Editor's note: The following piece is based on a new issue brief by Ray Domanico entitled “Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in NYC Schools”
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Richard Carranza have put school integration on the table once again in New York, approving changes to middle-school admissions in two of the city’s 32 school districts, and promising to review those policies in the rest of the city. The current effort appears to be no more than a diversion of attention from the very real needs of black and Hispanic students.
Fact is, there are simply not enough white students in Department of Education schools to make the well-being of black and Hispanic youngsters dependent on the presence of whites in their schools: Only 15 percent of kids in city schools are white, while 66 percent are either black or Hispanic.
Black and Hispanic students have long been ill-served by DOE schools. Their parents have had to seek alternatives: Well over 100,000 now attend public charter schools, and another 60,000 have opted for private and parochial schools.
For good reason: In schools under the mayor’s control, only 35 percent of black and Hispanic students scored “proficient” on the state’s English Language Arts exam last spring; in math, fewer than 28 percent did, and fully 43 percent scored at the lowest level.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post
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Ray Domanico is the director of education policy at the Manhattan Institute.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post