Introduction
New York public schools are located within New York City. The community is an urban town that lies upon the quota of the Appalachian Mountains, where the mountains commonly adopt the features of hills confined within its closed boundaries to the west and north by Lake Erie, Ontario Lake, and Quebec. To the east, the community is enclosed by Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Moreover, the community is bounded to the southeast side by the large water body in the Atlantic Ocean and the New Jersey state and to the south by the state of Pennsylvania. In 2018, the city had a population of close to 8.3 million people with an average age of 36.9 years and a median household income of approximately $ 63,799 (Data USA, n.d.). However, in comparison with 2017, the state had a decline in population from 8.62 million, to a 2.6% reduction in 2018, though its average household income improved from $60,879 to $63,799 representing a nearly 4.8% improvement (Data USA, n.d.). Therefore, the community characteristic indicates a diverse New York City profile.
New York City public school community comprises several cultural and ethnic diversity. For instance, the White community (Non-Hispanic) is composed of 31.9 percent of the general population, African American (Non-Hispanic) is made up of 21.7 percent, Asian ethnicity occupied 14.1 percent with other (Hispanic) ethnic groups comprising 14 percent (Data USA, n.d.). Precisely, the white Hispanic community is composed of 10.4 percent, with 8.4 percent in the community being U.S. citizens (Data USA, n.d.). Approximately 48.6 percent of all the people in New York City state do not speak the English language (Data USA, n.d.). As such, the cultural and ethnic composition of New Yorkers is diverse, as illustrated above.
The growth and wealth accumulation in a society can be determined by establishing its growth domestic product (GDP). Case in point, the New York City community, as of 2017, had a GDP of more than $1.5 trillion, representing nearly 8 percent of the total U.S value (Data USA, n.d.). Furthermore, the community was ranked 34th in the whole U.S. economic growth percentile with a GDP increase of 1.1 percent from the previous year, contributing to less than 50 percent of the national survey (Data USA, n.d.). According to the New York Census Survey, New York City’s combined wealth was valued at U$2.66 trillion as of 2018, a decrease of about 0.34 trillion from the previous year (Data USA, n.d.). After seasonal adjustment brought about by the emergence of COVID-19, the state had 8.7 million nonfarm jobs as of February 2021, with the private sector occupying close to 7.3 million employment rates (Data USA, n.d.). The unemployment rate in New York City in February 2021 was at 6.2% (Data USA, n.d.). However, the major sources of income are finance, real estate development, insurance jobs, and health care systems.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
New York City public schools are delivered with consumption water by the sheltered Catskill Alps watershed. As a consequence, the city is supplied with enough water that caters to the whole population. Moreover, the strength of the city is built on its prevalent clean-air diesel-hybrid and compacted normal gas bus fleet. This helps in the reduction of emission of methane and carbon gases from the vehicles that affect the environment, hence the overall business in the city. The town is also the principal source of such an effective green office as the World Trade Center.
Weaknesses
New York City’s public schools face extreme environmental challenges. For instance, the effect of the city’s increased traffic on the roads with reduced transportation is the cause of the rising global temperatures. Despite having a clean-air diesel hybrid and a compacted normal gas bus fleet, the city is still experiencing high levels of emissions of gases because of overpopulation. The effect is increased air pollution leading to a high prevalence of asthma and other breathing and respiratory infections among the community residents. Other weaknesses include challenges in flood management and the emission of methane gases from the food waste industries.
Opportunities
In comparison, the New York community is larger than most U.S. states, thus allowing the city to establish new de facto principles and guidelines. With the big market to ignore, businesses and manufacturers are accustomed to the newest market drifts and desires of the city. Moreover, the city has a far-reaching use of open carriage, comprising approximately 90% of all American drives (Data USA, n.d.). As such, many people do not own cars, thus, reducing the pollution of air based on the emission of methane and carbon gases from the vehicles.
Threats
New York City’s public school community faces stiff competition from the neighboring states. For example, the city is known for its increased cases of terrorism, deterring many investors from setting their businesses in the city. Moreover, due to many cases of armed robberies, the city is a threat to new ventures and start-up enterprises because many people fear for their lives and would rather establish their businesses in other cities.
Community Players
New York City’s economy incorporates one of the most prominent municipal and regional economies in the U.S. It is marked as the world’s leading trade focus point, and many business interests are concerned with its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), one of the largest market capitalization and trading activities. The real estate business is also a key strength for the community’s economy, with the city being evaluated at $1.072 trillion for the 2017 financial year (Data USA, n.d.). Manufacturing companies and investments account for a substantial share of employment in New York City. For instance, garments, metal by-products, processed food staff, and chemicals are one of the principal products produced in the city. Specifically, the food processing units are the most stable industries in the city for most investment decisions.
Apart from the real estate and the manufacturing plants in the city, New York City boasts of three major governments owned public library systems. They comprise such institutions as the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Queens Public Library. These are the busiest civic reference library systems globally, thus serving as assets to the New York City public schools. In addition, the city is home to thousands of cultural institutions and historic sites, many of which are universally known. For example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the biggest art museums internationally. Additionally, the city is a center for scientific research and innovation in both healthcare and medicine production. Another government-owned institution is the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), led by Dr. Carrie Rebora Barratt.
