| Author(s): | Bloom, H., Thompson, S., Unterman, R., Herlihy, C., and Paine, C. |
| Title: | Transforming the high school experience: How New York City's new small schools are boosting student achievement and graduation rates |
| Source: | http://www.mdrc.org/publications/560/full.pdf |
| Date: | 2010 |
| Organization: | MDRC |
| Short Description: | This report presents encouraging findings, providing clear and reliable evidence that, in roughly six years, a large system of small public high schools can be created and can markedly improve graduation prospects for many disadvantaged students. |
| Annotation: | Since 2002, New York City has closed more than 20 underperforming public high schools, opened more than 200 new secondary schools, and introduced a centralized high school admissions process in which approximately 80,000 students a year indicate their school preferences from a wide-ranging choice of programs. At the heart of these reforms lie 123 new “small schools of choice” (SSCs) — small, academically nonselective, four-year public high schools for students in grades 9 through 12.
SSCs are more than just small.
The first step in New York City’s high school admissions process is to require eighth-graders to select in rank order of priority up to 12 high schools that they want to attend; when an SSC has more applicants than spaces, the district uses a lottery-like process to randomly assign students to the SSC or to another school in the district. These lotteries provide the basis for an unusually large and rigorous study, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, of the effects of SSCs on students’ academic achievement.
This report presents encouraging findings from that study, providing clear and reliable evidence that, in roughly six years, a large system of small public high schools can be created and can markedly improve graduation prospects for many disadvantaged students. |
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