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There is a widespread public perception that private schools are more segregated by race than public schools. This perception plays a crucial role in debates over school choice policy - one of the major arguments against school choice is that when people choose schools, they choose segregated schools. This paper will be the first large-scale empirical evaluation of segregation levels in public and private schools using a valid empirical method.Almost nothing is currently known about relative segregation levels in public and private schools. This is because most previous research on school segregation has employed inadequate definitions of segregation. In some cases, schools with a higher percentage of minority students are automatically counted as being better integrated. This obviously misses the mark - by this standard, many schools were wonderfully "integrated" under the Jim Crow system.More often, the racial makeup of a larger administrative unit, such as a school district or a private school system, is taken as the standard against which individual schools are measured. This only measures the evenness of racial distribution within the chosen administrative unit. But segregation often arises from the fact that school districts are themselves segregated. For example, most previous studies would consider a school that was 98% white perfectly integrated if that school were located in a school district that was also 98% white - even if that district were right next door to another district that was 98% minority. Clearly segregation is occurring in such a situation, but the prevailing methods of measuring segregation don't account for it.Another problem with many previous studies is that they fail to compare the right grade levels. Elementary schools are generally more segregated than secondary schools because they draw from a smaller geographic area. Studies that compare all public schools to all private schools are therefore inadequate, since the concentration of elementary and secondary schools is different in the public and private sectors. The best way to measure segregation is by comparing schools to the racial composition of the larger metropolitan area in which they are located. By looking at the whole metropolitan area rather than a particular administrative unit like a school district, we can detect levels of segregation that most studies currently miss. Taking advantage of publicly available enrollment data from every existing public and private school, and using a clear and simple method, this study measures segregation in public and private schools in the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas. It calculates a segregation index equal to the difference between the percentage of school-age children in the metropolitan area who are white and the percentage of students in each school who are white.By finally providing a national picture of segregation in public and private schools that uses a valid method to measure segregation, this study will fill a major void in public information about segregation in these two school sectors and inform debates over education policy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]