Have Charter Schools In New York City Achieved their Promise?

Although charter schools have operated in New York State since 1998, their effectiveness continues to be disputed. A recent New York Times article, “New York City Schools Face a Crisis, Charter Schools Gain Students, points out, “As traditional public schools in the nation’s largest system endure a perilous period of student loss and funding shortfalls, […]

A Closer Look at Student Performance in Upstate City Schools

Parents in central cities seeking good educations for their children face the disconcerting reality that relatively few city school children pass standardized tests required by New York State, suggesting that the schools are failing. In Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse and Schenectady, less than 20% of students passed state required English Language Arts and Mathematics exams in 2016 […]

Rochester’s Broken School System

Kent Gardner argues forcefully in the Rochester Beacon that Rochester’s school system is broken and in need of radical change. Gardner’s post highlights the efforts of a local organization, ROC the Future, to bring about reform of the city’s school system. Gardner is correct – students in the city’s schools do poorly compared to others […]

Can Charter Schools break the Poverty-Poor Student Performance Link?

In an earlier post, I argued that school based solutions to the problem of the poor performance of students in central city schools were not likely to succeed because they ignored the impact of the concentration of disadvantaged students on student achievement. The data showed that 79% of the variation in performance in school performance […]