Native Flight Responses to Immigration: Evidence from K-12 School Enrollments

Over the past few decades, the U.S. has received a consistent and increasing influx of immigrants into the nation. Immigration poses challenges relating to diversity, inclusion and cohesion in education systems, including K-12 education. In the context of immigration, the theory of native flight argues that U.S. born populations move away from neighborhoods when an increasing number of immigrants move in. I test the theory of native flight in the context of K-12 school enrollments, by examining the impact of immigrant influx on public, private and public charter school enrollments, differentiating across U.S. born races and ethnicities. To do so, I merge yearly school enrollment measures from the common core of data (CCD) with immigration data from the American Community Survey (ACS) over the years 2005-2019. Using an instrumental variables approach (2SLS) to address potentially endogenous settlement patterns of immigrants into Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), I find that students of U.S. born race/ethnicities display heterogeneous enrollment responses to immigrant influx. Shares of White students and Black students in public non-charter schools decrease significantly in response to an increase in immigration. At the same time, the shares of Hispanic students and Asian students increase significantly in public non-charter schools. Analogous estimates for native flight into private schools lend further credence to public school estimates. Across private schools, the share of White students increases significantly in response to immigration. The share of Black students decreases across private schools as well, signaling a crowding-out effect. There are two key implications. First, significant White flight from the public-school system still exists over the past decade and a half. Second, while the increasing shares of White students in private schools might compensate for White students leaving the public school system, the shares of Black students are dropping across private and public schools.