New York's Segregated Schools

Are you looking for a racially segregated school system? Well then, come to New York.

In New York City and New York State public schools are more segregated than anywhere else in the country. And yes, that includes the South.

The New York Post reports on a study performed by researchers from UCLA:

New York state has the most segregated public schools in the nation, UCLA researchers said Wednesday.

And within the state, New York City schools are among the most segregated.

Nearly 30 percent of the state’s public schools had minority enrollments of 90 percent or more, even though 51 percent of the state’s students were white in the 2010-2011 school year covered by the report.

In New York City, the percentage of white students dropped from 21.3 percent in 1989-90 to 14.5 percent in 2010-11, the researchers said.

In 19 of the city’s 32 community school districts, minorities comprised at least 90 percent of the student population.

As everyone in New York City knows, most white parents prefer to send their children to private schools. Obviously, these schools are very expensive, but parents pay the price… in order to keep their children out of substandard minority-dominant public schools.

As it happens, there are a handful of Manhattan districts that have good schools, but, for the most part, white New Yorkers prefer to exercise their privilege by sending their children to private schools.

Often this causes significant financial hardship, but, compared to the hardship of sending their children to the city’s schools, parents feel morally obligated to do what is best for their children.

Of course, New York City is an extremely blue city in an extremely blue state. Its citizens are among the most reliably Democratic voters in the nation. Among other things, this means that the topic is largely ignored by the media.

People who have the right feelings about race and who would destroy any politician or pundit who used a racially charged epithet would never consider sending their children to a racially integrated school. 

Is it cognitive dissonance? Or, does parental duty trump politics?

Evidently, it takes more than the right feelings to solve the American racial divide.