Bad New York City schools trap many minorities, study says
Monday, November 24th 2008, 1:11 AM
A disporportionate number of black and Latino students are stuck in the city's worst schools, a Daily News analysis shows.
About 30% of students in schools given "report card" grades last month are African-American, yet blacks make up 41% of the classroom rosters in schools rated D or F.
Similarly, Latinos are 39% of the population in the graded schools - but they make up 47% of the kids in those with the lowest rankings.
"Our kids haven't received the same kind of resources," said Ocynthia Williams of the Coalition for Education Justice. She pulled her daughter Nadiyah out of Fordham High School for the Arts in the Bronx, which had a 40% graduation rate in 2007.
"We don't have enough teachers with the right kinds of expertise," said Williams, who now sends Nadiyah to Urban Academy on E. 67th St. in Manhattan.
The story was reversed for Asian-American and white students.
Asian-American pupils - 15% of the schools' population - make up 6% of the student body in failing D and F schools. White students are 15% of the graded schools' population, but comprise only 5% of the group stuck in D and F schools, the analysis showed.
The analysis included 1,185 schools graded as part of the 2007-2008 Education Department Progress Reports. Schools that were too new to get grades, charter schools, and combined schools that got two separate grades were excluded from the review.
Mayor Bloomberg has made closing the racial achievement gap a goal, and an Education Department spokesman said the grades are one tool parents should use to make decisions about schools.
"This emphasizes the importance of getting information to parents about how their schools compare to other schools that serve a similar population," spokesman Andrew Jacob said.
Critics are quick to slam the report cards as unreliable, mainly because they are based on improvement on standardized test scores. Still, most agree F and D schools have significant problems.
There was good news, too.
Many more schools earned A grades than F's - showing more children of all races are in schools with rising test scores.
That's proof "demography is not destiny," according to Daria Hall, a policy director for the Education Trust.
"When you have a range of performance, it tells you it is possible for nonwhite students and low-income students to perform," Hall said.
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