A new study released by the Leroy Collins Institute and conducted by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA finds that Florida’s schools are resegregation at an alarming rate. Here is the study that is cited in the article.

Bear in mind that Florida is the utopia of school choice. Its policies for the past twenty years have been shaped by Jeb Bush, and Betsy DeVos thinks that Florida should be a model for the nation.

“Student enrollment trends in Florida over the past decades show growing racial isolation for Hispanic and black students on some measures, with signs of continuous segregation on others,” the study said.

Some 32 percent of Hispanic students and 35 percent of black students in Florida attend “intensely segregated” schools, defined as have a nonwhite student body of 90 percent or greater, according to the study.

One out of every five schools was intensely segregated in the 2014-2015 academic year, about double the 10.6 percent of the schools that fell into that category in 1994-1995.

The more heavily segregated schools had more poor students. In schools with at least a 50 percent nonwhite school body, low-income students represented 68 percent of the population. Low-income students represented 82.5 percent of the population in the schools with a 90 percent or greater nonwhite student body.

“Florida is the third-largest state in the country and has the most diverse student body in our state’s history, yet one-fifth of our public schools are intensely segregated,” said Carol Weissert, a Florida State University political scientist who leads the Collins Institute. “Similar segregation is evident for low-income students. All Floridians deserve equal access to a quality education, regardless of race or economic standing.”

As the students have become more diverse, the schools have become more segregated:

Since 1980, Hispanic students have increased from 8 percent of Florida students to about 31 percent in 2014, the report showed. White students declined from 68 percent to just under 41 percent, while black students remained about 22 percent during that period.

The study also showed that the number of students defined as low-income has been rising over the last two decades, increasing from 36 percent in 1994-1995 to nearly 59 percent in 2014-2015.

Calling the trend “double segregation,” the report showed typical black students were likely attending schools with 68 percent low-income students, and Hispanic students were in schools with a 65 percent low-income population, “while the typical white student and Asian student are in schools where less than half of the students are poor.”

Florida’s answer to education issues: School choice. Charter schools, tax credits, virtual charter schools.

This is an avoidance of the problem, not a solution.