008). However, though some researchers have documented shifts in racial composition in New Orleans (The Data Center, 2016), these studies have not fully examined the presence or lack thereof of racially integrated schools. Using exposure indices, inferential statistics, and spatial analysis, this study illuminates an educational system where a greater share of students are attending racially diverse schools, yet at the same time, more students are also attending schools dually segregated by race and poverty. Our contrasting findings have major implications for the city of New Orleans as well as other urban districts seeking to create more racial and socioeconomic integration.

Theoretical Framework

Many scholars challenge the notion that charter schools and other forms of school choice truly operate in an unfettered marketplace where all parents are provided an equitable choice in schooling for their children (Orfield & Frankenberg, 2013). Ever since the growth of American public education beginning in the early 19th century, many families with means have exercised educational choice by choosing to live in a school district based on their perceptions of school quality. School choice has also been intentionally limited for some groups of students through now-illegal school segregation policies and housing discrimination.

Some early proponents of charter schools envisioned a new market-based system where students would not be constrained by the traditional school boundaries, many of which resulted in segregated schools due to residential segregation (Chubb & Moe, 1990; Lubienski, Gulosino, & Weitzel, 2009). Yet, this market metaphor operates under the assumption that all parents have equal access to information, transportation, and that all schools are equally welcoming to students regardless of language, race, social class, and academic ability. However, often, information is not equally accessible (Bell, 2009; Holme, 2002) and schools can actively curate their student populations (Jabbar, 2015). Even for those seeking to use school choice to further integration, policies have often been crafted in ways that stifle integration. Nationally, there is a “lack of meaningful incentives or enforced regulations to create or maintain diverse charter schools” (Scott & Villavicencio, 2009, p. 222). In the case of New Orleans, varying approaches to recruitment, application, transportation, and strong accountability policies complicate the notion that there is a true free market of school choice. Scholars at the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans also caution that the constant pressure of school accountability discourages schools from taking risks, affecting the recruitment and retention of a diverse student body (Arce-Trigatti, Harris, Jabbar, & Lincove, 2015).

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, exclusionary practices were common with one third of school leaders admitting to steering some kids away from their school (Jabbar, 2015). However, by 2013-2014—the final year of our analysis—almost 80% of new or transferring students and 90% of schools used a common application called the OneApp allowing for a more transparent, efficient, and equitable choice mechanism (Harris, Valant, & Gross, 2015). But many of the higher performing schools continue to run their own application process, rather than joining the common citywide application. Although most charter schools in New Orleans provide transportation, several selective schools do not. Even in schools that do offer transportation, some children face up to 2-hr daily commutes due to the end of neighborhood assignment policies. Our study operates under the premise that there is a marketplace of schools potentially allowing for more integration, but demographic and practical obstacles exist.

Charter Schools, Diversity, and Segregation

All forms of school choice have the potential to affect student racial and socioeconomic integration because of their ability to decouple housing from school assignment, which is the dominant mode of school assignment in the United States (Frankenberg, 2013). Understanding the relationship between school choice and school composition is important as diverse schools have been found to better prepare White students and students of color to live and work in an increasingly diverse American society. At the same time, extant research over the last six decades suggests that economically and racially segregated schools can be academically harmful for the students who attend them (Carter, 2009; Mickelson & Nkomo, 2012).

As the vast majority of public schools in New Orleans are charters, it is important to review the literature on charter schools, diversity, and segregation. Although several scholars and policy makers including U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King (U.S. Department of Education, 2016) have advocated the potential of charters to serve as a potential vehicle for racial integration, school choice has also been used as a mechanism to enhance racial isolation and preserve entrenched patterns of segregation (Eckes, 2005; Kluger, 2004). These competing narratives of choice-as-segregator and choice-as-integrator require careful review of the evidence on charter schools and racial and socioeconomic isolation.

