The Research Alliance for New York City Schools

Summary
February 2011

High School Research Colloquium

Learning from New York Citys Portfolio Strategy: How Policy and Practice Can Inform Research Summary of Key Themes
The Research Alliance for New York City Schools

Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development 2011 Research Alliance for New York City Schools. All rights reserved. You may make copies of and distribute this work for noncommercial educational and scholarly purposes. For any other uses, including the making of derivative works, permission must be obtained from RANYCS, unless fair use exceptions to copyright law apply.

Acknowledgements

The High School Research Colloquium was made possible by support from the Future of Children Journal and Education Research Section at Princeton University.

The Research Alliance for New York City Schools is supported by core funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Robertson Foundation.

This paper reflects interpretations of the Research Alliance. Readers should not infer any endorsement of the themes or interpretations on the part of the New York City Department of Education, ERS, The Future of Children, or the participants in the High School Research Colloquium.

Introduction
On November 18, 2010, the Research Alliance for New York City Schools, in partnership with the Future of Children Journal, hosted a research colloquium entitled Learning from New York Citys Portfolio Strategy: How Policy and Practice can Inform Research. Over the past eight years, the New York City Department of Education (DOE) has made substantial investments in improving the quality of its high schools, and is currently preparing the next phase of its high school portfolio strategy to improve student performance in the lowest performing high schools.1 Given the breadth of the proposed portfolio reforms and the intended scale of their implementation, it seemed imperative that stakeholders convene to discuss the implementation and effectiveness of the portfolio strategy. To that end, this colloquium provided a unique opportunity for policymakers and practitioners to suggest how research could inform the ongoing high school reform process in New York City. Attendees represented various sectors of the New York City education stakeholder community, including the Department of Education, the research community, community organizations, philanthropic institutions, and high school principals. The colloquium was organized around three different panels. The first presented a descriptive account of past, present, and future iterations of recent reforms and offered a comparative look at portfolio strategies in other urban school districts. The second panel examined current research on high school reform, with a particular focus on a single aspect of the portfolio strategy the impact of new small schools over the last decade. The third panel was comprised of high school principals and provided a sense of both the challenges and opportunities of the portfolio strategy at the school level. The purpose of this summary report is to highlight some of the key cross-cutting themes that emerged from the panel presentations and subsequent discussions. The event also generated a number of critical research questions about external supports, accountability systems, and closing schools that could help shape the work of the Research Alliance and other researchers examining New York City high school reform.

Emerging Themes and Questions for Research

The colloquium provided an open platform for various education stakeholders to discuss high school reform from their respective vantage points. The panelists generated broad ways of thinking about the impact of the high school portfolio strategy and speculated about the ways empirical researchers could help measure implementation, effectiveness, and costs. The following is a discussion of the most salient themes that emerged from the colloquium, including directions for future research.

For an expanded description of the portfolio strategy, please see the background paper prepared for the colloquium, Research Alliance for New York City Schools, 2010. Learning from the New York City Portfolio Strategy: How Policy and Practice Can Inform Research, Background Paper. http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/research_alliance/publications#2010ResearchColloquium

