This is what school reform looks like in New York City after ten years of mayoral control.
In nearly 200 of the city’s 1,500 schools, at least 90 percent of the students are below the poverty line.
Four out of five of these schools have disproportionate concentrations of students who are limited English proficient or special education.
Only 31 percent of the students in these high-needs schools passed the state reading test, as compared to 47 percent citywide.
Only 45 percent of the students in these high-needs schools passed the state math tests, compared to 60 percent citywide.
Chancellor Dennis Walcott responded: “I know schools that have a variety of percentages of students, through over-the-counter or special ed or English language learners, who are knocking the socks off the ball.”
According to the NY1 story, the chancellor is referring to 21 of the high-needs schools that beat the odds. That’s 6 percent.
Next time you hear someone from the New York City Department of Education boasting about the “miracle” of mayoral control, think about these children.
Next time they tell you that “poverty is not destiny,” ask them about these schools and what the DOE did to change the odds.
After ten years of mayoral control, who will be held accountable for the system’s inability or unwillingness to meet the needs of these students?
A reader sent this analysis of the city’s data:
A recent story in NY1 examined New York City schools where 90% of the students are below the poverty line. NYC School Chancellor, Dennis Walcott, was quoted as saying that there are schools “who are knocking the socks off the ball.”
We took a careful look at the 2010-11 New York City data on elementary and middle schools and identified 153 schools where 90+% of students were eligible for free lunch. Of those schools only 3 were in the top half of the city in Math and English as calculated by the New York City progress report. PS 134 and PS 130 in Brooklyn and PS 002 in Manhattan were in the top half of students scoring at or above grade level in Math and English. In other words less than 2% of high poverty schools beat the city average and, unfortunately, not by much. In English for example the highest school was at the 65th percentile.
| School | ELA % Level 3 or 4 City Percent of Range |
| PS 134 | 64.4% |
| PS 002 | 52.1% |
| PS 130 | 51.6% |
Digging deeper we noticed that all of these 3 schools have higher levels of student movement out of the school (ranging from 20-12% of the student population) than most elementary schools. This raises questions about how the high scores are generated. Additionally, one is not making AYP for English Language Learners.
New York City’s own data shows that schools with high concentrations of poor students are not knocking the socks off of any balls. Perhaps the Chancellor should stop spending time inventing new idioms (one knocks the cover off of balls and socks off of people, although one can sock a ball over the fence) and should start paying attention to his own data. Making up numbers and success stories will not improve schools for kids. Figuring out the supports and services that would help high poverty schools might.
Anyone?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You go, Walnut Head Homunculus Mayor 4 Life. BTW, balls don’t wear socks.
And pineapples don’t have sleeves
Diane Ravitch
I loved the mixed metaphor Walcott uses. Knocking the socks off the ball. I think that line was in the Pineapple and the Hare story as answer choice “C” for Question 6.
This record is a disgrace, but the corporate media at the Times, the Post, and the News are happy to tout Bloomberg’s education miracle despite clear evidence that his education policies have been very harmful to students and schools. And Joel Klein still gets feted in the media whenever his education record comes up – let’s not forget, much of what we read in the NY1 story is Klein’s doing.
How does one break through the disconnect between how the media portrays something and reality? We see this problem with Michelle Rhee too – she’s treated as royalty in the media instead of scrutinized.
A fraud with money and power is still a fraud, but they are never questioned. They can’t fool everyone forever….I have to believe it will start to crumble.
I’ve worked with low-SES students in several settings during the years that I’ve been teaching. The amazing thing to me is that there are a few simple interventions that seem to support better achievement for children in poverty. My results are anecdotal and observational but also tied to test scores in my classes which have been better than I expected.
1. All students need to have basic skills before they can make adequate academic progress. This means making sure they have basic reading and computational skills. Regardless of social promotion, students need to be able to read on grade level, and teachers must make sure that instruction begins at their entry points and builds from there. Intensive, regularly assessed, appropriate instruction works.
2. Often student progress is stymied by a home environment that doesn’t provide support for practicing skills and extending literacy. When this happens, schools can and should simply extend the day for these students by requiring them to remain after school hours to do what others do in more supportive home environments. I’ve found that when school administration makes it possible for me to do this, students step up. I tell them that failure is not an option for them, and they will do the work in class/home or they will do it with me outside of class. This can mean a working lunch or after school. I am constantly amazed by the students who come through once they realize that I’m determined not to let them fail.
I realize that these two suggestions seem obvious. I am amazed, however, by the difficulty of having these two simple interventions put into place. Teachers plow on through curriculum with little attention to student skill levels hoping that remedial classes will take care of problems. Remedial classes aren’t linked effectively with the rest of the school program, and efficacy for students is not effectively examined. We are told that poor students can’t stay after school because they need to work or babysit even though the study time missed will guarantee their being frozen in poverty. No one can/will make sure students attend extra class time. The frustrating part of this is that I’ve seen many low-SES students significantly improve with just these two interventions.
I understand that in our district that we use extended hours for kids needing additional academic support, and those are good, but that administration does not have the power under our state ed code to compel a student to attend the extended hours.
That’s generally true, and the students who voluntarily come in are not usually the ones who are in the greatest need. Nevertheless, many parents might support their failing students having some mandated extended days if teachers and staff pressed them–again, with the urgency of preventing their failure. Not all such parents can or will support this, but many of the parents I’ve talked with want the school to do whatever is necessary to get their students to succeed. Many immigrant families come from countries where teachers and schools take a much more muscular approach than we do here and with far fewer resources.
Evidently, they want to destroy special education in NYC, with a full-inclusion model, in addition to destroying regular ed.
I know it’s common all over the US, but it still appalls me that we have so many schools with over 90% free and reduced lunch populations. 1/4 of all our kids below the poverty line, an income that is ridiculously low. I don’t get why Americans aren’t up in arms about this.
They’ve literally been brainwashed with the advent of the boob tube and those who would use said medium for nefarious purposes.