GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Schools that screen come out on top and schools that take neighborhood students fall to the bottom of our next rankings installment, which tackles middle schools.

A few charter schools are also in the mix — both on the top and bottom lists. Unlike our elementary school list, we included charter schools in these rankings.

To generate the rankings, we averaged the percentage of students who scored proficient across all the tested grade levels. (We excluded schools that don’t include grades six, seven, and eight.) In response to reader requests, we also listed the borough of the school in parentheses after each one.

The results contain very few surprises. All of the schools on the top-scoring lists except the two charter schools have a selective admissions process. Students must score high on standardized tests and sometimes pass in-person interviews in order to get into schools like Anderson, NEST+m, and Mark Twain Middle School — all of which rank high on these lists. (more…)

Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein this morning celebrated how much they believe they have in common with President Obama on school issues, calling his speech this week a reflection of many of the changes they’ve made to the New York City public schools.

They made the remarks in a school library alongside Deborah Kenney, the founder of the Harlem Village Academy charter school network. Among the city projects they said they feel Obama endorsed: the city’s effort to pay teachers based on their school’s performance; projects that give students feedback on their academic performance through regular tests; work improving poor-performing schools by starting new small schools and improving transfer schools; and their efforts to expand parents’ options with charter schools.

Neither Philissa nor I could be there this morning, so we don’t have the full account. But Klein praised Obama’s education speech as “bold” and “visionary” in an interview with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer this morning. His comment:

I think his speech was bold, and I think it’s visionary, and if you look at the various components, Brian, I think it echoes a lot of what the mayor has done in the city. But more importantly [it] charts a way for the nation to deal with both the global achievement gaps that we’ve talked about many times and the racial and ethnic achievement gaps. So it’s a serious and important speech.

Here’s the full press release from City Hall: (more…)