De Blasio’s school turnaround struggle
Nobody wants to fail. But the students in some schools do not perform well, year after year. At one time, it was common to call these schools “failing schools.” That phrasing implied that the administrators, teachers, students and parents in those schools were failures themselves, and that wasn’t fair to them. We now usually refer to such schools as “struggling schools.”
Sadly, there are no reliable blueprints for turning around struggling schools. In 2010, the federal School Improvement Grant program pumped $3.5 billion into low-performing schools that adopted one of four school intervention models, without any significant impact on math or reading scores, high school graduation rates or college enrollment rates.
In New York City, Mayor de Blasio’s key initiative to support struggling schools is the Renewal Schools program, which serves children in 86 schools around the city. Since this program was announced in the fall of 2014, the city has invested $386 million in these schools, adding partnerships with community-based organizations to provide health services and after-school programs, an extra hour in the school day and needs assessments linked to targeted supports for instruction, collaboration and leadership.
What’s the payoff? In an analysis I conducted at the request of Chalkbeat, I compared the Renewal Schools to similar New York City schools, matching them on student demographics and the school’s prior level of achievement.
At the high school level, the four-year graduation rates for Renewal high schools increased from 52% to 59% between 2014 and 2016. That’s a good sign. But the graduation rates for similar high schools that were not selected for the Renewal program went up by about the same amount.
At the elementary and middle school level, average test scores and proficiency rates for Renewal Schools increased slightly from 2014 to 2016, in both English Language Arts and math. For example, the ELA proficiency rate for seventh graders in Renewal schools rose from about 6% to 12% between 2014 and 2016, and the math proficiency rate increased from about 6% to 7%. Progress in both subject areas, albeit slow. But the proficiency rates in comparable non-Renewal schools rose at about the same pace: 6% to 8% in math, and 7% to 14% in ELA.
Based on these analyses, I concluded that, over the first two years of the Renewal Schools program, there was no evidence that these schools were improving at a faster rate than similar schools that did not receive the extra financial and other resources.
Not surprisingly, the city’s Department of Education has challenged my analysis, arguing that the schools that I selected to match the Renewal schools were fundamentally different, and that my analysis did not take into account school survey results, subjective assessments of principal effectiveness and other measures of quality. It’s true that the matching is imprecise. But selecting schools with similar starting demographics and student performance levels is a reasonable approach.
Do these results indicate that the Renewal Schools program is a failure? Not necessarily. Many programs falter as they get off the ground; the money and other resources don’t always show up promptly, and it can take time to forge new relationships with outside organizations. If we think of a social or educational program as having a lifecycle, the Renewal program is still in its infancy.
The goals of the Renewal program also extend beyond test scores and graduation rates. The community schools model undergirding the program recognizes that it is hard for children to learn if they come to school hungry, or with physical and mental health problems.
Even if the program has not yet had an impact on students’ academic performance, there may be some intrinsic value in addressing these needs.
But we don’t know yet if the Renewal schools have made great strides on these goals. For now, for better or worse, the evidence is limited to academic performance, and here, Renewal Schools are not outperforming similar schools.
As the city gears up for a mayoral election, many of Mayor de Blasio’s signature initiatives will come under the microscope. It’s important to be honest about his administration’s accomplishments. The Renewal Schools program may not be failing — but at the moment, it seems to be struggling.