“Just for the breath of life I thank my Maker.” John Legend featuring Common, Wake Up Everybody, 2012
The November 21-November 27 edition of The New York Amsterdam News features a pullout advertisement by the NYC Department of Education. Entitled Public School Press the publication trumpeted academic outcomes claims resulting from city policies of the past twelve years:
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Small[er] high schools have helped improve graduation rates by 39% while the dropout rate has been sliced in half
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For eight straight years greater than 80% of students have been matched to one of their top five high school choices
Those stats are interesting to me and, if true, impressive. With the closure of so many schools, displacement of students throughout the boroughs and chaos for parents over the past decade plus I do wonder how those results can be so good.
But education reporting has become a hobby of mine and I’m willing to give Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott the benefit of the doubt on these numbers. It will be interesting however to analyze the final tally of the Bloomberg/NYC DOE legacy.
Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised and our young Black males will come out ahead on this one.
It’s time for a significant win.
“Signed…An Educated Brother!”
aneducatedbrother 