The roles of networks and external supports in turning around low-performing schools The NYC reform strategy attempts to provide principals with greater local autonomy and empowerment. According to a research panelist2 examining portfolio strategies nationwide, reform in New York City is based on the assumption that autonomy is the driver for positive change. As a result, todays principals are faced with new responsibilities and are required to engage in tasks not traditionally performed by principals, such as balancing budgets and making complex human resource decisions. At the same time, principals must comply with mandates from central administration regarding student and school performance. Though the system has devolved a great deal of authority to principals, some aspects of school governance are increasingly centralized. Panelists noted this tension between local autonomy and central mandates. In response, some panelists posited that networks have become increasingly important as intermediaries between these levels of administration. They reasoned that since the role of this generation of principals has changed, so too has the level of support they require. The success of external supports, networks, and partnerships at assisting principles varies, and the factors associated with that success remain unclear. One panelist suggested that the effectiveness of a network is sizedependent, and that a network of 15-25 schools is optimal to support schools efficiently without losing the individual attention required by each school. Implications for Research: Questions remain about how network support helps schools create conditions for success. How should we understand and evaluate the role of external supports in enhancing the capacity of individual schools to deliver high-quality education? How are networks important to the critical decisions schools are facing? To what extent do principals choose their own network or partners? How does network support translate into the everyday work of schools? The impact of student composition on accountability and the breadth and depth of student performance measures An important feature of the portfolio strategy is increased accountability. Schools are now evaluated on a number of different measures and with a variety of tools including Quality Reviews, NYC Learning Environment Surveys, and Progress Reports. The portfolio strategy also involves identifying and intervening with chronically low performing schools using one of several school turnaround strategies. These strategies include phasing out the underperforming school and reconstituting it by replacing the schools leader and up to half of its teaching staff. Principal panelists raised concerns about the high stakes of these accountability standards, especially given the relationship between school performance and student composition. Principals argued that the high performance of some schools could be explained by selective admission policies, while the low performance of others could be explained by a concentration of high-needs students. Panelists discussed the possibility of creating more
2

To ensure maximal information and perspective sharing, the Research Alliance agreed to maintain the anonymity of the sources of comments and perspectives provided during the colloquium

targeted incentives for schools to serve high-need students, thereby helping to mitigate the system-wide disparities. One participant said, We need to get principals to demand the right to serve low-functioning students. There was also a great deal of interest in expanding accountability measures beyond test scores and graduation rates to include post-secondary metrics that would capture college and career readiness. Other proposed measures of school performance included tracking the academic progress of over-aged, under-credited students, ELL students, special education students, and students classified as both ELL and special ed. Implications for Research: Examining these issues may require that researchers look at the performance of certain student groups across the system in addition to their performance in individual schools. If high-needs students are concentrated in certain schools or community districts, are current metrics adequate to capture the inherent challenges these schools face? How can this group be more equitably distributed and better served across the system? What is the impact of selective admissions policies and what are the implications of student attrition in certain schools? How can the peer index be strengthened to capture whether peer schools are really comparable in terms of their student enrollment? The costs and benefits of closing high schools for students, staff, and communities The model for the DOEs proposed turnaround process was developed and refined between 2003 and 2009 when 33 schools were either closed or scheduled for closure by the DOE. DOE primarily closed high schools that were located in poor neighborhoods and had graduation rates that were lower than 45 percent. For the most part, large underperforming high schools were closed through a gradual phasing-out process, in which schools graduated existing cohorts of students but did not enroll new cohorts of ninth grade students. Colloquium participants raised questions about the specific criteria are used to identify schools for closure, the costs and effectiveness of closure, and the process of identifying the appropriate type of school or schools that replace the closing school. A more comprehensive closure plan might also consider what communities have at stake in their local schools outside of students academic growth in terms of health, safety, shelter, and a supportive community. While rigorous evidence is now available about the impact of the new small schools that have been created over the past eight years, little is known about the impact of closing the large comprehensive high schools they replaced. Implications for Research: Research on high school closure would examine its impact on student achievement, the students experiences in both their pre- and post-closure school environments, and the potential costs and benefits of closing a high school. What criteria are used to identify schools for closure? What is the impact of closing a high school on students enrolled at the time the school is targeted for closure? What is the impact of closing a high school on students who would have been likely to enroll in the school had it remained open? What is the impact of closing a high school on teachers and local communities? Factors that account for the success of new small schools

Since 2002, the DOE has opened over 200 smaller schools. New small schools developed gradually by enrolling an additional cohort of students each year. These new small schools frequently occupy a floor or wing in an old, large high school. Researchers from both NYC and Chicago presented evidence on the success of new small schools. Evidence from a rigorous evaluation of New York Citys small schools of choice (SSCs) showed that these new schools produce sizable improvements in students performance and progress toward graduation. These strong effects and the implementation challenges highlighted by both the NYC and Chicago experiences calls for a deeper exploration of small schools and further exploration of the specific elements that contribute to their success. There was a collective call to break apart the SSC package by identifying which small schools have an impact and why. Participants proposed several specific features of small schools to study, including theme, types of support, leadership philosophy, and staff recruitment and training. Implications for Research: What specific practices contribute to the success of small schools? What role does an effective learning environment play in the effectiveness of a school? Can differences in the estimated impacts of SSCs on student outcomes be accounted for by varying histories and operational approaches? In what ways does the operation of highly effective small schools differ from that of less effective small schools and large comprehensive high schools?

