Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña is a big fan of dual-language and bilingual programs. In April, she announced 38 more of these programs will open in the 2016-17 school year. It is one of the tenets of "diversity," as she sees it expressed in the nation's largest school system.
As part of WNYC's series Integration 2.0, we've explored possible solutions to persistent segregation in the schools, the racial and economic separation that also leads to educational inequity. Dual-language programs could be one of those solutions, by attracting families to neighborhoods and schools they would not have considered before. But they also could make the problem worse.
Host of the local All Things Considered, Jami Floyd, recently visited P.S. 184 Shuang Wen School.
It was a return, actually, because she attended elementary school in that same building on the Lower East Side four decades ago.
She found that although the community immediately around the school had not changed dramatically, the population inside the school was very different. Seventy-seven percent of the students who attended Shuang Wen last year were of Asian descent; 8 percent were Latino and just 3 percent were black.
In comparison, District 1 elementary school children are 50 percent Latino, 18 percent Asian, 15 percent black and 15 percent white.
Dual-language schools are supposed to have 50 percent English Language Learners, presumably who speak the school's language focus, and 50 percent English-proficient speakers. Shuang Wen has not achieved that balance, yet, according to Principal Iris Chiu.
When asked about the imbalance in both language skills and race/ethnicity, Chiu said she thought the non-Asian parents who lived near the school may have different ideas about education.
"I think the reason it does not reflect the demographic of District 1 is because parents understood that they have to commit to have their children learn the content language in both subjects," she said. "They also know that there are very high expectations because of the culture of the school."
The dynamic between the school and the neighborhood was tense in many ways but Floyd also spoke to people who straddled the two worlds. Baiden Sintim-Danso was one. He and his wife chose the school for their daughter Priscilla, one of the very few black students enrolled at Shuang Wen.
"The school is just a stone’s throw, across the street from my house. And if the school is so good, why should I take my child far away? Let me take advantage," he said. His daughter had to weather both terrible racism and the academic challenge of learning a difficult language with no help at home. Still, Priscilla said she had no regrets.
To listen, click on the player above.