“Most black and Latino students today are segregated by both race and class, a combination that wreaks havoc on the learning environment. Research stretching back 50 years shows that the socioeconomic makeup of a school can play a larger role in achievement than the poverty of an individual student’s family.”

This New York Times Magazine article goes on to explain that more than three quarters of New York City children are wither black or Latino, and that of these the vast majority attend schools together. I’m this case, together meaning a proportion of nine out of ten of students in these areas belonging to these “minority” groups. Really makes you rethink the word minority.
I had absolutely no idea what proportion of children in NYC are Latino and Black, and I think this is largely due to my privilege of growing up white. My neighborhood is quite ethnically distinct: on one end of the Nostrand Ave. are the projects, consisting almost entirely of African American, people of Caribbean descent, and Latinos, and on the opposite side is a largely White and Chinese area. And despite clearly seeing this demographic of people as I walked the streets of my neighborhood, it never struck me as odd that my elementary school was at least 80% Chinese and white.
I think that as white children, this is an issue largely invisible to us. It exists in the minds of our parents and in the realities of those students stuck in these schools, but because of an unwillingness largely on the part of those with resources in these better school, nothing is done about the system. This really made me question how it can be that in New York City, one of if not the most diverse single locations in the world, not to mention l one of the most socially liberal places in the country, how is it possible that this is a well known and proven issue and nothing is being done to address it?