Is Demography Still Destiny? Neighborhood Demographics and Public High School Students' Readiness for College in New York City. A Research and Policy Brief

Over the past decade, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has reorganized the New York City school system using principles and strategies extrapolated from his corporate sector experience. The mayor and his administration have restructured the public school system into a portfolio district centered on choice, autonomy, and accountability. These strategies have been promoted as the most effective and efficient way to reduce the school system's substantial racial achievement gap and improve the quality of education for all the city's students. As a consequence, New York City's restructuring effort has been replicated in districts across the country, and the New York City school system is often defined as the nation's foremost exemplar of a portfolio district. After a decade of implementation, a variety of student, school, and system-level outcomes offer a window into the successes and shortcomings of New York City's portfolio district reforms. This research brief examines one aspect of the impact of the nation's most comprehensive system of high school choice on equity of opportunity for the system's high school students. The authors' findings suggest that while high school choice may have improved educational options for individual students, choice has not been sufficient to increase systemic equity of opportunity. Their results indicate that universal high school choice has not disrupted the relationship of demography to educational destiny across the city's struggling neighborhoods. (Contains 3 figures and 9 footnotes.)