Teacher Transfers Linked to Influx of Black Students

The best teachers tend to leave when their schools experience an influx of African-American students, according to a study of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., school district .

C. Kirabo Jackson, an associate professor of labor economics at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., studied patterns of teacher movement in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools between 2002 and 2003, which was when the 137,000-student district ended its long-running policy of busing students to keep schools racially integrated. His results, published last month in the Journal of Labor Economics , show that, at all levels of schooling, high-quality teachers—both black and white—were more likely to switch schools as the policy change began to take effect and student populations shifted.

“I’m not showing that teachers don’t like black students,” Mr. Jackson said. “I’m showing that, when you substantially change the makeup of the student population, teachers...