Team de Blasio regularly runs the troubled Renewal Schools program through the wash, rinse and spin cycles to wring out something resembling good news — but the reality remains stained and tattered.
The latest spin from the Department of Education: Look! Renewal high schools improved their graduation rates last year!
For starters, 11 of the 31 schools saw their graduation rates drop. And the 20 schools whose rates improved — from 52.1 percent in 2014 to 59 percent for 2016 — are still far below the citywide average, 70.5 percent.
And along with that seven-point rise was a drop in enrollment of nearly 10,000 students in the same two-year span.
Note that Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña and her crew suggest the enrollment drop was planned. Funny: We don’t recall them announcing those plans in advance — whereas it’s easy to see why parents would pull their kids out of these failure factories.
In any case, graduation rates only tell part of the tale: How much are these diplomas worth? Let’s look at DOE data on “college and career readiness” of the new grads.
Oops: A majority of Renewal schools saw a decline in college readiness, from already-rotten rates. The average of all Renewal high schools fell from 13 percent to under 12 percent, with many schools in the single digits.
We don’t mean to knock the achievement of the kids who managed to actually learn at these schools. And we’re sure some Renewal teachers work their hearts out.
But the Renewal program as a whole isn’t doing the job — and it’s Mayor de Blasio’s signature effort in K-12 education, his alternative to the Bloomberg tack of closing failed schools to open new ones in their place.
Renewal provides schools the state deems “persistently struggling” with extra hours of instruction, social services and teacher development — which is supposed to turn them around in three years. So far, miracles have been few and far between.
It’s long past time for de Blasio to come up with something better.
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