New York City announces school integration goals
The nation’s largest public school system released a plan this week to increase integration by race, income and English language learner and disability status. But advocates called it less than ambitious, and it didn’t use the word “segregation.”
Seventy percent of New York City school children are black and Latino. But more than two-thirds attend schools that don’t look like the city, with African-Americans and Latinos clustered in some schools and whites and Asians overrepresented in others. The same clustering is seen with regards to income.
The city plans, within five years, to increase by 50,000 the number of students attending schools that reflect the city’s racial demographics and to decrease by 10 percent the number of schools that are concentrated in terms of both poverty and wealth. The city will also simplify the all-choice admissions processes for middle and high school in an attempt to make it easier for families with fewer resources to access better opportunities.