Wrap up
By bringing together leaders in education research, advocacy, policy and practice, the Research Alliance created a forum to explore what researchers currently know and do not know about high school reform and about portfolio strategies in particular. Further, we hoped to begin to design a collective research agenda that can help inform the next phase of the DOEs high school reform efforts. The high school research colloquium provided an opportunity to do both by challenging various stakeholders to raise key questions that could be explored empirically. The topics explored and research questions proposed here speak to our collective interests in serving New York City schools and students more effectively and equitably.

About The Research Alliance for New York City Schools

Mission
The Research Alliance for New York City Schools is a non-partisan research center that is committed to conducting, supporting, and disseminating rigorous research for and about New York City Schools. Our research and dissemination activities aim to support the search for effective school improvement strategies and to build capacity in schools to implement those strategies so that all young people have access to a high quality education.

Governance Board
William G. Bowen, Co-Chair President Emeritus, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Luis Garden Acosta Founder/President & Chief Executive Officer, El Puente Chung-Wha Hong Executive Director, The New York Immigration Coalition Robert L. Hughes President, New Visions for Public Schools Augusta Kappner President Emeritus, Bank Street College of Education Joel Klein, ex-officio member Chancellor, New York City Department of Education Kathryn S. Wylde, Co-Chair President & Chief Executive Officer, Partnership for New York City Mickey O. Levy Chief Economist, Bank of America

Ernest Logan President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators David W. McLaughlin, ex-officio member Provost, New York University Michael Mulgrew President, United Federation of Teachers

Executive Director
James J. Kemple New York University

The Research Alliance for New York City Schools

Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development

285 Mercer Street, 3rd Floor New York, New York 10003-9502 (212)992-7697 research.alliance@nyu.edu www.steinhardt.nyu.edu/research_alliance

NOT FOR CITATION OR DISTRIBUTION

Learning from New York Citys Portfolio Strategy: How Policy and Practice Can Inform Research A Colloquium Background Paper

Sponsored by: The Research Alliance for New York City Schools, New York University and The Future of Children Journal and the Education Research Section at Princeton University

Overview 1 This colloquium has its roots in the commitment of the Research Alliance for New York City Schools to conducting rigorous research that helps inform the development, implementation and evaluation of the New York City Department of Educations (DOE) efforts to provide all students with a quality high school education. Currently, the DOE is preparing to begin its next phase of its high school portfolio strategy to improve student performance in the lowest performing high schools. Given the breadth of the proposed portfolio reforms, and the intended scale of their implementation, it is imperative that stakeholders convene to discuss how to best help the DOE evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the portfolio strategy. This is the central objective of the colloquium: to draw on the expertise of practitioners, researchers and policymakers to inform the research that we will collectively produce related to these imminent reforms. To facilitate these conversations, we present a brief overview of the recent history of New York City portfolio reforms, introduce a conceptual framework of the portfolio approach to high school reform, and identify a few potential research topics and questions related to the strategys objectives. In doing so, we hope to begin the colloquium with a common conceptual orientation to the portfolio strategy and to prompt participants to consider the role that they and we, the Research Alliance, might play in providing the DOE with constructive feedback about the implementation and effectiveness of these reforms. Background: NYC High School Reforms During the Children First Era Over the past eight years, with support from private foundations, the federal government, and state and local resources, the DOE has made substantial investments in improving the quality of its high schools. Over this time period, the DOE has employed numerous strategies for improving high school performance, including: phasing out persistently low-achieving, large comprehensive high schools and replacing them with smaller schools; creating a choice-based high school application and student assignment process; opening multiple pathways to graduation and post-secondary professional opportunities; enhancing graduation requirements; providing schools with increased autonomy over decisions regarding their budgets and sources of support; and employing a wide range of intermediary organizations to guide high school creation and improvement efforts. These reforms have reshaped the landscape of NYC high schools. In the 2008-09 school year, there were approximately 425 schools serving high school students in 32 districts and five boroughs (See Table 1). This is in contrast to the mere 224 schools that existed in 2002. 2 The DOE closed over 20 large underperforming high schools and opened over 200 smaller schools
1

