Mayor de Blasio might want to rethink the wisdom of that victory lap he took after state-test scores showed slight improvements for the city’s public-schoolkids.
Especially since Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa on Wednesday dumped a bucket of ice water on his boasts of “progress,” noting that scores this year couldn’t be compared to those from last year because the testing changed so markedly.
“The whole idea that we put the asterisk there . . . is that we really didn’t want people taking a victory lap,” she said. Ouch.
Equally devastating was a new analysis by the school-reform group Families for Excellent Schools showing that charter schools are doing better with special-need students than regular district schools.
When de Blasio was asked why overall test scores at charters were higher than at regular schools — and their gains from last year greater — Hizzoner claimed it was, in part, because charters shun special-needs kids, who pull down a school’s average.
The FES data put the lie to that. Indeed, charters are boosting enrollments of kids with disabilities and English Language Learning — with double-digit jumps in the number of such kids who took the tests this year.
And though the percentage of charter kids with special needs — 16 percent — isn’t small, it would be far higher if charters weren’t so successful at moving these kids back into mainstream classrooms and removing their “special-needs” labels.
There’s more: Kids who do have special needs scored better at the charters.
In reading, 16 percent of charter kids with disabilities scored at proficient levels, compared to just 10 percent of public-school kids. In math, charters had the edge, 24 percent to 12 percent.
Among ELLs, 8 percent were proficient in reading at charters versus 5 percent at regular schools, and in math, it was 17 percent to 14 percent, with charter kids on top.
The data shows “what Mayor de Blasio has been hell-bent on covering up this week: Public charter schools serve children with special needs far better than the district,” said FES CEO Jeremiah Kittredge.
De Blasio should cut the “false rhetoric and partisan opposition” to charters and allow them to serve more “high-need students.”
Meanwhile, de Blasio’s own schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, refused to embrace his other excuse for the better charter scores — that charters focus on test prep at the expense of “broader” education.
Charters “have their own process” and “way of teaching,” Fariña said. “If that’s an option that parents take, that’s fine.”
De Blasio is outnumbered. He should take a tip from FES, Fariña and Rosa — and quit bragging about “progress” at schools he runs while pooh-poohing charters.
Even better, let him acknowledge charters’ success and work to expand them. Think of it as his own ice-bucket challenge.