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Episode 4: Three Stops on the A Train

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Episode 4: Three Stops on the A Train The Bell

Two schools. Five miles. A world apart.

Bissiri Diakite (left) and Coco Rhum (right) are high school seniors. The physical distance between their schools is five miles, a short trip up the west side of Manhattan. But if you measure the distance in resources and opportunities, they wouldn't fit on the same map.

Take a look at the graphics below for a glimpse of the disparities.

Thurgood Marshall and Beacon are representative of New York City’s dual school system, split along lines of race and class. A seemingly endless supply of resources flow into schools like Beacon, while schools like Thurgood Marshall struggle to offer students after-school sports and clubs.

But inequitable resources aren’t the only by-product of school segregation. By definition, segregated schools fail to expose students to cultural and intellectual diversity, breeding unhealthy and dangerous school environments.

Case in point: Read this letter the Beacon Parent Association sent to the school’s administration earlier this year outlining what the group described as “incidents of bullying, insensitivity and racial and cultural intolerance.”

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To be sure, these issues are not unique to Beacon. Similarly, Thurgood Marshall is not the only school with significant resource gaps.

Listening to Coco and Bissiri helps us understand what’s lost when a city chooses to educate its students separately — but also what’s possible if we realize that three stops is not so far, after all.

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