This paper provides background for the Research Alliance for New York City Schools Colloquium Learning from New York Citys Portfolio Strategy: How policy and practice can inform research. As such, the paper reflects the Research Alliance interpretation of recent and current policy of the New York City Department of Education (DOE). This paper is neither endorsed by the DOE nor should it be interpreted as an official account of DOE policies and frameworks. 2 Based on a Research Alliance calculation using JForm data from the DOE, http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/data/stats/Register/default.htm.

since 2002. The DOE primarily closed high schools that were located in poor neighborhoods and had graduation rates that were lower than 45 percent. For the most part, large underperforming high schools were closed through a gradual phasing-out process, in which schools graduated existing cohorts of students but did not enroll new, entering cohorts of ninth grade students. New small schools, which the DOE was opening simultaneously, developed gradually by enrolling an additional cohort of students each year. These new small schools frequently occupied a floor or wing in an old, large high school. During this same period, the DOE created a number of high schools and high school-based programs to address the needs of over-aged and under-credited students, many of whom may have otherwise dropped out. These schools and programs, commonly referred to as multiple pathways, included transfer schools, Young Adult Borough Centers (YABCs) and GED programs. By design, transfer schools are small, academically rigorous, full-time high schools designed to re-engage students who are off-track or have dropped out of traditional NYC high schools. In order to attend a transfer school, students must have been previously enrolled in an NYC public high school for at least one year and have amassed too few credits to qualify for grade-level promotion; students typically enter transfer schools at age 16 to 17 with fewer than 10 credits. By comparison, YABCs are intended to be small, community-based programs that offer evening academic programs to students who have been in high school for at least four years and have attained a minimum of 17 credits. YABCs are designed to meet the needs of high school students whose adult responsibilities make it difficult for them to attend school during the day. Finally, GED programs limit enrollment to students who are 18-years-old or older, with exceptions granted on a case-by-case basis. These programs are designed to help students attain their GED and to prepare them for successful post-secondary education. There is some evidence that these reforms, in combination with those implemented across NYC elementary and middle schools, have begun to pay off: After remaining nearly flat for well over a decade, NYCs graduation rates have increased by 12.5 percentage points, from 46.5 percent for the class of 2005 to 59 percent for the class of 2009. Including students who finished their requirements in the summer of 2009, the 2009 graduation rate is at an all time high of 63 percent. In 2009, more students met the stringent criteria for a Regents diploma, which requires higher scores on the State end-of-course exams. Specifically, 44.6 percent of the class of 2009 earned a Regents or Advanced Regents diploma, compared with 30 percent of the class of 2005. 3

At the same time, however, graduation rates for other urban districts in New York State have also been rising, suggesting that some of the improvement in the Citys graduation rates is likely
3

Based on the New York State method for the calculation of the graduation rate. According to the NYCDOE, NY State defines graduates as those students earning either a Local or Regents diploma. These figures exclude those earning either a special education (IEP) diploma or GED, which are included in the citys traditional calculation (see Tables 2 and 3). See: http://schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/Reports/Data/Graduation/GRAD_RATES_2009_HIGHLIGHTS.pdf.

