Nation’s largest school district announcing effort to diversify segregated public schools
Federal data shows that poor, black and Hispanic children are becoming increasingly isolated from their white, affluent peers in the nation’s public schools, as my Washington Post colleague Emma Brown reported in this story. In fact, the number of high-poverty schools serving primarily black and brown students across the country more than doubled between 2001 and 2014, she wrote.
And in what may seem surprising, the largest school district in the nation in terms of student population, New York City, may have the most segregated schools. That’s what a 2014 report by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project, titled “New York State’s Extreme School Segregation: Inequality, Inaction and a Damaged Future,” concluded:
New York has the most segregated schools in the country: in 2009, black and Latino students in the state had the highest concentration in intensely-segregated public schools (less than 10% white enrollment), the lowest exposure to white students, and the most uneven distribution with white students across schools. Heavily impacting these state rankings is New York City, home to the largest and one of the most segregated public school systems in the nation.
Now, officials in New York City are announcing a new initiative to help diversify public schools. In the following post, New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña explains what the effort will look like and why it is important.
By Carmen Fariña
I was absent for the first six weeks of kindergarten.
I was in class every day, but I hadn’t learned English yet, and my teacher decided to replace my hard-to-pronounce Spanish last name, Guillen, with something easier for her – Quillan. I didn’t raise my hand during roll call. Eventually my father, a recent immigrant who spoke little English, met with my teacher and firmly explained the importance of calling me by my actual name – and how to pronounce it correctly. There were no more absences.
It was my first lesson on inequality, and what it means to be part of a group that doesn’t get Nation’s largest school district announcing effort to diversify segregated public schools - The Washington Post: