Category: Response 2

For the past few classes, we have been speaking about the New York City public school systems and its issues of segregation and lack of diversity within its schools. The vast majority of the schools in New York City are segregated racially and economically, with little to no effort being made to fix this in the system. In “Why Our Schools are Segregated” by Richard Rothstein in Educational Leadership, Rothstein speaks about why schools are segregated and why he believes that although integration is necessary, many of the other problems that come with segregation will not automatically be fixed because they are bigger than just the school system.

Segregation issues affecting school ability is a problem starting long before the 20^th century represented with Rothstein says, “residential segregation is actually the result of racially motivated law, public policy, and government-sponsored discrimination”. The issues that came with these laws, as time went on, accumulated to what now makes it seemingly impossible to fight against. Even in a perfect school system, with great integration levels, and teachers who genuinely care about every student, it is hard to achieve when children who are disadvantaged miss school due to lack of preventive health care, have less enrichment opportunities such as after-school and summer activities, and are undeveloped in key tools for school success, such as language and organizational skills. For children in schools that are segregated, Rothstein believes these problems are worse.

Unlike Rothstein, in “Does the Negro need Separate Schools,” W.E.B. DuBois does not speak much about the other problems outside the school system—although I believe that he would agree with some of Rothstein’s views. I think, however, that DuBois would argue that the despite all these other issues, the school systems do not do enough to truly provide an education to blacks, even in an integrated system. In integrated schools, education is not prepared to benefit the Black child, nor does the environment usually make it easy, or comfortable for a black student to succeed. DuBois believes in separate schools for blacks, as he believes that once there is a leveled playing field (the institution is up to par with any white institution economically) that Black would be able to be educated and knowledgeable about themselves in all aspect as school as well as their history and culture. In an environment created for Blacks to succeed, they will.

The part of this article that interested me the most was DuBois’s mention of what we now consider HBCUs. DuBois speaks about how many didn’t not want to attend these universities because of it being run by black folk, portraying a lack of “self-knowledge and self-respect”. I found that interesting because if DuBois was around today, he would see that his wish for these schools to be respected and prided by the black community has come true and that another problem around those institutions has arisen: the internal struggle of blacks to attend, not because they do not love the school, but because outside those walls, blacks still have to go and live in a white man’s world.

For the past couple of classes, we have been discussing a lot about the issues of segregation, diversity and learning about how segregation has impacted the schooling of our the children of NYC. The structure of NYC public schools has isolated certain racial students from gaining the type of education they should be given. But it seems that, segregation has long be existent since the early 1900’s.

In the article, “Why Our Schools Are Segregated”, Richard Rothstein states that, “ The federal government led the development of policies contributing to segregation. From its New Deal Policy, federal public housing respected, existing “neighborhood composition” by placing projects for low income blacks in black ghetto and those for middle income whites in white neighborhoods.” This refers to the redlining article we read earlier. The reason why some areas within NYC are so segregated is because of the placement of projects. From the beginning of time, blacks were isolated in areas of poverty and people that had there skin color. There was no interaction with other races. NYC housing laid the foundation in which schools were made. Invisible borders were drawn and blacks had no power to escape from this type of lifestyle. In fact, banks and saving institutions refused loans to families in predominantly black neighborhoods or to black families that attempted to purchase homes in white neighborhoods. This proves that the root of segregation lies within the policies of law makers and government agencies.

New York is regarded as of the most segregated places in the country. The solution to fix this problem is not as simple as it may seem. Different critics offer different perspectives on how to combat this issue. In “ Does the Negro Need Seperate Schools”, Du Bois argues that the negro does not need neither segregated or mixed schools, what they need is Education. He suggests that the benefits of education outweigh the resources that any school could provide. In a way, Du Bois is making clear that negros can rise to the top no matter their family circumstances. If education is heavily stressed, there is no difference on the type of things a negro and a white can accomplish. Maybe this is why some students from underprivileged backgrounds are still above to do well or even better than their classmates. It’s about the idea of perseverance and working hard to escape their lifestyle. On the other hand, Rothstein mentions that well developed and aligned curriculums, good teacher- principal collaboration make jobs make no difference in neighborhoods where nearly all students were black and in poverty.  Helping students decrease the education gap has to do with the idea of integrated schools. We provide the same resources to students of all races. However this problem is not as easy due to the fact of zoned schools and redlining all cause restrict blacks from attaining the same opportunities. But, because of the DOE’s efforts to increase equity and diversity within NYC schools, policy makers are aware of the type of problems that are affecting students. DOE’s policies are an first step effort in trying to change the broken system of segregated schools that old leaders have implemented.