Although the majority of studies on charter schools and racial composition find that charters are more segregated than district-run schools (Finnegan et al., 2004; Miron, Welner, Hinchey, & Mathis, 2012; Renzulli & Evans, 2005), there are a handful of studies finding that the insertion of charters in some communities has resulted in more integrated school districts. Some scholars also question the accuracy and consistency of measuring school integration, especially considering the location and purpose of many charter schools (Ritter, Jensen, Kisida, & McGee, 2010). Furthermore, as charters are often used as a school turnaround strategy, and the lowest performing schools tend to have higher non-White enrollment, this observed difference might capture charters within the turnaround landscape, rather than charters in general.

National evidence on charter school segregation is relatively scant, due to the challenges inherent in accessing data across states and as charters open and close so often. During early years of the charter school movement (1996-1999), research indicated that charters in two thirds of the districts served student bodies that more or less mirrored their surrounding communities (RPP International, 2000). However, the researchers found that charters in some states and districts enrolled either significantly more or less non-White students. More recently, Frankenberg et al. (2011) concluded that charter schools were segregating along lines of race and class. They found that the typical Black charter school student attended a school with 73% Black students and 14% White students whereas the typical Black student in a district-run school attended a school that was 50% Black and 30% White.

Localized Studies of Charters and Segregation

The majority of studies examining segregation in charter schools examine charter school segregation in a single state or metro area. Charter schools tend to exhibit more racial isolation than district-run schools, but there are also instances where charter schools exhibit less racial isolation. In the aforementioned study, Frankenberg and colleagues (2011) found that Black students were more segregated in charters than district-run schools in over three fourths of the states with charters, and Latinos were more segregated in over half of the states. A RAND study examined individual charter school enrollment data from five cities as well as two states and found that Black students were more segregated in five of the seven jurisdictions, though they caution that differences were not large (Zimmer et al., 2009). Several other statewide studies in North Carolina (Bifulco & Ladd, 2007), Arizona (Cobb & Glass, 1999; Garcia, 2007), and Texas (Weiher & Tedin, 2002) found charters to be more segregated than district-run schools.

A few studies have demonstrated that charter schools can have an integrative effect. For instance, a study of school enrollments and student transfer patterns in the Little Rock, Arkansas, metropolitan area between 2004 and 2010, indicated that charter school transfers had a small integrating effect on school populations (Ritter, Jensen, Kisida, & McGee, 2014). They found fewer hyper-segregated schools (>90% from one racial group) among charter schools than among district-run schools, but these findings are tempered by the fact that very few schools had a student body approximating the population of minority students in the metro area. Similarly, Zimmer and colleagues (2009) concluded that students in Chicago moving from district-run schools to charters had an integrative effect in their new schools, but differences were small. Although these examples are scant, they demonstrate the charters can have an integrative effect.

Choice and Same-Group Affinity

Significant amounts of scholarship underscore the same-group affinity process when parents are given expanded choice in selecting a public school. Minority parents might choose a school where many students look like their own child, or because the school supports the family’s cultural or linguistic heritage (Buchanan & Fox, 2003). Alternatively, given the history of racial division that is the fundamental challenge to American political life, White families might see enrolling in schools with heavily White populations as a means to preserve their economic and cultural advantages over other groups (Buras, 2011; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Under both contexts, choice might be seen to exacerbate existing racial segregation.

In a national study of over 800 White parents, Billingham and Hunt (2016) found that these parents were significantly more likely to select a school with higher proportions of White students, avoiding schools in which Black students were the majority. Instructive in their survey design was a control to examine the “pure race” hypothesis (avoiding schools with many Black students) versus the “racial proxy” hypothesis (using student race to predict things like teacher quality). They found evidence to support the “pure race” hypothesis in their data—underscoring the belief that same-race affiliation is an important factor in parental choice processes.

