GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The New York State Department of Education has singled out 34 New York City public schools, most of them large high schools, that it believes should be replaced.

Many of the schools are already on the city’s to-be-closed list and others have had poor reputations and low grades on the city’s annual report cards for years. Now that SED has designated which schools are the bottom five percent across the state, school districts will have to submit plans to Commissioner David Steiner detailing which of four federally mandated plans they intend to implement.

The plans are a menu of sorts: four options the U.S. Department of Education believe can transform “persistently low achieving” schools into success stories. Before the list came out today, state officials said they planned to replace many of the schools with charter schools, a proposal that could be severely delayed by the state legislature’s recent decision not to lift the state’s charter cap.

Long before the list came out, Chancellor of the Board of Regents Merryl Tisch said the state’s choices would not be controversial. (more…)