to be an artifact of other federal or state policies and reforms. In a recent study, Kemple (forthcoming) attempted to account for these and other external factors in order to isolate the effect of reforms that were specific to NYC during the Children First era (2003-2010). This analysis yields evidence that Children First reforms did produce improvements in graduation rates. Graduation rates for NYC outpaced those of the estimated counterfactual; however, the difference in graduation rates was statistically significant only for the class of 2009 (a seven percentage point difference). See Tables 2 and 3 for more information about graduation rates in New York City over the past several years. A number of recent studies (e.g. Fancsali et al., 2010 and Foley, 2010) examine specific NYC high school reform initiatives, such as creating new small schools or providing new opportunities for training school leaders. In their study of the impact of the NYC small schools of choice (SSC), Bloom, Thompson, and Unterman (2010) found significant positive effects on four measures: the two components of the ninth grade on-track indicator (whether students earned 10 or more credits and whether they failed more than one semester of a core subject), total credits earned towards graduation, and regular attendance rate (90 percent or higher). The findings from this study indicated that, by the end of the first year, target SSC enrollees had earned an average of 11.3 credits, compared to the 10.4 credits earned by their control group counterparts. Fourth-year findings indicated that SSCs increase overall graduation rates by 6.8 percentage points, from 61.9 percent for control-group counterparts to 68.7 percent for target SSC enrollees. The reform efforts that brought about these changes do not, at least from the outside, seem to have been implemented as part of a cohesive strategy. Rather, it appears that a combination of public monies and support from external partners were directed at a range of loosely connected programs aimed at helping NYC high school students who were at risk of academic failure. The DOE intends for its next phase of portfolio reform to be built on a more coherent and efficient strategy, which will incorporate and build upon many of the core interventions and supports that have been developed over the past eight years. Thus, researchers will have a unique opportunity to study the implementation and effectiveness of the strategy over the next five years. At the advent of implementing the next phase of its high school reforms, the DOE faces both opportunities and challenges. The DOE has the political and financial support of the federal government and of other urban educators committed to pursuing similar reform efforts (Hill et al., 2009). However, the DOE faces a much more challenging economic context, which could place limitations on upcoming reforms. Private funding is not as readily available as it was in the past, and the enactment of new state and local laws regulating high school closure which call for greater public engagement in the process makes it more difficult to close failing high schools. These circumstances prompted Hill and his co-authors to wonder, Can portfolio implementation be sustained after the events that originally precipitated the reform have long passed and the originatorsleave the scene? (Hill et al. 2009, p41).

The Portfolio Strategy The DOEs portfolio strategy attempts to identify the Citys lowest performing schools, intervene with different school turnaround strategies, and then support these interventions with a wide range of external and internal partnerships and resources. The ultimate goal of the portfolio strategy is to improve critical outcomes for the Citys high school students. Since 2002 the graduation rate has increased on average about 2 percentage points a year. If the reforms continue to be successful, then the graduation rate for the class of 2015 would be nearly 75 percent, a considerable goal for any urban school district in the United States. Implicit in the portfolio strategys overarching goal is the assumption that improvements in various aspects of under-performing high schools learning environments will have direct, beneficial effects on important student outcomes. For the purposes of our discussion in the colloquium, we frame the central goal of the portfolio turnaround strategy as building the capacity to improve school learning environments. Figure 1 presents a conceptual framework that attempts to capture the core elements of the portfolio strategy. While the figure is a simplification of the portfolio strategy, we present it here as a heuristic for understanding the portfolios components and processes and, more importantly, to highlight key areas for potential research, which we will discuss during the colloquium. We should note that this model, like the DOEs portfolio strategy in general, is similar to reform efforts in other urban districts, such as Chicago, New Orleans and Philadelphia.

The process of identifying chronically low performing schools involves an examination of achievement patterns and the quality of various aspects of the learning environment over time. The DOE is currently developing the means for identifying persistently low-performing schools. During the next stage of the process, the DOE will attempt to determine what type of intervention strategy is best suited for each school and community. The anticipated intervention strategies include the following: phasing out the under-performing school and phasing in a new one in its place; transforming the school, which might involve hiring additional instructional supports, such as master teachers; reconstitution, which involves the more drastic step of replacing the schools leader and up to half of its teaching staff; and charter reconstitution, which involves the conversion of the failing school into a charter school with a new principal and teaching staff. The processes of identification and intervention will continue to be buttressed by a system of supports, including internal networks and external intermediaries, access to leadership training programs, implementing school inquiry teams to support instruction through analyzing student performance data, and systems to enhance parent and community ties to the school. This model does not address the wider political and institutional context in which this largescale, urban school reform effort will take place. The portfolio strategy presents a number of potential political challenges, from increasing the privatization of education and allied services to the growing role of school choice and its potential to disrupt ties between schools and local communities. In addition, the strategy presents a number of system-wide institutional challenges for the DOE, such as the need to create new roles for district central offices in managing school reform. All of these issues are important and should be documented and studied throughout the implementation of the portfolio strategy. However, in keeping with the Research Alliances mission to use rigorous methods to conduct applied research, our intention is to focus our efforts on investigating topics that best lend themselves to empirical analyses. Building Evidence to Inform Policy and Practice Over the next five years, the Research Alliance proposes to undertake a series of studies aimed at understanding the challenges of implementing the portfolio strategy and evaluating its effectiveness at improving graduation rates and preparing students for post-secondary education and work. We anticipate that the following questions will be at the center of these inquiries: What process does the DOE use to identify the persistently under-performing schools that will be subject to the various portfolio intervention strategies? How is the best intervention strategy determined for a given school? How are the needs of the community the school serves assessed during the identification process? How is the process of identification matched with the intervention strategy are the chosen interventions intended to address the deficits evident in the schools they are replacing/turning around?

