Level and Rate of Desegregation and White Enrollment Decline in a Big City School District

Review of the literature on “white flight” from desegregated schools indicated that recent controversies have been partly resolved through agreement that this is most likely to occur in city districts with high proportions of minority students surrounded by largely white suburbs. Enrollment data from 1956 to 1974 for the Kansas City, Missouri Public Schools were examined to test this hypothesis. The findings were consistent with the conclusion that white enrollment decline tended to accelerate in schools with a relatively high percentage of black students (above about 30%) and/or a recent rapid increase in the percentage of black students.