Leo Casey, director of the Albert Shanker Institute, writes here about the recent report of the UCLA Civil Rights Project. That report found that Néw York has the most racially segregated schools in the nation.

Casey writes:

“Last month saw the publication of a new report, New York State’s Extreme School Segregation, produced by UCLA’s highly regarded Civil Rights Project. It confirmed what New York educators have suspected for some time: our schools are now the most racially segregated schools in the United States. New York’s African-American and Latino students experience “the highest concentration in intensely-segregated public schools (less than 10% white enrollment), the lowest exposure to white students, and the most uneven distribution with white students across schools.”

Driving the statewide numbers were schools in New York City, particularly charter schools. Inside New York City, “the vast majority of the charter schools were intensely segregated,” the report concluded, significantly worse in this regard “than the record for public schools.”

And he adds:

“Interestingly, while New York City charter schools are more segregated by race than the district schools, they are less segregated by class; this pattern reflects a recruitment of students from inner city communities whose families possess more economic resources. Such recruitment also has the effect of intensifying the economic class segregation in the city’s high-poverty community schools.

“New York City schools that are doubly segregated by race and class end up with extraordinary concentrations of social and economic need – with high numbers of students who are homeless, who suffer from untreated health conditions, who have special needs, and who are English language learners. In a very real way, these schools are actually more segregated than were southern schools during the Jim Crow era, when racially segregated African-American schools still contained the full spectrum of economic classes and educational need found in the community.”

In a few weeks, our nation will mark the 60th anniversary of the Brown Vs. Board of Education decision. Separate but equal can never be equal. It is a sad commentary on our society that the very people who claim to be leading “the civil rights movement of our time” are creating the most racially segregated schools of our time.

The segregationists of the 1950s made “school choice” their battle cry. Now it is treated as “reform.” What a hoax.

Imagine if Arne Duncan had used the $5 billion in discretionary funds that Congress gave him in 2009 to reward states and districts that devised feasible plans to reduce racial segregation. Five years later, that money would have made a huge difference. Instead, we have closed schools, battles over Common Core, high-stakes testing, demoralized teachers, more states adopting vouchers that will produce more segregation. A truly wasted opportunity.