TY  - JOUR
AU  - Vigdor,Jacob
AU  - Ludwig,Jens
TI  - Segregation and the Black-White Test Score Gap
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12988
PY  - 2007
Y2  - March 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12988
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12988.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jacob L. Vigdor
Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy
Box 90312 Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
Tel: 919/613-9226
Fax: 919/681-8288
E-Mail: jacob.vigdor@duke.edu

Jens Ludwig
University of Chicago
1155 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/834-0811
Fax: 773/834-1582
E-Mail: jludwig@uchicago.edu
AB  - The mid-1980s witnessed breaks in two important trends related to race and schooling.  School segregation, which had been declining, began a period of relative stasis.  Black-white test score gaps, which had also been declining, also stagnated.  The notion that these two phenomena may be related is also supported by basic cross-sectional evidence.  We review existing literature on the relationship between neighborhood- and school-level segregation and the test score gap.  Several recent studies point to a statistically significant causal relationship between school segregation and the test score gap, though in many cases the magnitude of the relationship is small in economic terms.  Experimental studies, as well as methodologically convincing non-experimental studies, suggest that there is little if any causal role for neighborhood segregation operating through a mechanism other than school segregation.
ER  -