Left Behind By Failing Schools

Of the 1.1 million New York City public school students returning to classes this week, more than 70 percent are black and Latino.  Many are trapped in the worst performing schools in the system – ones with less qualified, less experienced teachers and more limited curricula taught at less challenging levels.  As they progress through a school system that has been severely and continually underfunded, they are increasingly unprepared for the challenges that await them in the classroom – and in the workforce. 

Shrinking Numbers

The result, not surprisingly, is a scarcity of students of color at the city’s most prestigious high schools and CUNY colleges.  In fact, their numbers have been shrinking over the past decade.  Coupled with grim dropout rates and low numbers of graduates with a Regents diploma, the educational situation of black and Latino students is bleak. 

Concerned about the under representation of students of color in the elite high schools – Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech -  the city created the Specialized High School Institute more than a decade ago to prepare students to meet rigorous admission standards.  The city hoped that graduating more students of color from these schools would lead to greater numbers at the major CUNY colleges.  But the plan has not worked.  The percentage of students of color at the top high schools has declined over the past decade.

At Brooklyn Tech, black enrollment fell from a high of 37.3 percent in 1994-95 to 14.9 percent in 2005-06.  At Bronx Science, the percentage of black students over the same years declined from 11.8 percent to 4.8 percent; at Stuyvesant, from 4.4 percent to 2.2 percent.

And then, after a lag of several years, we see the same trend at the major CUNY colleges.  At City College, the percentage of black students decreased from 40 percent in 1999 to 30 percent today.  In the same period, black enrollment at Hunter College declined from 20 percent to 15 percent and at Baruch College from 24 percent to 14 percent.

Lack of Preparation

These falling enrollment numbers can be traced back to a lack of adequate preparation in the earliest grades.  If you’re receiving a deficient education in the third grade, you’re not going to be able to qualify for the best schools in the ninth grade.   

More importantly, students who are ill prepared in the early grades face bleak prospects in high school and beyond.  The lack of preparation and motivation of students entering high school combine to fuel a gradual disengagement that leads to dropping out.  There are over 170,000 young New Yorkers – ages 16 to 24 – who are both out of school and out of work, with little prospect for sustaining employment.  Once out of school, dropouts are far more likely to be imprisoned, unemployed, on public assistance, and, if lucky enough to find work, make far less than someone with even a high school diploma.

Only 42 percent of black and 36 percent of Latino students in New York State eventually graduate.  When considering the number of black males who graduate in four years with their incoming class, that number falls to 38 percent in the state, 26 percent in the city.

Even among those who graduate, few earn a Regents diploma, a virtual prerequisite for college or a decent job in our competitive workforce.  Although they represent more than two-thirds of our high school students, only 9.8 percent of Latinos and 9.4 percent of African Americans received Regents diplomas in 2004, versus 37.5 percent of Asians and 36.0 percent of whites.

Schools starved
for resources

This inequity in educational outcomes is unsurprising considering a state funding formula that leaves the city’s schools starved for resources.  New York City school funding is over $1,000 less per pupil than the districts in the city’s suburbs.  This disparity in funding makes it difficult to attract quality teachers – but even within the city’s system, the most capable teachers are often not assigned to the schools that need them the most.

From the New York Amsterdam News
September 7 - 13, 2006