New Report: Need for Improved NYC School Accountability

Under Mayor de Blasio, school accountability has eroded, reducing incentive for improvement.

NEW YORK, NY — As New York debates the extension of mayoral control of the city’s schools, it is worth examining the current mayor’s approach to education—specifically, school accountability. In a set of two new reports, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Marcus Winters explores New York City’s recent overhaul of its education-accountability system and the impact of those changes on low-performing schools.

While New York City schools are still assessed on their performance, meaningful data on annual academic progress is continually being eroded under Mayor de Blasio. In Winters’ first report, “Grading Schools Promotes Accountability and Improvement,” he explores the effects of the Bloomberg-era school letter grades as well as the impact of their removal under Mayor de Blasio.

Prior research found that when schools received F grades under Bloomberg, they were incentivized to improve. Winters finds that:

1. A positive F-grade impact was still present following the final letter grades given to schools.
2. Under the de Blasio system, this incentive was removed.
3. Schools that would have received an F grade in the fall of 2014 showed no improvement relative to schools that would have received a D grade.

Since Mayor de Blasio’s inauguration in 2014, his administration has moved sharply away from the information-collection and accountability metrics installed by Joel Klein, Mayor Bloomberg’s education chancellor. The second report, “A Farewell to Reform: NYC's Education-Accountability System,” examines the extent of these changes, finding:

1. In 2014, the New York City Department of Education (DOE) stopped publishing letter grades on schools’ performance.
2. In 2015, the DOE eliminated questions on parental satisfaction with schools’ academic expectations from its parent survey.
3. In 2016, the DOE announced plans to phase out its reporting of yearly student test-score growth.

Under Mayor Bloomberg, schools were judged, above all, on their ability to help students achieve significant academic growth. Under Mayor de Blasio, the DOE will no longer offer meaningful data on children’s annual academic progress, suggesting that promoting academic growth is no longer its main priority.

Click here to read “Grading Schools Promotes Accountability and Improvement.”

Click here to read “A Farewell to Reform: NYC's Education-Accountability System.”