Dozens of public schools across the city failed to pass even a single black or Hispanic student on this year’s state math or reading exams, a new analysis shows.
Pro-charter school group Families for Excellent Schools found no black or Hispanic kids passed the standardized tests — based on the more stringent Common Core standards — at 90 schools with diverse student bodies.
Families for Excellent Schools CEO Jeremiah Kittredge said the study’s findings should shock the city Education Department into taking fresh action to help struggling students.
“It’s time for bold and transformational change,” said Kittredge. “We need to acknowledge that this is not the fault of children — it’s the fault of our system.”
Education Department officials have struggled for years to close the persistent achievement gap faced by black and Hispanic kids in the city’s public schools.
Although black and Hispanic students posted better scores on the 2014 exams compared with 2013, the achievement gap still worsened, since white and Asian kids saw bigger increases.
At 31 city schools with a combined enrollment of 1,065 black students, none passed the state math exam. At another 28 schools, zero out of 613 Hispanic students passed the math test. State reading exams saw similar results.
Citywide, 18.5% of black students and 23.2% of Hispanic students were proficient on state math exams in 2014, compared with an overall proficiency rate of 34.2%. Reading scores showed a similar gap.
The schools where no minority kids passed the tests were a mixed group. Some, such as Public School 114 in Belle Harbor, Queens, were relatively high-performing schools that enrolled few black and Hispanic kids.
Others were troubled schools that struggled to pass any kids at all, such as the School for the Urban Environment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
Education Department spokeswoman Devora Kaye said: “We are committed to ensuring that all students, regardless of ethnicity or background, receive a high-quality education.”
