Dive Brief:
- A school district on Manhattan’s Upper West Side continues to be the site of school segregation, with certain schools in the district mostly Hispanic and low-income while others are majority white, according to The New York Times.
- While white families in the area have eschewed private options for district schools in recent decades, the schools remain unequal. Most zoned elementary schools beneath West 90th St. are mostly white, while in more diverse neighborhoods, students in zoned schools are primarily black and Hispanic and tend to come from low-income families.
- The city’s Department of Education lacks a uniform plan on how to confront segregation between schools within districts, and as test scores fall at certain zoned schools, the problem of segregation may intensify.
Dive Insight:
The challenge for de facto segregated schools can be similar to the cyclical issues facing a district with a declining tax base. As test scores fall, parents with means will find other options for students or even move out of a district, which causes a drop in tax revenue to help fund these schools, which then degrade further, repeating the process. Here, certain zoned schools do not receive the financial support or advocacy other schools do, and test scores decline in response. This leads more parents to decide against sending their children to these schools, causing a further lack of investment and community support, which can then lead to continued decreases in test scores, and the process repeats itself.
Segregated schools can also face a lack of time investment from parents due to financial pressures. Parents at zoned schools with a higher low-income student population may not have the time to advocate in the way more affluent families do because they are working more and at unconventional hours. This can lead to poorer school performance, causing reactions from school districts and local governments that can exacerbate the issue further.
New York City schools are also in danger of permanent closures in the face of poor performance. Though Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration is more hesitant to close schools than his predecessor, he did shutter five Renewal schools recently and merged several others. This should embolden the city to invest further in de facto segregated schools, because the prospect of closing such schools would be morally wrong and a political disaster for the administration.