Charter Schools, Race, and Social Class

Historically, in the United States, schools segregated by race are also often higher poverty schools (Rothstein, 2004). Attending a high-poverty school has been associated with fewer highly qualified teachers and lower achievement levels (Orfield & Lee, 2005). Similar to racial segregation, charter schools have been found to both increase and decrease concentration by poverty. For instance, studies in Washington, D.C. (Henig & MacDonald, 2002) and Pennsylvania (Kotok, Frankenberg, Schafft, Mann, & Fuller, 2015), found that though Black students moved to more racially segregated charter schools, they enrolled in schools with higher SES students. Conversely, several studies have found that charter schools have been associated with an increase in both poverty concentration and a dual segregation by both race and poverty (Institute on Race and Poverty, 2008). Many scholars point out that charters—especially no-excuse ones such as Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP)—intentionally locate in high-poverty urban neighborhoods because that is where “choice” options are needed (Ritter et al., 2010). Certainly, these locational decisions affect student enrollment, though the effect is far from uniform (see Kotok et al., 2015, for counter examples).

New Orleans Context

Historically, New Orleans has experienced struggles in the movement toward desegregation of its public schools. The section illuminates two key struggles in the effort to desegregate New Orleans’ schools: (a) the state’s resistance to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling and (b) practical obstacles for desegregation such as private school enrollment and an extremely high concentration of Black students.

The historical resistance of the state toward integration is important to consider given the continued role of the state in New Orleans Parish following Hurricane Katrina. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, there were legal and political struggles to desegregate New Orleans’ public schools often pitting state actors against the local school board and the federal government. Soon after Brown, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana issued an order that required the Orleans Parish School Board to desegregate its public schools (Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board, 1962). Although the Orleans Parish School Board embraced a public policy aimed at desegregating the city’s public schools soon after the order from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, the implementation met resistance as many in the state government sought to block it.

The state of Louisiana went to great lengths to interfere with the timely desegregation of New Orleans’ public schools as indicated by the following summary of Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board (1960). Ten days before the scheduled desegregation of New Orleans’ public schools, the Louisiana legislature adopted a position of interposition, rejecting the Brown decision and imposing criminal penalties for federal judges and law enforcement officials who would “render or carry out such decisions” (Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board, 1960, p. 920). Moreover, the state legislature moved to abolish the Orleans Parish School Board and transfer its function to the legislature, a move that prompted challenges even from White parents. Governor Jimmie Davis led his own effort to dismiss the Superintendent and School Board, defund the school district, remove credentials from teachers and students, and grant the police new powers to stop desegregation. Ultimately, the Orleans Parish School Board successfully pursued a policy to desegregate the schools only after legal action¹ against the Louisiana state legislature seeking federal protection and support.

New Orleans exhibited other barriers to school desegregation. For instance, White parents and the president of the Orleans Parish School Board expressed deep concern about the school board and federal court’s plan to desegregate the city’s public schools (Muller, 1976). In particular, White parents worried that many schools would engage in school desegregation given that Black students outnumbered White students by a significant margin in New Orleans, even during the 1960s (Muller, 1976). Although it is somewhat out of the scope of this study, it is important to note that the high level of Catholic school enrollment confounds efforts to desegregate public schools in New Orleans (Samuels, 2014). Religiously based, Catholic schools served, at some point, as a haven for White families seeking to avoid desegregated public schools and continue to serve as a viable alternative for higher SES families regardless of race.

Despite legal authority for desegregation, social and demographic factors had led to high segregation of schools in New Orleans prior to Katrina hitting New Orleans. Following Katrina, New Orleans experienced a large decline in the overall population as well as relative increases for all race/ethnicities with the exception of Blacks. Notably, when comparing the school-age population using the 2000 Census and 2013 Census estimates, there was almost a 50% decline in the number of school-age children living in New Orleans.