How does the DOE match the needs of the school/community with particular supports? How do different interventions vary in their impact on schools learning environments? To what extent do interventions affect what the Consortium on Chicago School Research refers to as the five Essential Supports: school leadership, parentcommunity-school ties, professional capacity, student-centered learning climate and instructional guidance? How sustainable are portfolio turnaround strategies? What are the start-up and steadystate costs associated with each turnaround intervention?

Conclusion: Next Steps By bringing together leaders in education research, advocacy, policy and practice for the Learning from New York Citys portfolio reform strategy colloquium, the Research Alliance aims to provide an opportunity to explore what we currently do and do not know about high school reform. Further, we hope to begin to define a collective research agenda that can help inform the next phase of the DOEs high school reform efforts. More specifically, during this colloquium, we hope to accomplish the following goals: 1. Better understand implementation of DOE portfolio reforms and assess ways to measure their effectiveness. 2. Build an interconnected, citywide network of researchers, policymakers and advocacy workers that will help inform our research agenda in the area of high schools and preparation for post-secondary education and work. 3. Develop partnerships with researchers committed to applied research using rigorous methods that help inform practice. To address these questions and goals, we have invited approximately 50 researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and funders to discuss the issue of high school reform in three panel sessions. In the first panel, presenters will discuss the past, present and future of the portfolio strategy in NYC and other urban districts across the country. The second panel will examine current research on high school reform, with a particular focus on a single aspect of the portfolio strategy the impact of new small high schools. This panel will also attempt to identify gaps in the existing research where we and others can make contributions to the knowledge base. Through the views of school leaders, the third panel will give us a sense of how the portfolio strategy has played out at the ground level thus far, key challenges school leaders continue to face, and the areas where additional support may be needed.

Appendix
Table 1
Changes in the Number of Schools Serving Students in High School Grades Over Time School Year School Type by Grade Span Grades 9-12 Grades 6-12 Grades K-12 District 79a Total Schools

2001-02 191 32 1 26 224

2002-03 218 30

2003-04 254 30

2004-05 290 54

2005-06 307 65

2006-07 312 65 2 13 379

2007-08 324 68 2 5 394

2008-09 348 75 2 7 425

1 1 2 1 25 22 16 5 249 285 346 373 Research Alliance for New York City Schools

Source: Enrollment information is based on the Research Alliance for New York City Schools calculations, using school level enrollment data retrieved from New York City Department of Education(DOE) J-form enrollment file (Downloaded in 2009). http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/data/stats/Register/default.htm. a Notes: District 79 schools on this table are Alternative schools with high school grades

Research Alliance for New York City Schools

Table 2
Enrollment and Graduation Patterns for Students in High School Grades Average Enrollment by School Type School Year School Type by Grade Span Grades 9-12 Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12 Grades 6-12 Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12 Grades K-12 Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12 District 79a Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12 Total Schools

2001-02 1,413 490 408 228 197 847 158 33 25 17 1,166 105 110 101 94 314 34 168 27 6 224

2002-03 1,256 439 356 206 177 817 153 41 31 16 1,187 116 111 98 85 310 29 157 32 9 249

