New Data Brief
The Condition of New York City High Schools: Examining Trends and Looking Toward the Future
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The Condition of NYC High Schools Now Available for Download |
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Until
the turn of the 21st century, high school graduation rates in New York City
hovered at or below 50 percent, much lower than state and national averages.
There was widespread agreement about the need to reform the City’s high schools
and produce better results for students.
On March 27, at an event sponsored and hosted by CUNY’s Institute for Education Policy at the Roosevelt House, Dr. James Kemple presented the Research Alliance's new, independent analysis of how the high school landscape
changed in New York City between 1999 and 2011 and, importantly, the extent to
which key student outcomes improved during that time. Following the
presentation, Dr. Kemple participated in a panel discussion with Jeffrey Henig, Chair of the Department of
Education Policy & Social Analysis at Teachers College, Columbia
University, and Shael Polakow-Suransky, Chief Academic Officer & Senior
Deputy Chancellor for Performance and Accountability, NYC Department of
Education. The panel was moderated by David M. Steiner, Founding Director of
the CUNY Institute for Education Policy at Roosevelt House and the Klara &
Larry Silverstein Dean, Hunter College School of Education.
The Condition of NYC High Schools explores the findings Dr. Kemple presented at the Roosevelt House. It
describes dramatic shifts in the supply of high schools, most notably a trend
toward smaller, more mission-driven schools of choice. It also reports steady
improvement across many indicators of high school performance and engagement,
including attendance, credit accumulation, graduation, and college readiness
rates. The paper highlights stubborn gaps in performance as well—between groups
of students, and between current achievement levels and the aspirations that
the public and school leaders have for New York City high schools. Drawing on
these findings, the paper outlines several directions for future policy and
practice. A set of technical appendices providing more detailed data will
be published in the coming weeks.
This paper is the first in a series
examining the structure and performance of New York City’s high schools. |
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The Research Alliance for New York City Schools is
a non-partisan research center housed at the New York University
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. The
Research Alliance conducts rigorous studies on topics that matter to the
city’s public schools. The organization strives to advance equity and
excellence in education by providing evidence about policies and
practices that promote students' development and academic success.
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Research Alliance Findings at National Conferences
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Lori Nathanson organized a symposium at
the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness conference titled Parts of the Whole: Using Parent, Student, and Teacher
Voices to Understand School Climate. The session
featured three papers (including two by Research Alliance team members) that use
data from the NYC School Survey to highlight different facets and interpretations
of school climate. Also at SREE, Vanessa Coca presented Mapping Pathways to College:
An In-Depth Examination of College Readiness in New York City. More details here.
Two presentations at this past weekend’s annual conference of the Association for
Education Finance and Policy focused on our examination of New York City's high school choice process. Lori Nathanson presented How Low-Achieving Students Fare in the NYC High School
Choice Process, and Christine
Baker-Smith presented Pathways to the Elite:
Application, Admission, and Matriculation to New York City’s Specialized High
Schools. Both papers were co-authored with Sean Corcoran (NYU). More details here.
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