Why Won’t Mamdani Take On Educational Redlining?

Neighborhood school zoning has its origins in the 1930s practice of residential discrimination.

By Derrell Bradford. Excerpts:

"In most places, students are arbitrarily assigned to a school on the basis of geography. This policy has its roots in “redlining”—the outlawed practice of keeping disfavored racial groups out of certain neighborhoods."

"In the 1930s, the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corp. issued color-coded maps identifying neighborhoods with high concentrations of minorities. People who lived there were denied access to mortgages. The Federal Homeowner’s Administration also declared that if children were “compelled to attend school where a majority or a considerable number of the pupils represent a far lower level of society or an incompatible racial element, the neighborhood in question will prove far less stable and desirable.”" 

"children are prevented from enrolling in better public schools—in some cases, schools closer to their homes—solely because of attendance zones. These better schools, typically majority white and Asian, have attendance zones that box out lower-income families."