Fourteen New York City schools landed on the state’s list of “schools under registration review,” the state education department announced today.
That’s down four from last year, after three city schools were added to the list this year but seven schools were removed. Schools are placed on the SURR list if their English and math scores on state exams are farthest from a state-set standard, prompting the threat of closure if the schools do not improve.
The three schools added to the list this year are all high schools, Washington Irving High School, the School for Global Studies and the Grace H. Dodge Career and Technology High School. All seven of the city schools removed from the list are elementary and middle schools.
“The SURR process has served New York well, particularly in terms of improving English and math results in the lowest performing elementary and middle schools,” State Education Commissioner David Steiner said in a statement. “Now we must align SURR with the process we’ve created for identifying and helping the Persistently Lowest Achieving schools. Doing so will focus greater attention on those schools that have had unacceptably low graduation rates for many years.”
The state’s list of “persistently lowest achieving” schools, which it announced in January, singled out the bottom 5 percent of schools to target for replacement or closure. Nearly 60 schools statewide — primarily high schools with low graduation rates — landed on that list, including 34 New York City schools.