Community History
The community in New York City is vastly rich in history. Previously, the city was not filled with story buildings and it was referred to as “New York”, but recently, because of the past, the present population defines themselves as New Yorkers based on the historical events that have occurred in the past two decades. For instance, in 1977, the slogan marked with the title, ‘I Love New York’ has become one of the most interesting symbols of advertising campaigns for tourism activities in the city (Järlehed, 2021). The title logo emanated from Milton Glacier, a graphic designer whose artistic work has shaped many New Yorkers (Järlehed, 2021). In essence, the logo has prevailed in several tourist shops and on many signs across the city. Thus, it is practically impossible to walk through the city and across Times Square without coming across the iconic logo.
The tragedy of September 11, 2011, also marks one of the most signifying events to be forgotten in New York City. The terrorist from the al-Qaeda group attacked the city’s World Trade Center and Pentagon. In this disaster, close to 3000 people were killed, and more than 6000 were injured (Paliewicz, 2017). After that disastrous event, the U.S. launched the War on Terror characterized by the 9/11 Memorial, where people entering the city have the opportunity to recall the proceedings and the lives lost during the event (Paliewicz, 2017). In this regard, museums with Freedom Tower stand within the city to indicate the resilience of New Yorkers during those trying times.
Community Perspectives
An environment where a pupil grows up can determine their life progress ranging from their health effects to their educational prospects. Case in point, a learner in New York City is highly probable to attend a public school with increased racial segregation than diverse private schools (NYU Metro Center, 2017). Accordingly, the current status in New York City comprises approximately 857 public institutes that are classified as the city’s least diverse schools, whereas about 105 meet the standards for the metropolis’s most diverse institutions (NYU Metro Center, 2017). Based on this analysis, it is imperative to state that the community cares more about their ethnic groupings as compared to expanded diversity.
The consequence of these actions is based on the community’s thoughts on the political segregation of localities and regions and controlled turnout laws that regulate which institution an apprentice must join founded on the place of dwelling. As such, the political perspective of the policy of segregated neighborhoods is a common phenomenon in the New York City community, thus impacting the student’s access to the diverse educational experience.
The aspect of the community around the common practice of neighborhood isolation fundamentally faults the de facto segregation, and exclusion caused by the growth in private practices. This concept is demonstrated in such models as the “white flight,” a program described as discriminative to white families or keeping them away from the diversifying neighborhoods (Logan et al., 2017). Another case of this diversifying effect is “redlining”, where a bank applies an unjust bed decree of loans and mortgages based on de facto segregation. In New York City, racially unequivocal rules of state and local governments gave a distinction between where whites and African Americans should live. Consequently, the intentional act of government segregation is defined by courts as de jure segregation.
Due to the multifaceted form of the long-term effects of de jure discrimination in the community identity, it is often mistaken as de facto and hence, cannot claim a constitutionally authorized resolution, thus has remained active amongst that New Yorkers. The contest of identifying and addressing the political power structures influencing the excluded neighborhoods leads to severe civil inequality, in this case, educational inequality of the public schools against the private practice. Consequently, student development, precisely those from underserved communities in New York City is affected.
The Issue
In New York City, educational disparities exist in public schools. Income disparities have led to social consequences such as unequal distribution of healthcare. Consequently, societies have continuously believed that education can be an equalizer between the rich and the poor. However, the evidence points to the reverse situation of educational inequities based on socioeconomic status. For instance, the federal education report of 2015 indicated funding gap between the rich and poor schools increased by 44% between February 2001 and December 2011 (Kena et al., 2015). For this reason, it is crucial to describe the educational disparities in New York City’s public schools.
The COVID-19 pandemic worsened existing inequalities in education in the aforementioned area. Case in point, the efforts to prevent human interaction necessitated the need for public schools to develop new ways of learning. Accordingly, schools opted for blended in-person and remote learning. More than half of students in schools of School District 26, Bayside, in particular, enrolled for virtual learning and were able to study full-time remote schooling in September of 2020 (New York City Department of Education [NYCDE], n.d.). On the other hand, slightly above 14,000 learners in School District 28, out of the approximately 39,000 learners, utilized remote learning during the new academic calendar that began in September 2020 (NYCDE, n.d.). The figures translate to about a third of the total learner population.
Conclusion
Therefore, the wide gap existing in the access to education between the rich and the poor during the COVID-19 pandemic is a clear indication of educational disparities in New York City’s public schools. Access to education has direct consequences on educational achievement. Owens (2018) established that students in high-income communities performed better than those from low-income communities. For this reason, the inequalities in access to education during COVID-19 would compound the achievement gaps between high-income school districts and low-income ones. Therefore, it is essential to address the achievement rates based on income inequalities.
References
Data USA (n.d.). New York, NY: Census place. Web.
Järlehed, J. (2021). Alphabet city: orthographic differentiation and branding in late capitalist cities. Social Semiotics, 31(1), 14-35. Web.
Kena, G., Musu-Gillette, L., Robinson, J., Wang, X., Rathbun, A., Zhang, J., Wilkinson-Flicker, S., Barmer, A., & Dunlop Velez, E. (2015). The condition of education 2015. National Center for Education Statistics. Web.
Logan, J. R., Zhang, W., & Oakley, D. (2017). Court orders, white flight, and school district segregation, 1970–2010. Social Forces, 95(3), 1049-1075. Web.
New York City Department of Eductaion. (n.d.). COVID-19 information & updates. Web.
NYU Metro Center (2017). Separate but unequal: NYU Metro Center report examines segregation in NYC schools. Web.
Owens, A. (2018). Income segregation between school districts and inequality in students’ achievement. Sociology of Education, 91(1), 1-27. Web.
Paliewicz, N. S. (2017). Bent but not broken: Remembering vulnerability and resiliency at the national September 11 memorial museum. Southern Communication Journal, 82(1), 1-14. Web.