Requiem for the Renewal schools: What a sad waste of time, money and human lives.
Yesterday, the Mayor and the Chancellor Carranza announced an end to the Renewal program, which has cost the city $773 million since 2014. Since that time, of the 94 schools put on the list by Carmen Farina, nine schools have been merged with other schools, 14 schools have been closed, and 21 schools have improved enough to be renamed “Rise” schools. Fifty schools remain in the program.
While Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said that the Renewal plan an “absolutely appropriate” attempt to address problems “that no one has solved at 100 percent,” I was quoted in the NY Post this way:
Leonie Haimson, founder of the Class Size Matters advocacy group, said, “I feel like I’m watching the same movie for the 1,000th time,” and added that de Blasio’s “approach is just to continue with the same BS.”
“Unless you address these out-of-control class sizes, nothing is going to change,” she said.
The comments made by the Mayor de Blasio and the Chancellor yesterday, and the report released at the same time, provide contradictory and confusing information about whether the program has been successful or has failed, and what if anything will now be changed.
According to the document's properties, the report was written by Greg Anrig, who was formerly at the Century Foundation and is now a “ Content Strategy Manager” at the DOE, whatever that means, according to his twitter profile.
In a NY Times interview, de Blasio admitted the original Renewal plan had been flawed:
“I’m at peace that with the information we had and the structure we had at the time, it was a sensible approach,” he said. But he added, “I would not do it again that way.”
Yet the report itself claims that the Renewal schools have made significant gains in test scores, suspension, attendance and graduation rates than the average NYC public school.
The new DOE report also asserts that education officials have learned important lessons about the flaws of their previous strategy and now know far better how to address the CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Requiem for the Renewal schools: What a sad waste of time, money and human lives.