Report finds school segregation not simply a result of housing
New York Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, center, visits a class in Brooklyn. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
New York City's public school system is not the most segregated in the nation simply because of housing segregation, since many high-poverty elementary schools that serve mostly minority students are located in economically mixed neighborhoods, according to research released Wednesday by the New School's Center for New York City Affairs.
The research cuts against a commonly accepted notion that New York City's school segregation crisis is purely the result of the city's well-documented residential segregation.
"The city's schools are even more economically and racially segregated than the neighborhoods [they are in], and for economically disadvantaged students, that usually translates to inferior education," the report's authors, Clara Hemphill and Nicole Mader, wrote.
According to the New School report, 124 of the city's 734 elementary schools are much poorer than the neighborhoods in which they are located. The average household income of the school zones for those 124 schools is at least 20 percent higher than the average income of the students enrolled in those schools, the report found.
At PS 125 in Harlem, for example, the estimated household income of students is about half that of households in that school zone, District 5. And while black and Latino students make up 84 percent of PS 125's enrollment, the zone itself is just 37 percent black or Latino. At the same time, PS 287 in downtown Brooklyn has an 89-percent minority enrollment but its zone, District 13, is just 43 percent black or Latino. The report notes both schools are extreme examples; PS 125, for example, is very close to Columbia University and therefore unique in terms of demographics.
The report explains the overall discrepancy between housing and school segregation by noting many parents sent their children to gifted and talented schools or to charter schools for elementary grades because of the poor quality of many traditional zoned schools.
"The key is to improve these schools to motivate more middle class parents who live in economically mixed neighborhoods (or white and Asian parents living in racially mixed Report finds school segregation not simply a result of housing | POLITICO: