NYC Students Are Fleeing Their Neighborhood Schools, Study Finds

NEW YORK, NY — Influential leaders such as Mayor Bill de Blasio argue the racial segregation of New York City's public schools is largely a consequence of where students live. But a new study showing how thousands of students have fled their neighborhood schools raises questions about that argument.

Some 40 percent of kindergartners attended elementary schools other than their zoned neighborhood school in the 2016-17 school year, according to a study published Wednesday by the New School's Center for New York City Affairs. That means more than 27,000 kindergartners leave their neighborhoods each day for charter schools, schools with specialized programs or regular public schools in other parts of the city.

Conversely, the proportion of kindergartners who enter their zoned schools has dropped from 72 percent in the 2007-08 school year to 60 percent in 2016-17, according to the analysis of kindergarten enrollment data over the past decade.

The increased migration may have exacerbated segregation rather than reduced it, the study shows.

If every elementary student attended their zoned school, more than 6,000 additional kindergartners would attend schools with proportions of students receiving free lunch that are close to the city average. And about 2,300 more kindergartners would be in schools that the Department of Education would consider "racially representative."

"School choice may indeed give thousands of children better educational opportunities by allowing them to escape low-performing schools in their neighborhoods," the study's authors — Nicole Mader, Clara Hemphill and Qasim Abbas — wrote. "But the schools they leave behind face ever-greater challenges as they struggle to serve the city’s neediest children."

While many students attend schools near their homes, the study says, about a third cross neighborhood boundaries, often into more affluent areas. Harlem students, for instance, may go to the Upper West Side, while some Crown Heights students head north to Fort Greene.

The patterns vary greatly by demographics and neighborhood. While black students were more likely than any other ethnic group to leave their zoned school, low-income students, those who don't speak English and recent immigrants were all less likely to seize the opportunity, the study says.

More students attend their zoned schools in well-off areas like Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and Bayside, Queens, where satisfaction with them generally is higher, the study says.

But more than half of parents in gentrifying areas send their students elsewhere, meaning the local schools aren't as diverse as the neighborhoods themselves, the study says. Fewer than a quarter of kids living in school zones in Harlem, Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Fort Green attend their zoned schools.

Kids who stick with their neighborhood schools find themselves among student bodies with higher concentrations of poverty, the study says. And the threat of declining enrollment leaves those already struggling schools with fewer financial resources.

"(Z)ones provide families of means with exclusive access to the schools they like, while choice allows them to flee the ones they don’t," the authors wrote.

Efforts to integrate city schools have sparked vigorous debate in recent years. A proposal to offer a quarter of seats in middle schools on the Upper West Side to students with low scores on state exams reportedly caused a fracas there last week.

The ordeal led to a frank Twitter post from schools Chancellor Richard Carranza about the racial dynamics of the issue, for which he later issued a measured apology.

Department of Education spokesman Will Mantell acknowledged that "school choice on its own doesn’t guarantee high-quality or diverse schools." Officials have tried to make it easier for all parents to choose different schools while working to make all schools better, the DOE said.

"We are investing in an Equity and Excellence for All agenda to improve every single school and ensure our classrooms are more reflective of our City," Mantell said in a statement.

(Lead image: Photo by Shutterstock / hxdbzxy)