Is There “White Flight” into Private Schools? Evidence from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey

Using a recently released confidential data set from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), we find some evidence of “white flight” from public schools into private schools partly in response to minority schoolchildren. We also examine whether white flight is from all minorities or only from certain minority groups, delineated by race or income. We find that white families are fleeing public schools with large concentrations of poor minority schoolchildren. In addition, the clearest flight appears to occur from poor black schoolchildren. The results for white flight from Asians and Hispanics are less clear.