Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Closing Schools Have Most Challenging Demographics



January 26, 2011, 2:16 pm

Closing Schools Have Most Challenging Demographics

By SHARON OTTERMAN
The 14 high schools that the city is proposing to close for poor performance have more homeless students, more special education students, and double the number of over-age students than the average city high school, and their share of such students has expanded in recent years, according to a new report from the city's Independent Budget Office released on Wednesday.
The findings broadly back a persistent criticism of the city's school closing policies - that the schools targeted for closure are faced with the most challenging student populations.
The study confirmed that the 25 schools proposed for closing, which include 11 middle and elementary schools, are among the lowest performing in the city. But it also found they are not universally the worst. For every low-performing school that is closing, there are schools with similar or even weaker records of student achievement that are remaining open, the report shows.
The city has closed 91 schools for poor performance since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took office - and the mayoral-controlled Panel for Educational Policy will vote in February on the latest round of closings.
But there is "no guarantee that a closing school will be replaced by a more successful one," the report states. Eight of the schools the city plans to close this year are new, small schools: "the replacement model that the Department of Education has favored for schools that have been closed in the past."
Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld, a city schools spokesman, said: "Our reform efforts are absolutely focused on our students that need the most help, and independent research shows new small schools that replace large failing schools serve more disadvantaged students on average and help these students graduate at higher rates."
Here are some of the specific findings:
- The special education population citywide remained flat at 12 percent from 2007-08 to 2008-09, but the percentage of special education students in closing high schools rose to 18 percent from 16 percent.
- The number of students in temporary housing, often one of the city's homeless shelters, quadrupled citywide during the economic downturn, from 1 percent of the total student enrollment in 2007-08 to 4 percent in 2008-09. But at closing high schools, 6 percent of students were in temporary housing in 2008-09. At four closing schools, 10 percent or more students were homeless: Public School 332, Paul Robeson High School, Middle School 571 in Brooklyn and Norman Thomas High School in Manhattan.
- Nine percent of students in the closing high schools were over age for their grade in 2008-09, an increase of 1 percent from the prior year. Citywide, the percentage of over-age students - who tend to perform poorly in school and are at high risk of dropping out - fell from 5 percent to 4 percent during that period.
- Student performance is generally among the city's lowest at the closing schools - their passing rate on high school Regents exams, for example, is 25 percent compared with 42 percent citywide. Yet most closing schools received a grade of 'proficient' on their annual quality reviews as of 2008-09 - the third highest score of five categories. One closing school ranked better ('well developed') and two scored worse ('underdeveloped').
The report is available by clicking on the following link: School Closing Jan 2011

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I' m writing to imform a message about one of the schools that's on the list to be closed and that's Paul Robeson High School in Chicago,Il. The school have so many issues that need to be addressed.The children needs to have a better education and an excellent staff to teach our children.Some of the staff at this school don't have any respect for oyr children they are telling our children they don't have to teach our children they still get paid even if they don't teach our children.They tolerate students bulling on other students and does nothing about it.They have picks in the school between students if there parent are a staff at the school they get better treatment than other students.They are suspending students for getting an F on there report card this year and I think that's wrong because you don't know what's going on with that student all your doing is pushing that child away from there education and making there life even worst than it already are.They suspended the students if they come to school tardy twice in one week the student get five days.The students gets dropped if they miss three days of school even if they have a note when they come back to school they still be dropped.Our children are dropping out of school there because of the staff and some of the students there YES I think the school needs to be closed because they are not teach our children anything.My daughter just got choked and punched by a male student he didn't get suspended until the next day of school he should have got suspended the same day like every other stundent in the school.My other daughter don't like going to school because she get picked on all the time and when you address the matter to the dean or staff that handles this matter they say they are going to take care of the matter but don't and it continues.The staff at the school continues to lie to the parents about there children and they let students fight other students in the classroom when they are sitting there.One staff told two female students to go ahead and fight and didn't do anything about it.He was progressinating the situation by telling both students what he thought one of them said about the other student.It was addressed but comes to find out one of the student was being bully on for a long peroid of time.The assist principal told both students they needed to act there age and stay away from each other or she will suspended both of them if she hear about the matter again.The bulling kept going on because as you see she didn't express what will be the punishment if the student who's bulling on the other student keep continuing.This is how I feel about Paul Robeson High School and how it affects our children of the future.

Anonymous said...

I' m writing to imform a message about one of the schools that's on the list to be closed and that's Paul Robeson High School in Chicago,Il. The school have so many issues that need to be addressed.The children needs to have a better education and an excellent staff to teach our children.Some of the staff at this school don't have any respect for oyr children they are telling our children they don't have to teach our children they still get paid even if they don't teach our children.They tolerate students bulling on other students and does nothing about it.They have picks in the school between students if there parent are a staff at the school they get better treatment than other students.They are suspending students for getting an F on there report card this year and I think that's wrong because you don't know what's going on with that student all your doing is pushing that child away from there education and making there life even worst than it already are.They suspended the students if they come to school tardy twice in one week the student get five days.The students gets dropped if they miss three days of school even if they have a note when they come back to school they still be dropped.Our children are dropping out of school there because of the staff and some of the students there YES I think the school needs to be closed because they are not teach our children anything.My daughter just got choked and punched by a male student he didn't get suspended until the next day of school he should have got suspended the same day like every other stundent in the school.My other daughter don't like going to school because she get picked on all the time and when you address the matter to the dean or staff that handles this matter they say they are going to take care of the matter but don't and it continues.The staff at the school continues to lie to the parents about there children and they let students fight other students in the classroom when they are sitting there.One staff told two female students to go ahead and fight and didn't do anything about it.He was progressinating the situation by telling both students what he thought one of them said about the other student.It was addressed but comes to find out one of the student was being bully on for a long peroid of time.The assist principal told both students they needed to act there age and stay away from each other or she will suspended both of them if she hear about the matter again.The bulling kept going on because as you see she didn't express what will be the punishment if the student who's bulling on the other student keep continuing.This is how I feel about Paul Robeson High School and how it affects our children of the future.