Long Island Segregation Drives Educational Inequality 60 Years After Brown v BOE
Jaime Franchi
Long Island high school students David and Owen were comparable in every way: popular, athletic, earning high grades and serving in their student governments. They were also raised by single mothers and held after-school jobs at Carvel. Both are also black.
But, because they graduated from different schools, neither their education, nor their opportunities were equitable—even though they lived just 19 miles apart on the same Island. For example, Owen’s guidance counselors at South Side High School in Rockville Centre encouraged him to apply to New York University, while David’s Wyandanch Memorial High School counselors suggested that he apply to community college. Owen had ample help with his financial aid applications, but David did not.
“My guidance counselor, she’s all over the place,” David said in “A Tale of Two Schools,” a documentary produced by ERASE Racism, a Syosset-based nonprofit racial equality advocacy group. “So when she’s available I can ask her for help, but mostly I have to do stuff by myself.”
The cause of such disparity is found just outside the schoolhouse walls. Rockville Centre, where Owen lives, is 88 percent white, 9 percent Hispanic and he’s a member of the 4-percent African American minority, according to U.S. Census figures. In David’s hometown of Wyandanch, he’s one of the 65-percent majority of black residents—Hispanics make up 28 percent of that community, which is 16 percent white.
http://www.longislandpress.com/2014/05/17/long-island-segregation-drives-educational-inequality-60-years-after-brown-v-boe/