The foundation of every state is the education of its youth. So said Diogenes four centuries before the birth of Christ, though the sentiment as true today as it did then. Every community wants the best schools and teachers for its children.
New York City is no exception. Activists there have expressed dissatisfaction with a City Department of Education plan released Tuesday to “ensure equity and excellence for all” by increasing diversity in New York City public schools.”
But it’s not the goal of the document or the ideas it embodies that opponents find objectionable. Rather, it’s the terminology. In the view of two city council members, the document uses the icky D-word in place of segregation and integration, which they find more to the point.
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Council members Brad Lander and Ritchie Torres concede that the plan is a “serious start to a decades-overdue effort,” but find the language mealy-mouthed.
“We are sorry to see that the plan does not use the words segregation and integration, but instead sticks to the more anodyne ‘diversity,’” said the two councilmen. “We will not break the cycle of segregation if we cannot even name it.”
The plan observes that for a school to be racially representative, it has to be between 50% and 90% black and Hispanic, according to Gothamist. But currently less than a third of city’s schools meet that lofty standard.
Jill Bloomberg, the principal of Park Slope Collegiate School, also called out the Department of Education for not using the word “segregation,” adding:
Integration is a policy specifically designed to fight racist inequity. The goal should not be to add diversity as another benefit for a select group of students. Our goal should be to create schools so there is no school in the system that parents wouldn’t want to send their kids to.
Parents like Maia Gelman, a member of NYC Public School Parents for Equity and Desegregation, are also taking action. Gelman wants an even distribution of rich and poor students, special needs students, and students learning English in each school district.
“Relying on [traditional] zoning isn’t going to get you there,” said Gelman. “When there’s a district that’s super segregated, having a few schools that are diversified pushes segregation out into different schools.”
New York will create a “School Diversity Advisory Group” that reviews integration efforts, per the Department of Education’s plan.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Lander and Ritchie for comment, but received none in time for publication.
This report, by Rob Shimshock, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