As has been described in many scholarly outlets (Perry & Schwam-Baird, 2010) and in popular media (Gabor, 2015), the structural changes that commenced after Katrina were immense. Although the school district lost 100% of its students and sustained damage to 50% of its buildings in the short term, much more intentional change also took place. The Louisiana legislature and various school-reform entities worked to modify an existing state takeover law in a way that brought nearly all New Orleans public schools under state control. The state lacked the capacity to run the reopening schools directly, which led to the hiring of noted free-market reformer, Paul Vallas, who transformed the district into a charter laboratory. Although academic achievement has seemingly improved since 2005, concerns about community oversight emerged (Author, 2016). In addition, the firing of veteran teachers under Vallas led to a decrease in the share of minority teachers—a shift that has weakened the Black middle class (Barrett & Harris, 2015). Given the shift in demography in New Orleans following Katrina combined with the radical changes of governance and enrollment processes in New Orleans schools, we identified this as a unique opportunity to examine three research questions:

Research Question 1: To what extent has New Orleans public school enrollment and segregation trends changed between 2003-2004 and 2013-2014?

Research Question 2: How are racial segregation and poverty concentration related in pre- and post-Hurricane Katrina public schools?

Research Question 3: To what degree do minority students attend racially integrated schools in 2013-2014, where are these schools located, and how do these trends differ from before Katrina?

Data Sources and Method

Data

To investigate these research questions, we use school-level data from the Louisiana Department of Education to examine school enrollment patterns for three points of time: pre-Katrina (2003-2004), immediately post-Katrina (2008-2009), and almost a decade after Katrina (2013-2014). Variables included racial composition and the percentage of free/reduced lunch (FRL) students. To capture racial segregation, we look at both percentage Black and percentage non-White students. In addition, we linked our data with National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data to obtain the latitude and longitude of each school so that it could be located on a map of the city.

Analysis

We use several different descriptive and analytical statistics. First, we analyze the number of schools (and students attending them) with specific levels of racial segregation (e.g., >90% Black/minority) and poverty concentration (e.g., >90% FRL) as well as dual segregation by race and poverty (e.g., school is both >90% minority and >90% FRL). These schools are then mapped using ArcGIS software to analyze the locations of schools with dual segregation and racially integrated schools. To further answer Research Question 1 on segregation trends, we use the isolation/exposure index as a measure of segregation. To answer Research Question 2 regarding dual segregation, we estimate the correlation between number of minority students and number of FRL students at each school by year. For Research Question 3, we measure racially integrated schools in two ways. First, we use a threshold used informally by the National Coalition of Diverse Charter Schools, which states a school is considered diverse if no racial/ethnic group constitutes more than two thirds of the student population. In addition, we counted and located the number of schools with between 33% and 66% White students in all 3 years. We recognize difficulties in defining diversity, but the purpose of our study is to examine changes over time and we found these two thresholds useful toward this end.

Findings

The New Orleans public schools have undergone a notable demographic shift since Katrina (see Table 1). By 2009, the number of students attending New Orleans public schools had almost been cut in half compared with pre-Katrina enrollments. Although, between 2009 and 2014, the enrollment increased by almost 10,000 students, the student population still lags far behind pre-Katrina levels. The share of Black students over this 10-year period dropped 7.5 percentage points, but Blacks continue to be the overwhelming majority of students in the district. The largest gains occurred with Whites and Latinos who doubled and quadrupled, respectively, their share of enrollment over this time period. Finally, we observe that the percentage of FRL students seemed to peak in 2009, but remains far higher than pre-Katrina levels.

Table 1.

Enrollment and Composition by Year.

	2004	2009	2014	10-year change
%Black	93.31	90.20	85.83	−7.48
%White	3.62	5.25	7.16	3.54
%Asian	1.88	2.17	1.77	−0.11
%Latino	1.13	2.27	4.10	2.97
%Other	0.07	0.11	1.14	1.07
%FRL	79.76	85.55	84.44	4.68
Total students	68,621	35,611	45,177	−23,444

Source. Louisiana Department of Education.

Note. FRL = free/reduced lunch.

