A new report released Monday argues that New York City’s seemingly ordinary elementary school attendance zones are doing some very old work: replicating the racist redlining lines drawn in the 1930s and quietly reserving many of the city’s best public schools for wealthier, whiter blocks. Using current boundary maps alongside school performance and poverty data, the analysis shows sharp differences in proficiency and poverty from one side of the street to the other inside the same neighborhoods. Advocates call it “educational redlining” and say relatively small policy tweaks could open high‑performing schools to far more low‑income Black and Latino students.
Sharp contrasts in nearby schools
The report highlights some jarring side‑by‑side comparisons. In Brooklyn Heights, the Emily Warren Roebling School (PS 8) posts roughly 90% reading proficiency and only about a 12 to 13% share of low‑income students. A short distance away, Daniel Hale Williams (PS 307) reports roughly 28% reading proficiency and about a 90% low‑income enrollment. On Staten Island, the analysis flags Clove Valley (PS 35) near the top of local proficiency rankings, while PS 78 Stapleton serves far more students in poverty and records lower scores. These neighborhood‑level contrasts are laid out in recent coverage by the New York Post.
How the maps were made
The organization behind the New York analysis overlaid current attendance‑zone polygons on top of Home Owners’ Loan Corporation redlining maps from the 1930s, then tied those shapes to today’s school‑level metrics and demographic data. The overlays show where coveted elementary zones sit largely inside areas HOLC once labeled “best” or “desirable,” while adjacent zones that fall inside historically downgraded HOLC areas feed higher‑poverty, lower‑performing schools. That pattern is documented in a report from Available to All.
National research backs the link
The New York findings line up with national research. A broad Urban Institute study identified thousands of neighboring pairs of public schools whose attendance boundaries create large racial and economic gaps, and the institute found that many of those unequal lines overlap historic HOLC redlining maps. The researchers argue that modest boundary changes could significantly reduce segregation in many districts. The Urban Institute details this pattern and the policy levers that might address it.
What the New York report recommends
The Available to All report offers a set of concrete fixes aimed at loosening the tight link between home address and school seat. It calls for schools to reserve a share of seats for out‑of‑zone applicants, recommending at least 15%. It also urges the city to expand equal enrollment opportunities for children who live within a short radius of a school, proposing a three‑mile rule, and to end punitive enforcement against families who try to enroll their children in a nearer, better‑performing school. “These attendance zone lines are official policy, and they separate the haves from the have‑nots,” the report quotes Available to All’s Tim DeRoche as saying. The full set of recommendations and detailed maps appears in the group’s New York report, which Available to All publishes along with supporting visuals.
Politics and local response
The report lands in the middle of a broader city‑wide fight over segregation and access to opportunity. New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has said the city “has the most segregated public school system in America,” a line he delivered on WNYC and that was reported by the New York Daily News. The ongoing debates around that claim and related policies are covered by the New York Daily News (via Yahoo).
Longer history
Advocates and researchers stress that the pattern on today’s zoning maps did not appear overnight. A 2014 report from the Civil Rights Project found that New York state’s schools rank among the most segregated in the nation, and scholars connect current school sorting to decades of housing and lending decisions that locked in racial and economic divides. That analysis remains a key reference for understanding how neighborhood segregation and school assignment reinforce each other. The UCLA Civil Rights Project laid out those longer‑term trends.
For the authors of the new New York report, the next steps start with daylight and targeted policy changes. They call for public release of the boundary overlays and a state‑level review of attendance zones that closely track HOLC maps, so lawmakers can test small redraws and enrollment reforms that research suggests would make classrooms less segregated without upending families’ lives. As of publication, city and state officials had not formally embraced the Available to All proposals, and advocates say the maps make it uncomfortably clear where political muscle will be needed to move long‑standing assignment rules.
