(Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
New York state is home to the most segregated schools in the country, according to a new report from The Civil Rights Project at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Most black and Latino students in New York attend schools where less than 10 percent of students are white, the report found.
Segregation rates were even higher in the city’s charter schools, with less than 1 percent of white enrollment at 73 percent of charter schools.
For the past two decades, the country has become more segregated for both African-American and Latino students, said Gary Orfield, The Civil Rights Project’s Co-Director.
“New York City is leading that parade backwards towards the extreme isolation and very unequal schools, schools that are segregated by race and by poverty,” Orfield said.
The study’s authors explored trends in enrollment and segregation patterns from 1989 through 2011.
They found that the proportion of Asian and Latino students has nearly doubled since 1989. The changing demography and a lack of diversity-focused policy has resulted in persisting segregation patterns, said Senior Researcher John Kucsera.
The New York metro area represents almost 60 percent of the state’s black students, and two-thirds of the state’s Asian and Latino students, but only 10 percent of white students. Only 20 percent of the schools in this area were considered diverse.
Of New York City’s 32 community school districts, 19 of them had 10 percent or less of white students.
“In the 30 years I have been researching schools, New York state has consistently been one of the most segregated states in the nation — no Southern state comes close to New York,” Orfield said.
Orfield and Kucsera say that “real integration” among students in multicultural societies is invaluable and can lead to greater academic achievement, future earnings and even better health outcomes for minority students.
