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Truman High School Principal Sana Nasser introduces a program to boost college readiness.

Harry S. Truman High School Principal Sana Nasser started making college preparation a priority long before the city began sounding the alarm about poor college readiness rates. She has encouraged students at her large Bronx school to take college level courses at the nearby Mercy College campus, and invited alumni enrolled in college to meet with current students.

But when the city assessed her efforts in its first release of data measuring how schools are preparing students for college academics, Truman fell short of the city’s already dismally low averages in all three college readiness categories. Just ten percent of Truman’s students scored high enough on advanced standardized tests to be considered “college prepared,” according to the city’s rubric.

So Nasser is trying a different approach. She has joined with Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and administrators from Mercy College to create a college readiness initiative that target all students and offer the strongest ones a chance to earn a two-year associates degree by the time they graduate from high school.

“I believe some of you can do high school in two years and take college courses,” she told an assembly of honors students in grades nine through twelve seated in the school’s spiffy, first-floor IMAX theater. (more…)

More black and Hispanic students are taking the SAT, but is that just because of overall demographic shifts? A reader asks for overall enrollment trends by race.

The data show that the numbers of black and Hispanic students in the city is not rising. The black population has been declining while the Hispanic population is also declining, though less rapidly. The number of Asian students in city schools is rising. This is according to both city figures on public school enrollment and Census estimates on the size of the school-aged population.*

I spent several months last year exploring the public school enrollment data, which contains all kinds of mysteries (one: white enrollment in public schools has declined while the white school-aged population, by Census estimates, which are imperfect, is rising). Alas I only completed my digging just as the New York Sun was closing, and it’s never seen the light of day — until now!

Here’s a chart I put together last year, using city data, followed by a chart using the Census’s school-aged population estimates:

(more…)

Data courtesy of the city Department of Education.

As promised, here’s some more detail on who takes the SAT in the city — broken down by race and painted as a picture over time.

The number of black students taking the SAT is now at 10,438, up from 6,763 in 2002. The increase among Hispanic students is even more pronounced: From 5,400 in 2002 to 11,414 in 2009. Scores for both groups in 2009 were stuck in the low 400′s on each subject matter. That would make about an 825 out of 1600 on the old scale, which included just math and reading and no writing.

Also, curiously, the number of white students taking the SAT dropped in the city this year (though it’s still above the 2002 number) as in America. On the 1600 math-and-reading scale, white students this year scored 1,031 on average.

And everyone seems to score about the same on the new writing test as on the math and reading test.

But, like we keep (unconvincingly?) saying, we’re on blog-vacation! So please help us out by pointing out the trends you see in the comments. (And check out Caroline’s point about not putting too much stock in changes in the overall averages.) (more…)

New York City students followed statewide patterns on the SAT and AP college prep exams, according to College Board data released today.

We had a more diverse pool of test-takers than last year — more black and Hispanic students took both the SAT and AP exams, and more passed the AP; lower SAT scores on average since last year; and a higher (though still dismally low) number of students passing the AP exams.

The city Department of Education summed up the results in a PDF (embedded below the jump). I asked for a more specific breakdown — average scores from past years and average scores broken down by race — and will provide that when it arrives. You can read the national results here and the New York results here. (Would that we already had the forthcoming IBO education team to give us the straight story from the get-go!) (more…)

Since August, the Department of Education has been quietly swapping data about its graduates with the City University of New York, under an information-sharing agreement that Mayor Bloomberg boasted today is the first of its kind.

Under the terms of the agreement, the mayor explained at a press conference this morning, CUNY sends performance data to high schools about their graduates enrolled in city colleges. In exchange, the DOE shares the students’ high school records with CUNY. The purpose of the swap is to gather new information about what it takes to prepare high schoolers for success in college, a looming question in a city where a growing number of public school graduates enrolling in CUNY’s two-year schools need remedial instruction.

“I don’t think anybody before has even thought about crossing that barrier,” Bloomberg said, referring to the separation between public schools and college and universities.

Bloomberg’s remarks came at a press conference about the growing number of public school students who are enrolling at CUNY colleges. At the event, which took a dramatic turn when a Lehman College student who was standing beside the mayor fainted, Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said the CUNY enrollment surge is evidence that the city’s public schools are improving, particularly for minority students. (more…)