Program found to help struggling students

A program to aid troubled city high school students helped more kids get on track to graduate, Columbia University researchers found.

A study to be published by Columbia’s Teachers College Tuesday shows that students in schools that adopted the Strategic Inquiry program — which helped educators to target struggling kids and get them help — were almost two and half times more likely to be on track to graduate and less than half as likely to be off the graduation track compared to similar students in other schools.

The program was used in 35 city institutions from 2014 to 2016 as part of Mayor de Blasio’s controversial, $773 million Renewal Program to turn around troubled high schools.

Co-author Priscilla Wohlstetter said the study reveals some promising results.

“We found significant improvements in student achievement,” said Wohlstetter, a professor at Teachers College.

“Our study suggests that this model can be replicated, customized and adopted in school districts throughout the country as one important component of education improvement reform,” Wohlstetter added.

The new report is a bit of good news for de Blasio’s Renewal Program, which is in its fourth year and has been criticized for failing to boost outcomes enough to justify its massive price tag.