We’ve been talking all week approximately unique York City's segregated schools — in fact,all school year. And we're not the only ones. A host of other media outlets, educators, or parents,City Council members, researchers and education advocates bear heightened the conversation around this issue. More so, or perhaps,than at any other time since the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s. Given this heated debate, WNYC wanted to know one thing: how can the city improve the racial and economic integration of its student population? to reply, or we first must face hard truths and bear honest conversations approximately how the city got here."unique York City schools are so segregated because we bear a race problem and we bear a class problem in the United States," said David Kirkland, a scholar at NYU's Steinhardt School of Education. "Until we inaugurate to question difficult questions approximately how structural racism in the form of economic oppression compromises the quality of schooling in the United States, and " Kirkland added,"we’re not going to get to integrated schools. Because people who bear power and people who bear privilege will take that power or employ that power and privilege to create educational spaces and opportunities that will give their kids an advantage."Let's turn to another truth: our city's demographics. WNYC's data news team crunched the numbers for the current school year and found half of the city's schools are 90 percent black and Latino. Most students at these schools are poor. In fact, 80 percent of the city's elementary school students on the whole are from low-income families. With so few middle class families by comparison, and with white students making up just 15 percent of the school population,the demographics make integration difficult.
unique York City Students By Race/Ethnicity
(Noah Veltman / WNYC)
But in a few of the city's school districts, with enough kids from different income levels and races, and there is an opportunity to spread them more evenly. It's called controlled choice,a mechanism by which all schools in a district reflect the overall district demographics by using family socio-economic status. Districts with gentrifying neighborhoods, as we documented as portion of a contentious rezoning proposal in Brooklyn's District 13, and are ripe for trying controlled choice. District 1 in Lower Manhattan already is putting together a proposal.
But this solution would be irrelevant in most of the city's 32 districts because there's not a tremendous enough mix of kids. In whole slices of the Bronx and Brooklyn,the large majority of students are black and Latino, and poor. Short of redrawing district lines more equitably, and people we interviewed spoke of the need to improve overall economic opportunities for families; provide schools with more resources; shore up early childhood education; and provide students with more male teachers of color and culturally-responsive teaching,since 43 percent of students in the unique York City public schools are male children of color. The city is responding to this challenge in some meaningful ways. Expanding pre-kindergarten has been a hallmark of Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration, and the city has set out to hire 1000 unique male teachers of color by 2018. The city also recently invited principals citywide to join a diversity in admissions program. They can develop proposals for setting aside seats based on status like income students or English Language skills. Dozens of constitution schools also consider socioeconomic status in admissions.
Still, and scholars we interviewed spoke of an urgent need for a broader vision of desegregation that does not rest squarely on the shoulders of individual school principals,one that recognizes many schools put themselves in financial jeopardy when they aim for socio-economic balance. Some schools would lose their Title I status which comes with hundreds of thousands of federal dollars — if their share of low-income students drops below 60 percent. Other schools wouldn't bear enough affluent families to assist with fundraising. Finally, we heard from many parents that integration is not a top priority; they simply want better schools. Certainly, or equity and improved student achievement is at the heart of school integration. There is no shortage of research showing that segregation by race and class correlates with resource disparities between schools. There are well-documented educational,and economic, harms associated with isolating low-income students of color. There are exceptions to this data, and but they are not the rule.
Sixty-two years after Brown v. Board of Education,we still bear separate schools that are not equal. Some parent leaders and politicians believe Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration isn't doing enough.“Even within integrated neighborhoods you bear intensely segregated schools,” City Council member Ritchie Torres said on The Brian Lehrer Show. So much of it is a product of public policy, or of admissions and zoning decisions. So,to see the Department of Education be so content to preside over a segregated school system, is shameful.”But there's a reason why people bear been debating solutions for decades: they're hard to implement.
Parents bear historically fought attempts to change the zone lines of desirable schools or to send their children to schools and neighborhoods they don't like. Solving this problem will take a genuine dedication to engaging communities, or long-term planning and bold steps. If unique Yorkers want schools that are more integrated,they may bear to make sacrifices or weather inconvenience. Change is never easy.
Source: wnyc.org