2003-04 1,136 392 325 184 163 754 139 41 31 19 1,205 112 107 97 88 297 37 130 32 7 285

2004-05 1,007 345 278 173 148 608 115 63 43 37 921 94 85 56 52 356 24 69 46 2 346

2005-06 958 313 269 164 148 582 111 70 44 36 1,233 121 113 104 101 812 25 161 223 0 373

2006-07 926 286 259 167 148 548 107 81 57 41 1,060 80 85 86 78 477 35 67 60 2 379

2007-08 885 263 242 165 149 539 101 84 66 51 1,168 134 82 82 79 422 50 88 6 4 394

2008-09 809 230 217 157 142 536 94 81 63 56 1,303 155 130 80 80 208 24 48 3 2 425

Source: Enrollment information is based on the Research Alliance for New York City Schools calculations, using school level enrollment data retrieved from New York City Department of Education(DOE) J-form enrollment file (Downloaded in 2009). http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/data/stats/Register/default.htm. Notes: District 79 schools on this table are Alternative schools with high school grades
a

Research Alliance for New York City Schools

Table 3
Enrollment and Graduation Patterns for Students in High School Grades Total Enrollment by School Type School Year 2001-02 269,806 93,551 78,011 43,473 37,681 27,103 5,045 1,045 789 536 1,166 105 110 101 94 8,159 895 4,362 696 145 224 2002-03 273,913 95,769 77,513 44,988 38,543 24,520 4,578 1,223 922 494 1,187 116 111 98 85 7,747 726 3,916 790 236 249 2003-04 288,427 99,539 82,493 46,849 41,466 22,631 4,174 1,240 916 577 1,205 112 107 97 88 6,537 822 2,858 709 145 285 2004-05 292,069 99,937 80,641 50,273 42,780 32,854 6,205 3,427 2,296 2,023 1,842 187 169 111 104 5,698 387 1,098 734 29 346 2005-06 289,223 94,546 81,211 49,403 44,787 37,816 7,241 4,568 2,858 2,364 1,233 121 113 104 101 4,058 123 807 1,113 1 373 2006-07 289,018 89,353 80,776 52,270 46,207 35,605 6,934 5,241 3,729 2,673 2120 160 170 171 155 6,202 455 871 786 25 379 2007-08 286,641 85,352 78,516 53,355 48,298 36,657 6,892 5,686 4,484 3,484 2,335 267 163 164 157 2,110 249 438 31 21 394 2008-09 281,369 80,030 75,542 54,725 49,351 40,219 7,014 6,043 4,750 4,164 2,606 310 260 160 160 1,454 169 335 24 14 425

School Type by Grade Span Grades 9-12 Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12 Grades 6-12 Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12 Grades K-12 Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12 District 79a Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12 Total Schools

Source: Enrollment information is based on the Research Alliance for New York City Schools calculations, using school level enrollment data retrieved from New York City Department of Education(DOE) J-form enrollment file (Downloaded in 2009). http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/data/stats/Register/default.htm. *Notes: District 79 schools on this table are Alternative schools with high school grades
a

References Bloom, H. S., Thompson, S. L., & Unterman, R. (2010). Transforming the high school experience: How New York City's new small schools are boosting student achievement and graduation rates New York: MDRC. Fancsali, C., Jaffe-Walter, R., Mitchell-McKnight, V., Nevarez, N., Orellana, E., & Rose, L. W. (2010). Small high schools at work: A case study of six Gates-funded schools in New York City New York: Academy for Educational Development Center for Schools and Community Services. Foley, E. (2010). Approaches of Bill & Melinda Gates foundation-funded intermediary organizations to structuring and supporting small high schools in New York City Washington, D.C.: Policy Studies Associates, Inc. Hill, P., Campbell, C., Menefee-Libey, D., Dusseault, B., DeArmond, M., & Gross, B. (2009). Portfolio school districts for big cities: An interim report Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington. Seattle, WA: Center on Reinventing Public Education. Kemple, J. J. (Forthcoming). Children first and student outcomes: 2003-2010. In J. O'Day (Ed.), The New York City reform retrospective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

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