School Segregation by State: Which States Are Most and Least Integrated

Seventy years after Brown v. Board of Education, American schools are more racially and economically segregated than they were in the 1988 peak of court-ordered integration. Research from Stanford and USC tracking large district trends through the mid-2020s confirms the reversal has been steady, not sudden.

How Researchers Measure School Segregation

Segregation is measured using a dissimilarity index, which scores how evenly students of different races or income levels are distributed across schools within a district or metro area. A score of 0 means perfect integration. A score of 100 means complete separation.

Researchers also use an exposure index, which measures the probability that a student of one group shares a school with a student of another group. Both metrics matter, and states that look moderate on one often look worse on the other.

The Most Segregated States

The Northeast consistently ranks worst. New York, Illinois, and New Jersey have the highest Black-white dissimilarity scores in the country, a fact that surprises people who associate segregation primarily with the South.

New York's school segregation stems from extreme district fragmentation. The state has over 700 separate school districts, many drawn along municipal boundaries that track closely with race and income. A Black student in the Buffalo metro area attends a school that is, on average, less than 10 percent white. New York City's public schools are roughly 15 percent white despite the city being nearly 32 percent white overall, as of the most recent NCES data available (late 2025).

Illinois mirrors this pattern. Chicago's public school system serves a student body that is approximately 36 percent Black and 47 percent Hispanic, while surrounding suburban districts remain majority white. The state's reliance on local property taxes to fund schools compounds the problem: districts with higher property values spend significantly more per pupil, layering economic segregation on top of racial segregation.

New Jersey ranks third by most measures. Despite being one of the wealthiest states in the country, it has some of the most economically isolated school districts in the Northeast.

Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut round out the top six most segregated states by dissimilarity index for Black and white students.

The Most Integrated States

The most integrated states are largely rural, Western, or Southern states with smaller Black populations and fewer large metropolitan districts driving the numbers.

Hawaii consistently ranks as the most integrated state. It operates a single statewide school district, eliminating the municipal fragmentation that drives segregation elsewhere. Nevada and Oregon also rank well, partly because their demographic compositions make extreme race-based separation statistically harder to achieve.

Among Southern states, the picture is more complicated. Many Southern states saw court-ordered desegregation plans enforced aggressively through the 1970s and 1980s. After federal courts released districts from oversight starting in the 1990s, resegregation accelerated. Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia all saw measurable increases in Black-white school segregation between 2000 and the mid-2020s, according to Stanford's Education Opportunity Project data.

Texas sits in the middle of the national distribution for racial segregation but ranks poorly on economic segregation. The Dallas and Houston metro areas have among the highest income-based dissimilarity scores in the country, driven by rapid suburban growth that has sorted families by income into separate districts.

What Drives Segregation in 2026

Three structural factors explain most of what the data shows.

First, district boundaries. States with many small districts built around municipality lines produce more segregation. States with county-wide or statewide systems produce less.

Second, school funding formulas. States that tie school funding tightly to local property taxes create economic incentives for residential sorting. Families who can afford it move to high-wealth districts with better-funded schools, deepening both racial and economic divides. If you are weighing a move and want to understand how property taxes vary by state, our property tax and cost of living analysis can help you run the numbers.

Third, school choice policy. The relationship between choice programs and segregation is genuinely contested in the research. Some studies show charter schools increase segregation by allowing self-selection. Others show magnet programs reduce it. State-level outcomes depend heavily on how programs are designed and where they operate.

The broader financial picture of where you live matters as much as school quality metrics. States with lower overall tax burdens often have lower per-pupil spending. Understanding that tradeoff is part of any serious relocation decision. See our breakdown of the true cost of living in high-tax states and our Florida vs. California tax comparison for more context on how state fiscal structures shape public services.

Key Takeaways

• New York, Illinois, and New Jersey have the three highest Black-white school dissimilarity scores in the country, consistently outranking every Southern state.
• Hawaii is the most integrated state by dissimilarity index, operating a single statewide district that eliminates the municipal fragmentation driving segregation elsewhere.
• Economic school segregation is rising faster than racial segregation in Sun Belt metros like Dallas and Houston, even as those states rank moderate on race-based measures.

Compare school quality, tax burden, and cost of living across all 50 states at LiveOrDieHere.com.