Whites seek other education options as blacks move in

Detroit suburbs are increasingly becoming integrated in neighborhoods, but less so in the classroom.

A Detroit News analysis of U.S. census and state data shows many communities that witnessed large increases in African-American population also saw a striking increase in white students leaving their home towns to attend classes.

The transition can largely be attributed to the schools of choice program, based on an analysis of census and Michigan Department of Education data released this month.

The trend is particularly notable in Macomb County, which led the state in increase in black population, and where one in 10 students takes advantage of schools of choice, often to study in classrooms that are whiter than their neighborhoods.

The result for many of the more than 13,000 Macomb County students now taking advantage of schools of choice programs is daytime segregation and nighttime integration, said Jason Booza, a demographer at Wayne State University who has studied the racial and spatial dynamics of Metro Detroit for a decade.

"It's the continuing self-segregation of groups," said Booza, an assistant professor of family medicine at Wayne State University. "It's a pattern we've seen in Detroit for 100 years."

The connection between race and schools of choice is a hot potato among educators, who maintain that parents make choices based on quality of education, not the color of their children's classmates.

Kurt Metzger isn't so sure. "This is totally about race," said Metzger, a demographer and director of Data Driven Detroit. "There is a tipping point. When schools reach a certain percentage of African-American [[students), whites start looking elsewhere."

More than 184,000 African-Americans moved out of Detroit in the past decade, according to 2010 census figures released Tuesday. Many moved to the suburbs where both the communities and their public schools have been predominantly white: The East Detroit School District's African-American population jumped from 3 percent to 25 percent; Harper Woods, from 9 percent to 48 percent; and South Redford, from 13 percent to 37 percent.

By Ron French and Mike Wilkinson / The Detroit News