The key findings are:

1.Court-ordered desegregation involved a small share of school districts in the nation but reached a large share of black students:

·        Court-mandated desegregation plans have involved at least 1,094 school districts across the country.  More than two-thirds of these are in the South, mostly decided by 1970.  Cases in the rest of the country were more likely to be decided after 1970.

·        A majority of black elementary school students are now enrolled in school districts that were mandated to desegregate (75% of black students in the South, 62% in other regions).

2.Segregation within school districts, which was specifically targeted by the Brown v. Board of Education decision and subsequent Supreme Court rulings, dropped sharply between 1968 and 1990, but little progress has been made since 1990:

·        School segregation in 1968, before most plans were implemented, was extreme.  The average district-level Index of Dissimilarity (which tells what share of black or white students would have to switch schools in order to achieve full racial balance) was about 80.

·        By 1990 average within-district segregation had fallen to below 50.  Desegregation was widespread, and segregation scores dropped even more in districts without court-mandated plans than in those with plans.

·        Progress has halted since 1990.  On average segregation scores did not change much after 1990 ?rising by one point nationally, though in some large districts the increases have been more substantial.

3.The impact of desegregation has been limited in three ways, all of which result fundamentally from the policy decision to reject inter-district remedies:

·        Metropolitan-level segregation, including separation both within and between school districts, declined very little over these three decades.

·        White flight from districts with larger black populations has reduced the inter-racial contact generated by within-district desegregation.

·        Desegregation within districts has left large disparities in poverty concentration for black and white students across districts in the same metropolitan region.