Although the percentage of racially segregated schools has decreased since Katrina, segregation levels remain high if you consider minority concentration rather than just Black student concentration (see Table 2). For instance, when examining the distribution of Black students, the number of apartheid schools (>99% Black) has decreased from almost 50% to 10% of all New Orleans schools between 2003-2004 and 2013-2014. However, when we calculate the minority concentration, the share of schools with apartheid level of segregation remains over 62% of all public schools in New Orleans. The share of schools with high (>75%) and extreme segregation (>90%) has decreased in the last decade whether we look at the percent Black or percent minority, but the reduction is smaller in magnitude when we look only at the percent minority. Notably, the share of high minority (>75%) and extremely segregated minority schools (>90%) was virtually the same 5 years after Katrina and most of the decrease in such schools has occurred in the last 5 years suggesting that there may be a slight shift in the last few years away from segregated schools.

Table 2.

Concentration of Students by Year.

	2004	2009	2014	Change
Concentration of Black students
Majority Black (>50% Black)	97.62	94.12	90.00	−7.62
Highly segregated (>75% Black)	94.44	90.59	84.44	−10.00
Intensely segregated (>90% Black)	88.1	83.53	74.44	−13.66
Apartheid (>99% Black)	48.41	30.59	10.00	−38.41
Concentration of minorities
Majority minority (>50%)	99.21	98.82	96.67	−2.54
High minority (>75%)	95.24	95.29	87.78	−7.46
Intense minority segregation (>90%)	95.24	94.12	84.44	−10.8
Apartheid (>99% minority)	71.43	68.24	62.22	−9.21
Concentration of poverty
High poverty (>75% FRL)	68.25	85.88	84.44	16.19
Intense poverty (>90% FRL)	44.44	47.06	65.56	21.12
Extreme poverty (99% FRL)	4.76	3.53	6.67	1.91

Source. Louisiana Department of Education.

Note. FRL = free/reduced lunch.

Despite the slight downward shift in schools concentrated by race and ethnicity, the average minority student in New Orleans is still highly segregated by race and poverty whereas the typical White student is attending schools with decreasing levels of minority students compared with 10 years ago and lower shares of FRL students from 5 years ago (see Table 3). On average, the typical minority student attended a school with 97.6% other minorities students in 2003-2004 and 95.4% other minority students in 2013-2014. Considering only around 7% of the students in the district were White in 2013-2014, these levels are only slightly higher than what we might expect if students were evenly distributed. Conversely, White students were and are attending schools with far above average shares of other White students. In 2013-2014, the typical White student attended a school with 40% other Whites, an increase from 10 years ago. Although 40% hardly suggests dual school systems, it is clear that most minorities continue to be segregated.

Table 3.

Exposure and Isolation Rates for Minority and White Students.

	Minority students			White students
	Minority isolation	White exposure	FRL exposure	White isolation	Minority exposure	FRL exposure
2004	97.58	2.42	76.76	35.58	64.42	35.00
2009	96.54	3.46	85.16	37.56	62.44	50.19
2014	95.37	4.63	87.10	39.95	60.05	42.52
Difference	2.21	−2.21	−10.34	−4.37	4.37	−7.52

Source. Louisiana Department of Education.

Note. FRL = free/reduced lunch.

The share of schools concentrated by poverty has increased in New Orleans after Katrina and there is a disturbing upturn in the overlap between high poverty and racially segregated schools. As minority concentration declined slightly in the last 5 years, the share of schools with over 90% FRL students increased almost 20 percentage points. Especially concerning is that there is a very high and increasing correlation between percent minority and percent FRL students (see Table 4). The correlation between school’s percent minority and percent FRL has risen to a staggering 82%—an increase of over 20 points from pre-Katrina levels.

Table 4.

Correlations Between %FRL and %Minority.

	2003-2004	2008-2009	2013-2014
Correlation	.61	.75	.82

Source. Louisiana Department of Education.

