217 city elementary and middle schools could face closure after earning bad grades on Department of Education report cards

A whopping 217 elementary and middle schools scored so poorly on the city’s annual progress reports that they are in danger of being shut down.

The record list of schools that received flunking grades — F’s, D’s or a third consecutive C — is nearly twice as long as last year’s list and represents nearly a fifth of all schools that received grades.

Last year, just 116 elementary and middle schools made the possible shutdown list of which 14 were eventually targeted for closure.

Officials will review the flunking list over the next few months to decide which schools will continue to exist.

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“We’re being rigorous in trying to see which schools are performing and which schools are not,” Mayor Bloomberg said. “We have to do something about those that are not.”

The mayor lashed out at the arbitrator who earlier this year blocked his plan to close 24 so-called “turnaround schools” after unions filed suit.

“I hope we all keep reminding him, whenever we meet him, that because of a decision that he had no business in making, that a bunch of kids will never share in the great American Dream,” Bloomberg said. “Their lives have every chance of turning into a tragedy, which is, we all know, exactly what happens when you don’t get a good education.”

But even as the mayor talked tough on school closings, the grades he released on Monday exposed serious flaws in the system his administration uses to shut down schools.

Of the 24 “turnaround schools” that were the subject of the union lawsuit, seven were elementary and middle schools that received grades on Monday.

Two of the seven — Junior High School 30 and Middle School 391, both in the Bronx — earned a respectable B rating this year. The other five earned C’s.

This, despite months of anxiety for students, parents and teachers as they fretted about the school’s future — or lack thereof.

“They put us through all this hell last year and now they’re saying we got a B?” asked Sheila Sanchez, 36, a member of the Friends of JHS 80.

The school counts Penny Marshall among its alumni, and the actor and director joined the fight to save the school.

“They’re not telling me anything new,” Sanchez said. “They’re just showing me how ignorant they are about what’s going on, not only in our school, but in all the schools across the city.”

Eighth-grader Cristian Rivera, 14, said the grades are confusing.

“That’s messed up,” he said. “If they’re giving us good grades, why are they trying to shut us down?”

Schools spokeswoman Erin Hughes defended the city’s move to close the turnaround schools and replace half their staffs — and said good grades this year don’t change the city’s reasons for closing the schools.

“Improvement in any school is a positive thing, but it doesn’t mean that these schools wouldn’t have been able to improve even more with new effective teachers and the state funding that they would have received if we were able to implement the turnaround model,” she said.

Most of the schools on the flunking list will ultimately survive to try to improve next year.

Officials say they’ll shutter just a fraction of the 217 low-performers, alerting schools within a week if their future is in jeopardy.

“This is an art. It’s not a science,” said Chief Academic Officer Shael Polakow-Suransky.

In addition to the letter grades, he said, the city looks at so-called “quality reviews” done by education experts who visit schools and observe whether classes are orderly and effective.

“We get to a focused list and then we dig in,” Polakow-Suransky said.

The city graded the 1,193 elementary and middle schools on a curve — with 25% receiving A’s this year and 2% getting F’s, roughly the same as last year.

Shawn Inglima

PS 234 on Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan scored a low C, to the surprise of parents.

But the flunking list is higher this year because the number of schools that earned consecutive C’s or lower spiked to 114 from five last year, officials said.

The city has faced an onslaught of criticism over the controversial grades since introducing them several years ago — in part for focusing so much on standardized test scores.

Most of a school’s grade — 85% for elementary schools and 80% for middle schools — is determined by how well students score on standardized math and reading exams compared with how those students performed in previous years.

The schools that show the most improvement get the highest grades.

A smaller portion of the grades is determined by student attendance and the results of parent, student and teacher surveys.

Also, for the first time this year, officials rated middle schools partly on the percentage of kids who passed their classes in key academic subjects like math and English.

Accounting for 5% of the grade , the change reduces slightly the weight given to state test scores, which still make up 80% of the middle school progress reports.

The focus on pass rates raises the possibility of grade inflation. Schools officials said they had compared test scores with pass rates and already identified a handful of schools that improperly awarded credit, taking that into account in the grades released Monday.

They did not release a list of schools with suspect grading.

The confusing system has some parents questioning whether a school’s grade really reflects what’s happening in their kids’ classes.

At the highly sought-after Public School 234 in lower Manhattan, parents dismissed the stunningly low C rating.

“I don’t care. I don’t think it means anything at all,” said Aviva Gorig, a doctor whose daughter is a fourth-grader.

“You have to take the whole picture into consideration. I think this school is giving my daughter a good foundation.”

But at the city’s highest- and lowest-rated schools, parents found reason for celebration or concern.

At the city’s lowest-rated F school, PS 241 in Harlem, parents expressed doubt about the school’s performance.

“I want answers,” said Jackie Pagan, mother of kindergartner Jaylene, 5. “I’m going to see how things go and maybe pull her out . . . All the teachers are gone by 3 p.m. They’re all doing their own thing.”

PS 241 is a school the city tried to close three years ago but was stopped by a parent and union lawsuit.

“I’m shocked,” said Lisa White, who has daughters in the third and fifth grades. “I wanted my girls to go to a good school near where I live . . . . There are only 12 students in a class, so it shouldn’t be like this.”

At Brooklyn’s PS 172, which tied The School of Integrated Learning as the highest-scoring A-rated school in the city, parents and the principal celebrated the school’s success.

“For me, it’s about knowing the children,” said Principal Jack Spatola. “If you know each and every one of the children, you become more motivated.”

Mom Diana Hernandez, a 30-year-old therapist, said the Sunset Park school teaches more than just the ABCs.

“What stands out is it’s not just academic,” she said. “They focus on everything. They focus on the child’s entire well-being. You feel it from the security guard up to the principal how accessible they are. They’re so involved, and you can tell they want to be there.”

Among the top 10 A schools, half were charters. Overall, 46% of charter schools earned A’s, compared with 25% of traditional public schools.

Charter schools serve fewer students with disabilities than public schools, but the grading system is supposed to adjust for that.

Teachers union officials noted that three of the five charter schools lost significant numbers of students the year before last — a criticism used against charter schools to suggest they may be pushing out poor-performing kids.

Generally, city officials said the grades did not fluctuate wildly this year — arguing that the grades have achieved a measure of reliability. In all, 86% of schools received the same grade or moved just one spot up or down, city officials noted.

But at the same time, nearly a quarter of the 103 schools that earned a D or an F this year earned an A or B last year.

Four schools earned a D rating this year, after an A last year — including PS 73 in the Bronx, which was saved from an F because of a policy that prevents schools that earned an A last year from plunging to an F this year.

Three Bronx schools — School for Environmental Citizenship, Bronx Academy of Promise Charter School and PS 179 — earned A ratings after getting F’s last year.

Grades for high schools, including the rest of the turnaround schools, will be released later this year.

With Kerry Burke, Frank Miller and Erin Durkin

[email protected]

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