Schools in New York are more racially segregated than any other state in the U.S., according to a report from the Civil Rights Project at the University of California at Los Angeles released Wednesday.
Focusing on the 2010-2011 school year, the report found that almost 30 percent of New York public schools had a 90 percent minority student population. But white students accounted for 51 percent of students in the state during that same year, the New York Post reported.
"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," Gary Orfield, co-director of the UCLA Civil Rights Project, said according to the NY Post.
Segregation in schools was more pronounced when it came to New York City. A total of 73 percent of the city's charter schools had a less than one percent white enrollment, the report said, according to the New York Daily News.
On top of that, 19 out of the city's 32 community school districts had at least a 90 percent minority student population, according to the NY Post.
The segregation affects black and Hispanic students' ability to perform academically, the report found. Schools with high black and Hispanic enrollment, as well as a large number of disadvantaged children, saw its students perform lower than students at more racially and economically diverse schools, the Daily News reported.
"Segregation is alive and well in New York City," Mona Davis, president of the New York City Parents Union, told the Daily News. "Every child does not have access to an equal education. It's scary."
But city and charter administrators scoffed at the report's findings.
"If [charters] open in mixed-income neighborhoods as many have tried to, they are accused of abandoning their mission to serve high-needs kids and of trying to inflate their test scores," James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter Center, told the NY Post.
"And when they do serve children in low-income areas- neighborhoods which are historically segregated- they are accused of being too narrow in focus."
Devon Puglia, spokesman for the NYC Department of Education, said they "value the incredible diversity among our students," according to the NY Post.