Note. FRL = free/reduced lunch.

Figure 1 suggests that the majority of minority students are at dually segregated schools to varying levels. For example, in 2014, almost 9 out of 10 (88.2%) minority students attended a school with both greater than 75% minority and 75% FRL students. Also, in 2014, over two thirds of minority students attended a school that was over 90% minority and 90% FRL students. The share of students at this type of school represented an increase of 30 points from pre-Katrina years and 20 points from 5 years ago.

Figure 1.

Percentage of minority students at dually segregated schools.

Although most public schools remain racially segregated, there is a modest increase in what might be described as racially diverse public options in New Orleans. Again, we use two different measures here: (a) the number of schools where between 33% and 66% of students were White and (b) schools where no one racial/ethnic group constitutes more than two thirds of the students. As seen in Table 5, there has been a slight increase in both the share of schools with around half White students and the share of minority students attending such schools. If we utilize the more expansive criteria for diversity with the two-thirds threshold, we also see an upward trend with 14 schools meeting such criteria in 2014 compared with only eight in 2004. However, as can be seen by the mapping of both of these measures (Figure 2), racially integrated schools (and dually segregated schools) are not evenly distributed across the school district. In 2003-2004, the majority of racially diverse schools were located in the Uptown section of New Orleans (lower left), a predominantly White and more affluent neighborhood; as well as a few schools located close to City Park near the University of New Orleans. Only one racially diverse school was located on the large Eastern side of town and that school was only diverse according to the less than 66% majority group measure. However, this was due to a large Vietnamese population and the school enrolled almost no White students. In 2013-2014, we observed an absolute and relative increase in racially diverse schools on both measures and there are now more racially diverse options near the French Quarter, but large chunks of the city—especially in the East—still appear to have highly segregated school options. Although we do not differentiate here for grade type given that many of the schools overlap grade configurations, it should be noted that there is an expansion of diverse options at all grade levels from pre-K to high school.

Table 5.

Number of Racially Integrated School and Students Attending Them.

	2004	2009	2014	Increase
No. of schools with 33%-66% White students	5	3	9	+4
No. of students at schools with 33%-66% White students	4,076	2,749	5,495	+1,419
No. of schools without racial group >66%	8	6	14	+6
No. of students at school without racial >66%	5,159	4,112	7,650	+2,491

Source. Louisiana Department of Education.

Figure 2.

Location of racially integrated and dually segregated schools.

Discussion

As a result of the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, the school district in New Orleans lost thousands of students and underwent a major shift in the racial demographics of the city and its public schools. In addition, the almost complete turning over of district schools to charter operators theoretically enabled students to enroll outside their neighborhood. Some scholars and policy makers have seized on this context to promote more racially and economically diverse schools. Our study examined the extent that racial segregation, poverty concentration, and racial integration in New Orleans schools changed between 2003-2004 and 2013-2014. Our study suggests that although there has been a small increase in the number of racially diverse schools in New Orleans and there is potential for continued growth, the vast majority of minority students still attend schools highly segregated by race and poverty. If we view racial and economic integration as a lever of social and academic equity, there are clearly winners and losers in New Orleans.

Even as a few diverse schools emerge, there has been a disturbing trend where the proportion of students in high-poverty schools and dually segregated schools is actually higher than prior to Hurricane Katrina. Several parts of town have multiple dually segregated schools and no racially integrated options nearby. Even as it appears the number of dually segregated schools have stayed about the same, the share of minority students at such schools has steadily increased. As some schools become more diverse, they often draw away students from the most affluent families through both formal and informal selection processes. Although this study only analyzes student—and not teacher diversity—it is important to acknowledge the decrease in minority teachers in New Orleans is probably related to increasing pockets of poverty in the city.

