Does School Segregation Cause Achievement Gaps? Rejoinder to Fuller et al. (2022)

Abstract

In the February 2022 issue of the American Journal of Education, an otherwise informative article by Bruce Fuller et al. contains a fairly serious error in a reference to a 2018 paper that I coauthored in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. The Fuller article is “Variation in the Local Segregation of Latino Children—Role of Place, Poverty, and Culture.” Following presentation of data showing growing trends in Latino segregation from White and middle-class peers, the authors go on to discuss the policy implications. The passage with the error is on page 271: “Trends in economic segregation, independent of children’s racial membership, show worsening conditions as well. The probability that poor children interact with nonpoor peers declined over the period. A portion of the downward trend stems from increasing concentration of poor children in certain districts, which undoubtedly affects many Latino children. Even if scholars emphasizing cultural assets are correct, and rising shares of Latino children in some districts are not worrisome, the intensifying isolation of poor Latino students from middle-class peers remains troubling. This form of segregation reinforces stark achievement gaps (Armor et al. 2018; Reardon et al. 2019)” (Fuller et al. 2022, 271). By tying achievement gaps to school and residential segregation, the authors can suggest remedies for these achievement gaps, arguing that their data “show that little progress for Latino children can occur without renewed integration efforts between school districts” (Fuller et al. 2022, 272). From these passages, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the work of both Armor et al. and Reardon et al. offer evidence that racial and socioeconomic