The Struggle to Diversify the Big Apple’s Public Schools

In 2014, only 28 of the 952 offers of admission sent by Stuyvesant High School, an elite public high school in New York City which uses a specialized test to award entrance, were to black and Hispanic applicants. Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to address the alarmingly low enrollment rate of black and Hispanic students in specialized schools like Stuyvesant, which he hailed as “the jewels in the crown” of the New York’s public-school system. “This is a city blessed with such diversity,” he said. “Our schools, especially our particularly exceptional schools, need to reflect that diversity.” Six years later, while black and Hispanic students make up around 70% of enrollment in the public-school system citywide, they represent only 11% of the accepted applicants in these elite schools. At Stuyvesant, only 10 offers were sent to black applicants in 2020. 

Lack of diversity is not only a problem in specialized high schools. One commonly used metric, said that only 28% of all city public schools were racially and ethnically diverse in the 2018-19 school year, with two-thirds of all black and Hispanic students attending schools where they were the majority. The racial and ethnic homogeneity in many of these schools also does not accurately reflect the demographics of their districts. Another study comparing the racial and ethnic makeup of schools and their districts found 41% of the schools were less diverse than the demographic of their district would suggest. 

From the beginning of his administration, Mayor de Blasio has expressed skepticism towards quick-fix solutions. In 2015, he said that the issue of segregation was rooted in “the history of America,” an issue that required “something much deeper than some kind of push-a-button solution.” Yet, he has also been wary of implementing more intrusive desegregation policies. When asked why he would not consider redrawing school zone lines, de Blasio said that it would unfairly affect families who chose to live in certain districts because of the quality of the schools. 

Instead, de Blasio has opted for less disruptive (and less effective) policies. To naturally incentivize desegregation, de Blasio announced the “The School Renewal Program” in 2014. The program sought to provide resources to underachieving schools in hopes of making those schools more appealing to parents in the district. After five years and $750 million in investment, the program achieved no meaningful progress. In February 2019, de Blasio rolled back the program.

The societal costs of segregation in schools demand targeted, aggressive solutions. Years of segregation have relegated students in black and Hispanic districts, often of low-income families, to schools with lower funding and higher teacher turnover. Predominantly white, wealthier schools receive 15% more funding and experience a significantly lower rate of teacher turnover, which skews the distribution of quality teachers towards white schools.

The lower quality of education offered to black and Hispanic students has created massive opportunity gaps in public education in New York City. Social science research suggests that the quality of teachers is one of the most important determinants of students’ future success. Students with higher quality teachers typically reduced rates of teenage pregnancy, are more likely to attend college, and hold higher earning jobs. As a result, the distribution of good teachers stratifies an uneven socioeconomic order, which already discriminates against people of color, even further.  

Not only is this a moral crisis, there are also demonstrated benefits of diversifying school for students. In addition to promoting cross-cultural dialogue and demystifying racial stereotypes, diverse classrooms have been shown to improve the performances of students of color, especially if the students were introduced to a desegregated learning environment from an early age.  

De Blasio’s concern that more aggressive solutions will provoke backlash is nonetheless warranted. For example, when his administration suggested scrapping the standardized admission exams for specialized high schools, many parents publicly criticized the proposal, halting progress. However, the NYC districts and other cities which have taken some steps towards desegregation show there are ways to promote diversity in schools without provoking backlash from parents more interested in preserving the status quo. The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts offers a model for racial and socioeconomic integration in schools. For decades, the city has employed the “controlled choice” method, balancing the city’s goals for racial and socioeconomic diversity with the parents’ preferred choices of school. Currently, 84% of the city’s students attend racially diverse schools, and their students have consistently outperformed students in nearby districts. 

Back in New York City, some progress has also been made. Brooklyn’s fifteenth district recently overhauled the middle school admission process, reserving half of each school’s spots for students who qualify for reduced and free lunch, are in temporary housing, or who speak English as their second language. The remaining seats, previously determined by the students’ GPA, test scores, and attendance, were awarded via a lottery. Despite predictions of a decline in attendance from the white, affluent families that opposed the changes, the enrollment drop was within a negligible range. Furthermore, enrollment data showed that the changes increased the enrollment of low-income and minority students in schools across the district. 

School segregation has enormous social costs. It maintains a system of unequal schools that entrenches significant racial and economic disparity in education opportunity. The failure of the previous more moderate policies should demonstrate to Mayor de Blasio the importance of pursuing aggressive policies that actively integrate lower-income, minority students to more affluent and advanced schools.