For Immediate Release: Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Contact: B. Jason Brooks, Director of Research and Communications

(518) 383-2598

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The State Education Department today released data on high school graduation rates and college preparedness that show New York high schools to be woefully inadequate at providing the education our students need.

B. Jason Brooks, Director of Research for the Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability, released the following statements in response:

Questionable Value of a High School Diploma

“A high school diploma in New York unfortunately is far from an indicator of students being adequately prepared for a career or college.  All New Yorkers should question the real value of a high school diploma when half of the students receiving them will require remedial education in college.  The racial education gap remains appallingly alive and well, too, when 4-year graduation rates of students ready for college are examined.  Despite all of the rhetoric we’ve heard over the years about raising graduation standards, it has taken until now for the state to actually come clean about the abhorrently high rate at which students are graduating insufficiently prepared for the future.”

Outcomes on the “Aspirational Performance Measures” released today:

Graduates Requiring Remedial Coursework in College*

NYS Total         49.9%

Black                77.8%

Hispanic           74.0%

White               39.8%

*Statewide Graduation Rate = 73.4%

Upstate Getting ‘Left Behind’; Expansion of Mayoral Control Needed

“Upstate New York’s urban school children are getting left behind.  While New York City and Yonkers both have 4-year graduation rates greater than 60 percent, all three upstate large urban districts – Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse — failed to graduate even half of their cohorts.  It’s not a coincidence and it shouldn’t be lost on state policy makers that New York City and Yonkers have mayoral control over their school systems, while the lagging upstate districts continue to be run by dysfunctional school boards overseeing systems that have failed students for decades.  Governor Cuomo stated earlier this year, ‘I like mayoral control, because it brings accountability to a bureaucracy.  Somebody’s in charge.  Somebody has to be in charge.  When nobody’s in charge, that’s a problem.’  New York’s graduation rates are an additional indicator that making mayors accountable for the quality of education in their cities work, and such policies should be expanded to all large urban school districts statewide.”

4-Year Graduation Rates for the Big 5 School Districts

NYC             61.0%

Yonkers         63.2%

Rochester       46.1%

Syracuse         45.9%

Buffalo:          47.4%

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The Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability (FERA) is an independent, nonprofit, research organization dedicated to improving education in New York State by promoting accountability, stimulating innovation, and supporting school-choice efforts across the state