The Carrot or the Stick for School Desegregation Policy?

The relevance of the public-choice model of decision making for school desegregation is tested by comparing the desegregation effectiveness of voluntary plans, which depend on parents choosing magnet schools, to mandatory reassignment plans, which "force" parents to send their children to desegregated schools. A desegregation plan based primarily on voluntary transfers to magnet schools will produce greater long-term interracial exposure than a mandatory reassignment plan with magnet components, in part because of the greater white flight from the mandatory plans. In short, the public-choice model of decision making is more successful in producing interracial exposure than the command-and-control model.