The state has released two dozen New York City schools from strict oversight after they made gains on standardized tests and graduation rates, state officials said Friday.
The 24 schools will shed the state’s “Priority” label, which prompted additional oversight and required schools to execute improvement plans. All Priority schools had previously posted graduation rates below 60 percent or were among the lowest 5 percent statewide in reading and math proficiency.
The announcement is particularly good news for seven of those schools, which faced the possibility of outside takeovers or even closure as part of a separate state Receivership program. Because of the gains they posted, those schools will officially exit the program at the end of this school year.
Friday’s announcement brings down the number of Priority schools in New York City to 56, and the number of Receivership schools to 18.
“Removal from Priority School status shows the hard work being done by students, teachers and administrators at these schools and I applaud them all,” said Betty Rosa, chancellor of the state’s Board of Regents. She added that there is still “a great deal of work to be done.”
It’s unlikely that most of the seven Receivership schools would have faced dramatic intervention from the state if they had remained in the program. To date, just one New York City school has been threatened with outside takeover: a middle school in the Bronx that the city closed last year and replaced with a new school. (City officials also decided to to close another Receivership school, the Monroe Academy for Visual Arts and Design — a move that state officials did not publicly demand.)
The state education department’s decision to reduce the number of Receivership schools has previously frustrated Gov. Andrew Cuomo. But Cuomo, who pushed for the Receivership law as a more aggressive intervention for struggling schools, has warmed to the approach favored by Mayor de Blasio and the state’s unions: infusing low-performing schools with resources instead of shutting them down. The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Many of the schools that are slated to be released from the Receivership program still post relatively low levels of proficiency on state tests. At I.S. 117 in the Bronx, which is also part of the city’s own turnaround program, 12 percent of its students were proficient in reading last year, and 8 percent were proficient in math —though that is 2-3 percentage points higher than the previous year.
Some schools posted more significant gains. Cypress Hills Collegiate Preparatory School has seen big reductions in chronic absenteeism, and posted a 69 percent graduation rate last year compared with 58 percent in 2015.
Even as state officials are easing up on some schools, they said more schools could be identified for Receivership in the future. Under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, New York plans to phase out the Priority school designation and adopt new ways of identifying struggling schools that could make them eligible for Receivership. That plan must first be approved by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
Below is the list of 24 schools that will no longer get extra state oversight as Priority schools (an asterisk denotes that it will be leaving the Receivership program as well):
Manhattan: STEM INSTITUTE OF MANHATTAN WADLEIGH PERF AND VISUAL ARTS NEW DESIGN MIDDLE SCHOOL Bronx: PS 5 PORT MORRIS PS 65 MOTHER HALE ACADEMY PS/MS 29 MELROSE SCHOOL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS JHS 22 JORDAN L MOTT* IS 117 JOSEPH H WADE* NEW MILLENNIUM BUSINESS ACAD MS* MS 390 FORWARD SCHOOL (THE) BRONX ALLIANCE MIDDLE SCHOOL BRONX HIGH SCH-WRITING & COMM ARTS SCHOOL OF PERFORMING ARTS* Brooklyn: SATELLITE EAST MIDDLE SCHOOL NEW HEIGHTS MIDDLE SCHOOL FRESH CREEK SCHOOL (THE) CYPRESS HILLS COLLEGIATE PREP SCHOOL* PS 298 DR BETTY SHABAZZ* BROOKLYN ENVIRONMENTAL EXPLORATION PS 151 LYNDON B JOHNSON EVERGREEN MS-URBAN EXPLORATION Queens: MARTIN VAN BUREN HIGH SCHOOL*