Segregated public schooling is more prevalent in New York state than the entire country; most Latinos and African American students attending schools in the state are likely to have virtually no white classmates, according to a report that was released on Wednesday.

The report released by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California at Los Angeles stated that New York's record on segregation by poverty and race "is dismal now and has been for a very long time." Segregation has been on the incline for two decades, and by 2011, close to 85 percent of African Americans and 75 percent of Latinos were schooling with less than 10 percent of white students.

"I do feel that it would be great for our children and other children to be exposed to other cultures," Requel Russell-George, a mother of two students at Public School 169 in the Bronx, said. "You're more knowledgeable and things are not mysterious to you as you get older." The school has about 75 percent black and 19 percent Latino students.

There's a high concentration of low-income students in certain schools; while white students attend schools where less than 55 percent of their classmates are low-income. Latinos and Africans attend schools where close to 80 percent of their classmates were low income; also, 74 percent of the city's students are considered low income.

The surplus of impoverished students in a single institution directly reflects a deficit in quality teachers, quality curricula, quality materials, and students tend to do worse in school due to the lack of resources. Also, failing to have diversity means that those students are deprived of cultural awareness, and, statistically, better grades.

"Studies have shown that desegregated settings are associated with heightened academic achievement for minority students, with no corresponding detrimental impact for white students," the report states.

New York City Department of Education spokesman Devon Puglia has not addressed the findings of the report, but has said, "We believe in diverse classrooms in which students interact and grow through personal relationships with those of different backgrounds." New York City schools are roughly 40 percent Hispanic, 30 percent Black, 15 percent White, and 15 percent Asian.

"To create a whole new system that's even worse than what you've got really takes some effort," said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project and an author of the report. "In the 30 years I have been researching schools, New York state has consistently been one of the most segregated states in the nation -- no Southern state comes close to New York."

State Education Commissioner John King called the reports troubling, and said that initiatives were underway to improve school integration and school socioeconomic integration.

Housing segregation and school segregating go hand-in-hand; the report indicated that this may be the main contributor to the issue. Housing patterns tend to discourage diversity.

Charter schools manage to be extremely segregated, being that only 1 percent of students enrolling are white. 73 percent of the city's charter schools are considered "apartheid schools," as most charter schools focus on high-poverty neighborhoods.

Even if these schools happen to be in more affluent areas, these schools have close to the same low-income traditions as other district schools (76 to 74 percent)... though, very few charter schools have a high poverty concentration. For example, 40 percent of schools in the Bronx have low-income rates over 90 percent, only 12 percent of charter schools in the borough do. Also, 92 percent of charter schools' population are black or Latino, compared to 70 percent citywide. Middle Latino and Black parents tend to seek out charter schools, while middle class white and Asian parents do not.

New York City is 50 percent black and Latino, and 12 percent Asian, in spite of that fact it manages to be the "most heterogeneous and highly populated area in the country ... many neighborhoods across the area have seen little diversity for years," according to the report.

"For New York to have a favorable multiracial future both socially and economically, it is absolutely urgent that its leaders and citizens understand both the values of diversity and the harms of inequality," the study's authors say.

Beyond being divided by race, Latino and Black teens also are failing to attend college at the rate of their white counterparts. According to Pew Research Center, only 56 percent of Hispanics go to four-year schools -- while non-Hispanic whites attend four-year colleges at 72 percent. Also, only 16 percent of Hispanics will have attained a bachelor's degree by their late 20s while 40 percent of whites will have done the same. Research says that this may be due to cost. The average four-year institution costs more than twice the cost of community colleges. Latinos tend to be more averse to incurring debt, and they tend to receive lower financial aid awards, which draws their focus toward working and away from education.