Exam Results Show Bronx Schools Lag Behind
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Many students are struggling to pass standardized tests at schools citywide, but results show that students in The Bronx are having the most trouble of all. NY1’s Lindsey Christ filed the following report.How well students score on standardized exams depends a lot on what school they go to and where that school is. Borough by borough, The Bronx remains way behind.
On the English test, 44 percent of students passed citywide but only 31 percent passed in The Bronx. Compare that to Staten Island, where 52 percent passed. Fifty-one percent passed in Queens, 47 percent in Manhattan and 44 percent in Brooklyn.
Math results showed a similar pattern, but with Queens edging out Staten Island with the highest average.
By gender, girls are outperforming boys, scoring an average of nine percentage points higher in English and three points higher in math.
And by race, scores for black and Hispanic students are still way behind those for white and Asian students.
There are dramatic differences school by school. At dozens of schools, almost every student passed both exams, but at others, sometimes just down the street, the vast majority failed.
At IS 634 in East New York, 90 percent didn't pass the math exam. At IS 52 in Queens, it was even worse: out of 480 students, 435 failed.
It’s not just older schools that are failing. In The Bronx, PS 198 is being phased out for poor performance. A new school, Urban Scholars, is being phased in to replace it, but test scores show the new school is doing much worse. Only six percent of students passed the English exam. At the school it's replacing, 36 percent passed.
Most of the schools with the highest scores are selective, meaning students had to take a test to get in to begin with.
However, there are a few exceptions. For instance, there’s PS 172 in Brooklyn, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg celebrated the first day of school last year. It's a neighborhood school in Sunset Park, where 90 percent of students live below poverty guidelines. In total, 100 percent of them passed the math test and 87 percent passed the English test, even though many don't speak the language at home.
A parent told us last September that she felt so lucky to have her child at this school, and as the numbers show, she is.