Failing to make the grad

‘Renewal’ HS rates

Graduation rates fell or stagnated last year at 10 of the lowperforming city high schools targeted for “renewal” by Mayor de Blasio, data reveal.

The city Department of Education has pumped millions of dollars into programs to turn around these academic laggards instead of shutting them down, which was the policy of the Bloomberg administration.

But results show the graduation rate dropped at August Martin HS in Queens from 39.2 percent in the 201314 school year to 25.9 percent in the last school year, and at Lehman HS in The Bronx from 53.3 percent to 40.8 percent.

The rate also plunged at the Bronx Leadership Institute from 42 percent to 28.6 percent, Education Department records show. Automotive HS in Brooklyn, which de Blasio visited last spring, saw its rate fall from 50.8 percent to 46.9 percent.

But de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña had reason to celebrate.

Graduation rates improved at 24 of the 34 lowperforming high schools in the Renewal program, according to an analysis by the procharter group Families for Excellent Schools.

The average graduation rate for all 34 Renewal high schools was 54.5 percent — an increase of 2.2 points but still below the citywide av erage of 70.5 percent.

Families for Excellent Schools argues that many of these schools should be shut down for such low graduation rates.

“The latest graduation rates show that Mayor de Blasio’s School Renewal program is an abysmal failure,” said the group’s CEO, Jeremiah Kittredge. “By leaving thousands of students behind, the School Renewal program is making New York City’s educational inequality worse.”

But the DOE hailed the findings.

“Barely 50 percent of struggling schools were increasing their graduation rates before this program started, now that number is nearly 70 percent, a nearly 20 percentage point increase in one year,” said spokesman Harry Hartfield.

Among the success stories: Graduation rates jumped 20 points to 63 percent at the Henry Street School on the Lower East Side; 18 points to 69.5 percent at Brooklyn Generation School in Canarsie; 16 points to 44.6 percent at the Coalition School for Social Change in East Harlem; and 10 points to 52.8 percent at Boys and Girls HS in Brooklyn’s BedfordStuyvesant

The mayor is spending $149 million over three years to fix all 94 Renewal schools, which also include elementary and middle schools, before being forced by the state to put them into receivership or close them and potentially replace them with charter schools.