New York City’s Strategy for Improving High Schools

Posted by on March 15, 2010

New York City as a case model for reform

As federal policymakers consider reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, they are looking to districts undergoing major reform to understand implications for supporting and encouraging these reforms at scale, especially at the high school level where need is urgent. The first in a series of policy briefs from the Alliance for Excellent Education looks at the efforts of New York City, a district it calls “extremely relevant” as the nation’s largest and most diverse. New York is notable, the authors write, both for the breadth of the changes implemented and for preliminary indications of success in improving student outcomes. Most promising has been the increase by as much as 15 points of four-year graduation rates since 2002, following a decade of stagnation. The Bloomberg administration undertook several system-wide strategies that have affected all schools and students: bringing coherence to the system; shifting decision-making to the schools; developing and supporting effective teachers and leaders; and holding educators responsible for results. The district-wide changes were supplemented with two specific high school initiatives. First, the NYCDOE aggressively closed the lowest-performing high schools and replaced them with higher-quality options for students. Second, the NYCDOE created new targeted programs and schools to address the needs of over-age and under-credited high school-aged youth.

See the report: http://www.all4ed.org/files/NYCOverviewJan2010.pdf