For years now the UWS has been a hot bed of BdeB's and city council's experiments with "inclusion" and "equality".
Having messed with elementary schools they are now moving onto middle:
UWS school rezoning by the numbers | Manhattan, New York, NY | Local News
Driving all this are two forces; NYC in particular large parts of Manhattan are becoming *very* white and or affluent as a result in changing demographics (whites moving into or choosing to remain in the city instead of going to suburbs), and news coverage highlighting reports that City of New York is very racially segregated, especially when it comes to public schools.
White or whatever middle class and above parents simply have far more options than most minorities. Add to this differences in education and socio-economic factors then you begin to see where problems start. That is homes where both parents have college degrees (from good to prestigious universities), and or even post graduate have a long history of putting a laser beam focus on their children's education.
This starts literally before kids are born or shortly afterwards and continues until they are into college. Choices about where to live, pre-k, kindergarten through high school and so forth are all based upon access to high quality schools.
Where local public or even private school lacks funding for this or that which is needed, upper income parents simply write checks. They also use their income to ensure their children have every advantage possible, from tutors to travel, and so forth. All this is natural, but rubs the usual suspects the wrong way.
Overall aside from certain local areas (for pre-k through middle school) the City of New York's public school system is overall minority. Whites largely long ago have abandoned the system again except in certain high performing cases/areas.
Tribeca, Soho, West/Greenwich Village, *parts* of UES and UWS, South Shore of SI, Park Slope, and so forth.
NYC removed zoning restrictions for public high schools decades ago and it by and large has been a disaster. Whites basically have fled that part of system outside of a few local or specialized (admitted by exam scores) schools.
Out on Staten Island the lowest performing public elementary and middle schools are (surprise) on the North Shore with high levels of minority students and or those from low income homes.
At least 15 Staten Island schools to receive additional funding | SILive.com
The usual answer as show above is to throw *more* money at these places, this as NYC already spends several times more than other urban areas per student with very little to show for the money.
That proverbial one thousand pound gorilla in middle of room that no one wants to talk about is quite simply children are largely products of their home environment. Over the past thirty or so years NYC public schools on average have become social service agencies. Kids get everything from free meals, school supplies, feminine hygiene products, laptops, etc.... And yet somehow, somehow for all the money spent high school graduation rates are appalling and a good number enter college (usually CUNY or SUNY) totally unprepared to do 100 level course work.
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