Blas, Admit Failure
Close Renewal-school program and try again
MAYOR de Blasio doesn’t seem to understand the importance of a college education for New York City’s kids. And that may explain why his Renewal-schools program is such a failure, as The Post documented in its multi-part series this week.
“High-school graduation, per se,” he said last month, “is a goal unto itself. Graduating high school has real value. For a lot of young people, that may be the end of their education. They can still go forward with a highschool degree and find good opportunities.”
The mayor was answering a reporter’s question about the city’s shamefully low college-readiness rates among high-school graduates: Just 37 percent are properly prepared college when they leave the public schools.
But his attitude isn’t just callous — it’s dangerous. Instead of doing what it takes to make sure students are prepared for college, he’s more focused on shutting down criticism of his education policy.
Low college-readiness rates should be something the leader of the nation’s largest school district views as a crisis, not something he breezily brushes aside while students pay the price.
Think about it: More than 95 percent of the jobs created in the last eight years went to people with some education beyond high school. If de Blasio wants to make things right for kids, he needs to take real steps to address this crisis, starting with his failed Renewal- school program.
In November 2014, Mayor de Blasio launched the Renewal school program, vowing to fix 94 of the city’s worst-performing schools within three years. Nearly three years later, as The Post has shown, the program has done almost nothing for the high-needs communities it’s supposed to serve.
Only three of the original 94 schools reached all of their benchmarks for improvement last year, and 17 were shut down or slated to be closed or merged with another school.
The rest remain open, trapping thousands of low-income students of color, while failing to give them an education that prepares them for college. According to state data, only 16.5 percent of Renewal-school graduates are college ready.
The mayor’s insistence on sticking with his Renewal schools dashes any hope that the young people who go to them will reach their full potential.
As someone who has gone through the city’s schools and experienced their challenges, I’m heartbroken over this.
When I was growing up in the South Bronx, I watched hundreds of my classmates get let down. Our schools failed to help them when they struggled or encouraged them when they showed promise.
Many were told the same thing de Blasio is wrongly telling kids to- day: College isn’t attainable you, and isn’t necessary.
The path I took was different. I beat the odds, attending John Jay College and Rutgers University School of Social Work. College helped me discover and pursue my passion for social justice. It paved the way to my current role as the director of operations at a local nonprofit that helps homeless families.
I love what I do and feel extremely lucky that I went to college. I want others in my community to have the same opportunities. I want stories like mine to be the rule, not the exception, and there’s no reason this can’t be the case here in New York. De Blasio has the power to change the status quo and insist that college be a reality for all the city’s kids.
He can start by holding himself accountable for setting low expectations — and apologize to our families. He needs a plan to move forward, beginning by accepting that his Renewal initiative has failed and shutting down the remaining schools in the program.
He’ll also need to ensure that students at these schools have access to better options when they leave. Finally, he’ll need to stress that
every child can go to college, encourage them to do so and ensure they’re educationally prepared for it when they graduate.
Only through such steps will he finally do right by New York City families and earn their respect and gratitude. for