Dive Brief:
- After a contentious battle over segregation and diversity, seven New York City public schools will set aside 20% of their classroom seats to accomodate ELL and low-income students, seeking to better integrate schools with learners from various socioeconomic backgrounds.
- New York City schools are among the most segregated in the U.S., despite serving a student population that is 40% Hispanic, 28% black, 15% Asian, 15% white, and 2% "other," Fox News reports.
- The problem of segregated schools results largely from neighborhood class bubbles, and solutions such as school rezoning have been largely met with outcry from parents and communities.
Dive Insight:
It's a longstanding issue that millions of students in the Big Apple and beyond can't get a fair shake when it comes to their schools reflecting the diversity of their hometowns. Earlier this year, a new law was instated by NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio that calls for regular reporting around diversity in schools. Dubbed the School Diversity Accountability Act, the bill mandates that all schools supply data on diversity and demographics by grade and programming. That includes gifted and talented and dual-language programs.
Most recently, controversy erupted when NYC education officials decided to move ahead in redrawing school zones in Brooklyn to mix the largely white student population at Public School 8 with their disadvantaged peers of color at Public School 307.
A recent study from the New School University shows that many of the city's schools aren’t as diverse as the neighborhoods around them, proving that gentrification doesn’t equate to more racially and economically-mixed schools. The report examined data about median family incomes and the racial makeup of schools, comparing it to data from surrounding neighborhoods and finding, at worst, “concentrations of extreme racial segregation,” according to the New York Times.