Growing up and attending school in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan was an eye opening experience to say the least. It’s a section of the borough not many know by name, that begins on 79th street, ends at 96th street, and stretches from York Avenue to Third Avenue. Home of the traditional residence of the city’s Mayors (Gracie Mansion), and located just a few minutes away from the MoMa, the Guggenheim Museum, and the prestigious Park Avenue, Yorkville is surrounded by what many refer to as old money. The neighborhood itself has a median yearly income over $120,000, and is mainly white. The area’s population of black, latino, and other ethnic minorities are mainly located in the Stanley Isaacs public housing projects (ranked among the worst in the nation by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 2018). On Yorkville’s northern border lies East Harlem otherwise known as Spanish Harlem or “El Barrio,” where the median income is just over $33,000 and the residents are mainly black and latino. To this date, the border between these two neighborhoods is among the clearest signs of segregation I have ever witnessed, a difference that is immediately visible and palpable once you cross 96th street.
On the corner of 96th street and third avenue, the border between Yorkville and East Harlem, sits the Isador and Ida Strauss school building. Known in my day as the “Big Blue School”, it is home to two elementary schools, P.S. 77 and P.S. 198, which were a microcosm of the surrounding area, and a symbolic representation of progress deferred. The school I attended, P.S. 77, prides itself on serving young ‘gifted and talented’ students and the students in attendance were predominantly white. To be specific, in the year I began attending P.S. 77 nearly 63% of the students were white and the remaining 37% was almost evenly divided between black, latino, and asian students. In contrast, almost 55% of the students in P.S. 198 were latino, 21% were black, 14% were white, and the remaining roughly 8% were asian. The difference in the schools was not limited to racial demographics either. Over 75% of the students enrolled in PS 198 at the time qualified for free/discounted lunch (based on their family’s income) compared to about 10% of the students in PS 77. The racial and economic disparities reflected in both schools clearly illustrate the divide that exists in the neighborhoods the schools border and speak to a larger trend within the city’s school system.
It is no secret that New York City, arguably the most diverse city in the world, is home to the most segregated schools in the country. The city’s schools are divided into three types: public, private, and charter schools. Roughly 70% of all students in the city attend public school, about 20% attend private schools, and the remaining almost 10% attend charter schools. Similar to P.S. 198’s demographic breakdown listed above, 40% of all the children in NYC’s public schools are latino, 25% are black, 16% are asian, 15% are white, and the remaining students represent multiple races. White students are the minority group in the city’s public schools because more than half of all white students in the city attend private schools. In fact, 66% of students in New York City’s private schools are white. Comparatively, while asian students only comprise about 16% of the students in public school, 61% of all the students in the city’s esteemed specialized public high schools are asian. Black students, who make up 25% of all public school students, make up 51% of the students in NYC charter schools. These numbers considered, it is obvious that the differences in the student populations of P.S. 198 & P.S. 77 speak to a system wide issue rather than just being an individual instance based on circumstance.
Today, P.S. 198 & P.S. 77’s student bodies look differently than they did 15+ years ago. Just last year, 41% of P.S. 198’s students were white compared to the 14% it once was, and only 20% of students were latino compared to the 55% I mentioned earlier. For P.S. 77, the percent of asian students enrolled nearly tripled from 12% to 32%, while the percent of black students dropped from 11% to 0. What is interesting to note is that though the number of black students enrolled in P.S. 77 decreased, the number of mixed students increased and now make up 11% of the student body. Though I am not exactly sure what caused this drastic shift in both schools, I’m willing to argue that the gentrification of the area (East Harlem specifically) might play a role.
Yorkville and East Harlem’s border, and the situation playing out in New York City’s public school system serve as proof that we do not live in a “post-racial society” as many people like to claim. Overt segregation of residential areas and the schools within them speak to the reality that very little progress has been made even in the bluest, most liberal parts of this country. White elites continue to separate themselves and their children, while funding to the public education system that mainly serves black and latino students continues to decrease. Though high school graduation rates continue to increase overall, black and latino students are still over 13% less likely to graduate than their white and asian counterparts. All students in this city deserve a quality education regardless of race or class, not just those who can pay for it. Every New Yorker should be concerned that clear segregation is still able to exist despite the city’s diversity because as we all know, there is no such thing as separate but equal.
Further reading:
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/complex-demographics-new-york-public-private-schools
Forever Thugnacious 