By Stephen Witt
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced the city will invest $150 million over a three year period to help 94 struggling schools – 27 of which are in Brooklyn – as part of his ‘School Renewal Program’.
The Brooklyn schools include P.S. 067 Charles A. Dorsey, Satellite East Middle School, MS 596 Peace Academy, J.H.S. 050 John D. Wells, Juan Morel Campos Secondary School, Foundations Academy, Automotive High School, Frederick Douglass Academy IV Secondary School, Boys and Girls High School, Upper School @ P.S. 25, M.S. 584, Middle School for Academic and Social Excellence, Ebbets Field Middle School, Brooklyn Generation School, East Flatbush Community Research School, P.S. 306 Ethan Allen, Essence School, P.S. 328 Phyllis Wheatley, Multicultural High School, Cypress Hills Collegiate Preparatory School, P.S. 165 Ida Posner, P.S. 284 Lew Wallace, P.S. 298 Dr. Betty Shabazz, and Brooklyn Collegiate: A College Board School
The schools include schools that were identified by the State as Priority or Focus Schools and have demonstrated low academic achievement for each of the past three years, ranking in the bottom 25 percent of City schools on Math and ELA state exam scores or graduation rates, and showed limited capacity for improvement with a rating on their most recent Quality Review of “proficient” or below.
The Department of Education will develop tailored implementation plans, closely track every school’s progress, and hold schools accountable to meeting strict goals over the next three years. Schools that do not meet targets for each academic year would face a leadership and faculty change, as needed, and possible reorganization.
“We believe in strong public schools for every child. Getting there means moving beyond the old playbook and investing the time, energy and resources to partner with communities and turn struggling schools around. We’re going to lift up students at nearly one hundred of our most challenged schools. We’ll give them the tools, the leadership, and the support they need to succeed—and we’ll hold them accountable for delivering higher achievement,” said de Blasio.
The program drew support from both from both State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) union.
“For the past 12 years, New York City’s ‘answer’ for struggling schools was simple: warehouse our neediest students, starve their schools of support, and then close their schools, if they didn’t miraculously turn around. It is refreshing that New York City is finally willing to clean up this mess and take responsibility to help schools instead of rushing to close them,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew.
Conversely, StudentsFirstNY, which supports the growth of charter schools, denounced the move as too little too late.
“Imposing a three-year moratorium on closures and adding social services to 5% of schools will not bring about the kind of scalable, system-wide changes parents and advocates are desperately hoping for. When 70% of children are not meeting standards, any effort that does not include changes to leadership, staffing and work rules is woefully inadequate,” said StudentsFirstNY Executive Director Jenny Sedlis.
