White Flight from K-16 Public Education in a Rural East Texas City

• In Event: 106 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session I
  In Refereed Roundtable: Open Refereed Roundtable. A. Table 01. Class, Race, and Education

Abstract

This case study tracks racial and ethnic changes in the general population, school-age population, public school enrollment, and public university enrollment in the City of Nacogdoches, a moderate size city in rural East Texas. Population and enrollment characteristics are recorded for U.S. Decennial Census years starting in 1950, four years before the Brown v Board of Education decision, and proceeding through 2010.
These changes demonstrate a pattern of white flight from public educational institutions as minority enrollment increases—a pattern only becoming evident since 1990. This pattern is evident in both the local school district and in the regional public university.

Author

• Robert F. Szafran, Stephen F. Austin State University