Who Leaves? Interdistrict Magnet School Openings and Enrollment Dynamics in Nearby Schools

Abstract

Connecticut expanded interdistrict magnet schools (IMS) intending to reduce racial and socioeconomic segregation across districts, yet the potential unintended effects on student composition in nearby schools remains unclear. Leveraging the staggered rollout of IMS openings, this study finds that IMS openings reduce enrollment by about 5 percent in nearby private K8 and traditional public high schools (TPHS). In private K8, the share of White students declines by 3.5 percent, reducing White exposure for remaining Black and Hispanic students, with effects driven by Catholic schools. In TPHS, the share of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch increases by 18 percent, suggesting that higher-income students are more likely to exit, with larger effects in a region under court-ordered desegregation. These findings suggest that policies designed to reduce segregation across districts may have unintended socioeconomic and racial compositional consequences for the students left behind in nearby schools.