Long Island Report: More than 109,000 Students Currently Enrolled in New York’s 178 Failing Schools

The administration of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today issued a report detailing the crisis of failing schools in New York State. According to the report:

• The State currently has 178 failing schools.
• There are more than 109,000 students currently enrolled in New York’s 178 failing schools.
• 77 of these schools have been failing for 10 years, with more than 250,000 students passing through these schools while New York State government has done nothing.
• Statewide, more than 9 out of 10 students in failing schools are minority or poor.
• While the education bureaucracy demands more and more money, the reality is school districts with failing schools have statewide seen an average 13.8 percent increase in funding over the past three years, and continued to fail.

The full report can be found here: https://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/governor.ny.gov/files/atoms/files/NYSFailingSchoolsReport.pdf

The below chart provides details on failing schools on Long Island, including the consecutive years failing, the state aid increase over the past four years, and the members of the State Legislature that represent each school.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said: “This is the real scandal in Albany, the alarming fact that state government has stood by and done nothing as generation after generation of students have passed through failing schools. This report underscores the severity and shocking nature of this problem. The time is now for the State Legislature to act and do something about this problem so we no longer are condemning our children to failing schools.”

What is a failing school?

According to the report, a school is designated as “failing” if they are in the bottom 5 percent of schools statewide based on combined ELA and math scores, are not showing progress in test performance, or have graduation rates that are below 60 percent for the last three years.

The average graduation rates and test scores at failing schools are:

• 46.6 percent graduation rate (compared to a statewide average of 76.4 percent)
• 6.2 percent of students in grades 3-8 are proficient in math (compared to a statewide average of 35.8 percent)
• 5.9 percent of students in grades 3-8 are proficient in ELA (compared to a statewide average of 31.4 percent)

What is the Governor proposing to fix this?

To address this problem, the Governor is proposing a model that worked in Massachusetts, where when a school fails for 3 years, a nonprofit, another school district, or a turnaround expert must take over the school. When this model was used in a large school district in Massachusetts, the following results were seen:

• Graduation rates increased from 52% to 67%
• Math proficiency improved from 28% to 41%
• The dropout rate decreased by nearly 50%

More information on the Governor's proposal is available here: https://www.ny.gov/2015-opportunity-agenda/education-great-equalizer-0#transform-failing-schools