New York City Public Schools and the Issue of Segregation

In my research on public education, I have explored issues with private and charter schools and how school choice can perpetuate inequalities among students. But if our society consisted only of public schools, would we be that much better off? My answer: yes and no. Here is why we wouldn’t be better off:

Many public schools continue to face significant challenges, and many of them function like private schools. Take Stuyvesant High School for example, one of the most highly selective public schools in New York City. But wait a minute, doesn’t “highly selective public school” sound like an oxymoron? Aren’t public schools supposed to serve all of those who pay taxes and live in the surrounding community? The answer is a resounding no. Stuyvesant requires 8th graders seeking admission to take a specialized admission test, and the results often highlight a deep racial divide. In 2019, Stuyvesant High School had 895 spots in its freshman class, and only 7 were offered to black students.

This is just one example of the lack of racial diversity of many New York City public schools, a district that critics say is among the most segregated in the nation. In fact, Richard Carranza, chancellor of New York City’s public school system, resigned this morning over issues of desegregation. When I read the news this morning, it was mind blowing and upsetting to think that the racial integration of our schools still remains an issue at the heart of our public education system. Carranza, who vowed to tackle segregation in the city, faced years of tension with Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City, who always had the final say over major education decisions.

When it came to selective admission procedures and gifted/talented programs, Carranza and de Blasio had fundamentally different attitudes. In one debate over whether or not 4-year olds should be sorted into gifted programs based on their results in a selective admissions process, de Blasio insisted that the city would continue to offer exams to toddlers. On the other hand, Carranza asserted that the gifted program is inherently flawed. 3 out of 4 students in NYC’s gifted program are white or Asian-American, when 7 out of 10 kids in the entire district are black or Latino.

Another issue in the city has been with geographic preference. Admission policies allow students in the Upper East Side and other wealthy neighborhoods to get first dibs on the selective high schools there. This makes it virtually impossible for students in poor and low income neighborhoods to access education of equal quality. This is just another manifestation of educational inequity in our public school system.

In a 2018 speech, Carranza summed up the issue well by saying, “the question of diversifying schools, integrating schools, was definitively settled by the United States Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education. 64 years later, what do we, the collective we, have to show for that? I will tell you that in communities across America, the answer is, not much.”