This paper presents a new measure of school desegregation policy output and explores various socioeconomic conditions and political processes associated with the degree of school desegregation in 69 northern cities. Data was collected by a mail questionnaire. The measures of school desegregation policy were computed as follows: The number of black and white students in each school in the year after a claimed action was subtracted from the number of black and white students in the same school in the preceding year. The difference was attributed to administrative action if it increased racial integration in the receiving school. The number of black and white students so reassigned was totaled for the school district and then standardized by dividing by the school population of each race to obtain the percentage of black students reassigned and the percentage of white students sent to predominantly black or formerly black schools. Cross sectional, multiple regression analysis indicates that school desegregation policy is limited by several socioeconomic constraints. However, in contrast to many other school desegregation policy studies, political variables such as the ideology and behavior of the school board, civil rights activity, and controversy explain a substantial amount of variance in school desegregation policy. (Author/JM)