Integration is an utterly fake fix for NYCs failing schools

All the sudden noise about “integration” as the fix for New York City’s failing schools may be the most shameful red herring ever — a blatant bid to distract from the system’s real, blindingly obvious problems.The proximate cause is New York Times fabulist Nikole Hannah-Jones’ quasi-confession last month about the mis-education she chose for her daughter.NHJ’s account laid bare a lot of ugly truths behind failing schools — low expectations, rampant absenteeism, cafeteria chaos, checked-out teachers and absentee administrators — only to absurdly claim the root causes are inadequate funding and segregation.Of course the city spends markedly more per student on its worst public schools than on its best, and vastly more than any other system in the world; only a villain or a fool can pretend that’s the issue.But it’s as absurd to point to a school’s racial or ethnic mix as in any way relevant.The classic argument for desegregation turned on resources: “Separate but equal” was a lie, because minority schools didn’t remotely get equal funding or other support.That’s plainly irrelevant here, because the whole system is swimming in cash.

So how does an uneven racial mix make a school fail?It can’t be that black kids can’t learn unless enough white ones are in the classroom, too, so what is it?.Not even Nikole Hannah-Jones can seriously argue that racists are secretly manipulating the system to deny black students a proper educational experience: No cabal of “white supremacists” could operate under the noses of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Chancellor Kamar Samuels and all the other lefty and liberal leaders of all races who’ve controlled the Department of Education for decades.Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Please provide a valid email.

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Please also explain why the city’s best-pe...