State education officials recognized 277 New York City schools among the highest achieving in the state on Tuesday under new accountability standards.
Of those, 241 are district schools, and the rest are charters. The schools were marked as “top performing” under the federal K-12 education law, Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. A total of 562 schools were recognized across the state.
This is the first year that New York has measured progress inside schools based on ESSA, which gives states more freedom in determining how to improve schools.
Schools on the list released Tuesday exceeded standards in the 2017-2018 school year, making them among the highest fliers in New York on one or more of the following metrics: academic performance, student growth, or graduation rate. Officials also considered whether a school met or exceeded measures of progress for English language arts and math, the rate of chronic absenteeism, and college, career, and civic readiness, officials said in a press release. And at least 95 percent of students at these schools must have taken a state reading or math exam instead of opting out of New York testing in accordance with the federal law.
“The teachers and administrators at these Recognition Schools have taken to heart the critical mission of educating the whole child,” Board of Regents Chancellor Betty A. Rosa said in the news release. “Our priority is fostering equity for our children across New York. These schools serve as models of the levels of performance we seek for all schools to be able to achieve in the future.”
District 2, which is one of the most affluent districts in the school system, had the greatest number of schools on the list: 42.
Last year, under a different accountability system, just 82 schools in New York City were recognized as top-achievers — just under a third of the number recognized this year. This year’s jump suggests the new framework could be allowing more schools to rank as top-performing.
Department officials said the two methodologies cannot be compared directly, but that a majority of the top-performing New York City schools identified last year were also on the list this year.
See which schools made the list below. The first table is district schools; the second is charters.