New York has the Most Segregated Schools in the Nation (and guess where it's the worst?)

In a devastating report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, New York State's Extreme School Segregation: Inequality, Inaction and a Damaged Future, the conclusion is that NY State has the segregated schools in the nation, both by race and poverty.  They looked at patterns from 1989 to 2010, both at the state and regional levels.

From Education Writers Association:

“The children who most depend on the public schools for any chance in life are concentrated in schools struggling with all the dimensions of family and neighborhood poverty and isolation,” said the project’s co-director, Gary Orfield, according to Al Jazeera America.

According to the report, 19 of the 32 community school districts in New York City had enrollments that were less than 10 percent white in 2010.  

The study also called charter schools in the city “apartheid schools” because 73 percent have less than 1 percent white enrollment. 

Magnet schools were the most multiracial. 

From the study:


73% of charters across New York City were considered apartheid schools (less than 1% white enrollment) and 90% percent were intensely segregated (less than 10% white enrollment) schools in 2010. Only 8% of charter schools were multiracial  and with over a 14.5% white enrollment (the New York City average).

Magnet schools across the New York City district had the highest proportion of multiracial schools (47%) and the lowest proportion of segregated schools (56%) in 2010.  However, 17% of magnets had less than 1% white enrollment and 7% had greater than 50% white enrollment, with PS 100 Coney Island having a white proportion of 81%.

I note that the magnet school in NYC are regular public schools, not charters. 

The FAQs make for good reading if you don't have time to read the entire report.  One thought-provoking idea:

The federal government should establish a joint planning process between the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to review programs and regulations that will result in successful, lasting community and school integration. Federal and state-level choice policies should include civil rights standards or add incentives to such standards. State-level policies could include interdistrict transfer programs, regional magnets, student assignment or choice policies that include civil right standards, and diverse teaching staff, just to name a handful. 

A rather novel approach, referred to as federated regionalism, balances regional approaches to address social stratification with local approaches to address the need for local control. The one metropolitan area where federated regionalism has been employed is Omaha, NE. This “Learning Community” model is designed to achieve equity and socioeconomic diversity between 11 segregated districts. The promotion and support of voluntary interdistrict plans, such as the Learning Community or others that consider racial integration, minority voice and power, and population and demographics of the area, serve as an option for reducing school segregation, as well as housing segregation, in urban/suburban New York metros. Regional magnet programs could also provide unique educational opportunities that would support voluntary integration in the state of New York. Such programs support racial, ethnic and economic diversity, as well as offer a special and high quality curriculum. Connecticut has a system of more than 60 interdistrict, regional magnet schools.