NY’s class-iest neighborhoods

Where kids live key to HS grad rates

City high-school graduation rates vary dramatically by neighborhood, from 95 percent in trendy communities like Soho to just 61 percent in blighted corners of The Bronx, according to newly released data.

Disparities in four-year graduations persist despite an open-choice model, where students can attend high schools outside their immediate vicinity, according to a study conducted by the nonpartisan Measure of America research group.

“After more than a decade of universal school choice, a child’s community district is still highly associated with his or her likelihood of graduating high school in four years,” the study found.

“Only about six in 10 publicschool students who live in Morris Heights, Fordham South and Mount Hope in The Bronx graduate high school in four years,” the report notes. “Well over nine in 10 students who set out every weekday from Manhattan’s Battery Park City, Greenwich Village, Soho and Tribeca do.”

Bronx District 5, which encompasses Morris Heights, Fordham South and Mount Hope, had the lowest graduation rate in the city at 60.9 percent, the report says.

Manhattan Districts 1 and 2, which include Battery Park City, Greenwich Village and Soho, had the top rate at 95.1 percent, the study shows.

The study found that childpoverty rates, overall household income, parental-education levels and enrollment in subsi- dized-meal programs all sharply impacted graduation rates.

“Is the collective investment in time, stress and financial resources required by the highschool choice process worth it?” the report asks. “The evidence suggests not.”

If school choice had a significant impact on graduation rates, “one would expect to find a weak relationship between the neighborhood in which a high-school student lives and his or her like- lihood of graduating in four years,” the report concludes.

One of the authors, Kristen Lewis, said open choice did allow for some individual success stories where especially motivated students excelled in a distant school district.

But as a rule, the open system appeared to have little statistical impact on graduation rates by area.

“Neighborhood is still an extremely powerful predictor of academic outcomes,” Lewis said.