The report also identified New York as \u201cone of many states<\/a> where a parent can be arrested and criminally charged<\/a> for using an incorrect address to get their child into a high-quality school,\u201d with one such incident occurring as recently as March 6<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The state\u2019s laws and regulations make it \u201cone of the strictest systems of residential assignment in the country,\u201d the report said, adding it limits a family\u2019s opportunity<\/a> to take advantage of open enrollment<\/a> \u2014 a practice that allows students to attend public schools outside their assigned district.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s this paradox of New York, where it\u2019s run by progressive politicians, it\u2019s a very democratic state,\u201d said Tim DeRoche, founder of Available to All, \u201cbut it\u2019s the most segregated.\u201d<\/p>\n Across the United States it\u2019s 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n RelatedHow LAUSD School Zones Perpetuate Educational Inequality, Ignoring \u2018Redlining\u2019 Past<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Redlining, the practice<\/a> of drawing boundaries around neighborhoods based on race and denying mortgage assistance to areas considered \u201chazardous\u201d or \u201cundesirable\u201d typically housing people of color, was outlawed<\/a> more than 50 years ago. Despite this, many public services, including public education systems<\/a>, still perpetuate inequitable access to resources and opportunity based on housing.<\/p>\n While school districts themselves are drawn through legislative processes, districts are often given autonomy when drawing attendance zones for schools. Both boundaries, the report said, \u201ccarry on the legacy of redlining in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPublic schools must be \u2018available to all on equal terms<\/a>,\u2019 and \u2026 if you look at the system we have across the country, you can see that we are falling so far short of that \u2014 and the primary reason for that is that we assign kids to schools based on their address,\u201d DeRoche said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The report used Public School 19 and Public School 16 as examples. Both schools are in the north Bronx\u2019s school District 11 and are located about a mile from one another \u2014 a 20-minute walk \u2014 but serve contrasting populations.<\/p>\n The Bronx<\/p>\n Attendance zone boundaries for P.S. 19 \u201cmirror, almost perfectly, the area deemed to be \u2018desirable\u2019 by the racist redlining map drawn by federal government bureaucrats in 1938,\u201d the report said. Whereas P.S. 16\u2019s boundaries fell directly in a declining area, according to the 1938 map.<\/p>\n The remnants of redlining are echoed in both schools\u2019 data \u2014 where P.S. 19 educates a population that is 43% Black and Latino and two-thirds low income, with 62% reading proficiency. That compares to P.S 16\u2019s 88% Black and Latino student body, 95% of whom are low income with grade level reading just over 30%.<\/p>\n Schools like P.S. 19 \u201cbecome almost quasi-private schools,\u201d DeRoche said.<\/p>\n There were many examples across the New York City Public Schools system, as well as several upstate school districts.<\/p>\n Manhattan<\/p>\n Queens<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to find a place [in New York] that\u2019s not segregated or a school district that\u2019s not experiencing either racial segregation or some sense of class segregation,\u201d said Kris DeFilippis, a former assistant superintendent in the New York City Department of Education, who is now a clinical professor at New York University. \u201cNot much has changed. \u2026 Wherever those lines were drawn [in the 1930s], it has largely stayed the same, unless there\u2019s been a movement toward gentrification.\u201d<\/p>\n In Albany, New York\u2019s capital, New Scotland Elementary School was zoned over neighborhoods identified as desirable in 1938. The school serves a student population that is less than half Black or brown (41%) and low-income (47%) with reading scores near 60%.\u00a0<\/p>\n Just about two miles away at Giffen Memorial Elementary School, more than three-quarters of students are Black and Hispanic (84%) and qualify for free and reduced priced lunch (84%). Less than a quarter of students at Giffen Memorial read on grade level (21%).<\/p>\n Much of Giffen Memorial\u2019s attendance zone lines up with 1938 redlining declining areas.<\/p>\n Albany<\/p>\n \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t see these massive gaps [in demographics and student achievement] between two schools two miles away \u2026 if those two schools were truly open to kids,\u201d DeRoche said. \u201cThe government has to be enforcing that in some way. How are they enforcing it? Well, they\u2019re enforcing it with these maps. The kids on the wrong side of the line aren\u2019t eligible to go to the public school that\u2019s a mile [or two] from their home.\u201d<\/p>\n In upstate New York, while there\u2019s access to charter and magnet schools, school choice within a district is limited among traditional public schools. Students are generally required to go to the school in their attendance zone, \u201cunless there are exceeding circumstances,\u201d DeFilippis said, \u201cbut that is rare, it just doesn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n In New York City, \u201cit\u2019s a bit different,\u201d DeFilippis continued. Students typically attend a local elementary school before choice options open up in middle and high school grades across the metropolitan area\u00a0 \u2013 creating its own challenges and limitations when it comes to admission to later grades.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s almost like a false narrative that in New York City students can go where they want,\u201d DeFilippis said, \u201cbut it\u2019s not entirely accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n For a student, traveling across the city to attend a school that works best for them can be difficult and it may also be challenging to get into competitive schools because they \u201chaven\u2019t had the same experiences at the lower grades that their peers have had,\u201d DeFillipis said. So, ultimately, the current setup, \u201cdoes not lead to equitable outcomes for Black and brown students, or low-income students, at all.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/bronx-school-segregation-zones2-400x500.jpg\")
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