NYC public schools continue to let students down even years after being identified as failures

For more than a decade, New York City has introduced new ways to identify and improve struggling schools.Yet many of these same schools never stopped struggling.According to a new report, many of the city’s lowest-performing schools today are the very same schools the state was trying to improve more than a decade ago.The report traced schools across six different accountability systems, dating back to 2012.

It found that roughly one-third of the city’s chronically struggling schools have remained “identified for improvement” for more than 10 years.Rather than asking which schools struggled this year, it asks a more important question: Which schools are still struggling more than a decade later? According to the report, many of them still are.This despite years of reforms, additional funding, and repeated attempts to improve student outcomes.A child who entered kindergarten when a school was first identified for improvement could have graduated from high school before it was ever turned around.The report names 906 public schools where a majority of students failed math, English language arts or both.These schools enroll more than 409,000 students, roughly 43% of all NYC public school students — nearly one out of every two students in the NYC DOE system.In more than 500 schools, a majority of students are failing both ­subjects.By connecting schools across multiple accountability systems over multiple years, the report shows that many of those identified as “failing” are in fact the same schools, year after year.

Every few years, the city or state introduced another strategy to “improve” struggling schools.The state’s accountability systems changed; some schools were merged or renamed.

Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Please provide a valid email.By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Never miss a story.Yet many of the same schools continued t...