The “And Stay Out!” report, released this month by the education reform nonprofit Available to All, builds off UCLA segregation research from 2014.The new report found overlaps and similarities among dozens of redlining maps from 1938 with school attendance zones in New York City, Long Island, Westchester County as well as upstate cities, such as Albany, Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
The report also identified New York as “one of many states where a parent can be arrested and criminally charged for using an incorrect address to get their child into a high-quality school,” with one such incident occurring as recently as March 6.
The state’s laws and regulations make it “one of the strictest systems of residential assignment in the country,” the report said, adding it limits a family’s opportunity to take advantage of open enrollment— a practice that allows students to attend public schools outside their assigned district.
“There’s this paradox of New York, where it’s run by progressive politicians, it’s a very democratic state,” said Tim DeRoche, founder of Available to All, “but it’s the most segregated.”
Across the United States it’s common for sections of the same town or city, neighborhoods and streets to have communities that look vastly different from one another because of historical government-led housing segregation.