One contribution of our study is how it demonstrates the need for policy makers and legal analysts to consider the multi-racial nature of segregation in cities such as New Orleans. If one were only considering Black segregation in New Orleans, they would surmise a massive decrease in the extent that Black students are segregated in New Orleans’ schools. However, our analysis reveals that the segregation has shifted to a system of minority segregation rather than just Black segregation. We find it concerning that the typical minority student still attends a school where almost every student is also a minority. Although Whites still constitute a small minority of New Orleans public school students, they have increased their racial isolation over the past 10 years. In fact, one school alone enrolls a full quarter of all White students in the district perhaps validating the same-group affinity hypothesis. If these trends continue, there is the possibility that legal action could be taken against the school district given the complex history of the city. Yet, mounting a legal challenge would be an arduous task in the wake of Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle Schools (2007), which recognizes the importance of racial diversity, but also requires integration plans to meet rigorous criteria.

In terms of racial diversity, our analysis illuminates a complicated landscape where racially diverse schools have increased in the aftermath of Katrina, yet they locate in mostly White neighborhoods. On both of our measures of racial diversity, we observed growth in racially diverse schools. If increasing shares of White students enter the public school system in New Orleans, it presents an opportunity to create a racially diverse district. However, the Balkanization of New Orleans school governance would make a comprehensive integration plan difficult. The charterization of the New Orleans limits the power to introduce any sort of district-wide diversity plan. Instead, the maintenance of racially diverse schools will rely on the commitment of local schools and organizations such as the National Coalition of Diverse Charter Schools as well as possible governmental incentives aimed at promoting such schools. Although we think these initiatives have potential, we are somewhat dubious in light of the growth of dually segregated schools and the changing political context.

One limitation of this study is that we are only looking at the overall composition of schools while ignoring other equity issues. Carter (2009) cautions that though desegregation can serve as a precondition for improved educational access, integration alone is not sufficient and can even be harmful if other issues of equity that permeate schools. In this vein, although we view school diversity as beneficial for students, we also emphasize that there are other important factors to consider such as tracking and discipline as well as the location of the school (e.g., many minority students spend long hours on buses while most White students attend neighborhood school). Moreover, the faculty should reflect student diversity and the curriculum should celebrate the culture of students rather than diminish it. We also fail to account for private schools. Further research should analyze equity within New Orleans’ schools and should identify students leaving the private sector to enroll in public schools to better understand how such decisions affect integration. Still, our study makes a contribution in analyzing the extent that current public school students are affecting the racial composition of schools in the district.

Conclusion

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, two conflicting demographic trends emerged in New Orleans schools. We are starting to see more examples of racially integrated schools in a city that has had limited options for diverse schools historically. Yet, concurrently, there has been a massive rise in the number of students attending dually segregated schools. An optimistic outlook predicts that these racially diverse schools will attract increasing amounts of students of all races away from private and suburban schools, thus pushing the market for such schools. Yet, concerns persist if lower SES students, most of whom are also minority, are excluded from this so-called market. If greater integration is a goal of New Orleans schools, it will require a much more coordinated effort to ensure diversity at the student, teacher, and school board levels.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Stephen Kotok is an assistant professor of administrative and instructional leadership at St. John’s University. His research focuses on how schools affect academic outcomes through processes including school climate, charter schools, and segregation. His recent research is featured in American Journal of Education and Educational Policy,

Brian Beabout is the RosaMary Endowed Professor of Education at the University of New Orleans. His research focuses on charter schools, school–community engagement, and urban school leadership. He is the co-editor (with Mirón and Boselovic) of Only in New Orleans: School Choice and Equity Post-Hurricane Katrina (2015, Sense).

Steven L. Nelson is an assistant professor of leadership and policy studies at the University of Memphis. His research considers the impact of education law and policy on marginalized and disenfranchised populations. Particularly, he interrogates the role of education reform in advancing or impeding educational equity.

Luis E. Rivera is currently completing a master of science degree in economics at the University of Texas at El Paso. His thesis studies dual enrollment participation and outcomes.

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