Panel Criticizes N.Y. Schools as ‘Unequal’

A special task force, in a report released Friday, warned that separate and unequal educational systems have been created in New York state and that racism is largely responsible for the failure of thousands of school children to learn.

“Our society’s acceptance of two unequal educational systems is putting us at risk of creating a permanent underclass in New York and our nation,” the Task Force on the Education of Children and Youth At-Risk told New York state’s Education Commissioner, Thomas Sobol.

“The existence of this underclass will ultimately erode the foundations of our democratic society. We are on our way to becoming two nations--one of the rich and privileged and the other of the poor and disadvantaged.

“Racism clearly underlies much of the problem. It has a devastating impact on our economic, political, social and educational life,” the panel continued. “In education, racism is expressed in a variety of ways: inadequate resources to the most in-need; perpetuating segregated schools; and in some schools, the tracking of minority students into less rigorous academic programs without regard for individual abilities, interests and potential.”

The report of the 35-member panel of educators, union leaders, civil rights activists and business executives called for a variety of reforms, including respecting racial and ethnic diversity, giving teachers and administrators greater responsibility and adding resources to school districts in distressed communities and to schools with the greatest concentrations of at-risk students.

“Two different systems of education have been created,” the panel concluded. “. . . One encompasses effective schools holding high expectations for their students and located in affluent or stable communities; the other, ineffective schools which communicate low expectations for their students who are not given full opportunity to learn.

“Every day the gap is widening between the life options for children who attend schools in affluent or stable communities and children who attend schools in poor communities and in rurally isolated areas,” the report said.

The group said that New York state has the fifth highest dropout rate in the country, with more than 44,000 students leaving school each year without graduating from high school.

In New York City, which enrolls more than 77% of the state’s black and Latino students, three out of four blacks and four out of five Latinos fail to complete high school within the traditional span of four years, the report noted.

“Too often at-risk children are concentrated in failing schools which have the least resources, the most dilapidated plants, the most dispirited teachers,” the panel reported. “The environment in these schools is unsafe and unhealthy. It is so alienating that most of the children are not even being taught to read and write.

“The lesson reinforced is that the educational Establishment does not care about them. Yet for those poor and minority students who do persevere to graduation, we cannot guarantee that they have attained the skills and knowledge needed to obtain adequate employment, to develop functional competence, to nurture interest in further learning and to participate actively in the life of their communities.”