The Disconnect Between Graduation Rates And College Readiness - 2017

We all know that principals can and do manipulate the graduation rate.   Credit recovery, grade changing, administration pressure on teachers, and school scholarship requirements (80% or more passing per class) or a combination of them all.  The result is an artificially bogus graduation rate as far too many schools graduate students unprepared for the real world.  Therefore, to determine if  unscreened Queens high schools are really diploma mills or truly giving their students a real world class education, I have developed the annual metric for the 2016-17 school year that takes the graduation rate and divides it by the "college and career readiness rate"  as defined by New York City  The New York State rates are lower..

High schools that have a ratio below "1.5" are in blue and giving their students a world class education while high schools with ratios greater than "2" are listed in red and yellow and are simply diploma mills. Parents should make sure their academically achieving students should stay away from them.  This year's metric was lowered since the Algebra Regents rubric and cut scores was made easier to achieve higher grades and the English Regents was found also to be easier than previous years.  It appears the "college ready" scores went up by an average of between ten and fifteen points, primarily due to the lower cut scores in Math and an easier test in English.

The list is based on the 2016-17 school year.

School...........................Graduation Rate.....College Ready

Cambria Heights Academy........86%.....................27% 
Academy of Medical Tech..........73%.....................27% 
Fredrick Douglas Academy VI....47%.....................13%
QIRT.........................................81%.....................25%
Rockaway Park.........................72%.....................16%
Humanities and Arts.................68%.....................19%
August Martin...........................63%....................20% 
Rockaway Collegiate.................66%....................23% 
Martin Van Buren......................61%....................31%
 Flushing..................................60%....................22%
Pathways College.......'.............66%....................26%
Hillside Arts & Letters...............84%....................36%
Law Enforcement.....................80%....................20%
Science, Research, and Tech.....71%....................26%
Excelsior Prep..........................71%....................25% 
 George Washington Carver......78%...................35%
 John Adams............................71%...................32%
Newtown.................................71%....................36%
Queens Prep...........................70%....................36%
Channel View..........................93%....................55% 
Grover Cleveland.....................63%....................32% 
 Richmond Hill..........................69%...................38%
Long Island City.......................66% ..................37%
John Bowne............................77%....................40%
Applied Communications.........82%....................42%
Robert  H. Goddard..................93%....................56%
Hillcrest..................................73%....................38%
Queens HS of Teaching............91%....................51%
Writers Academy.....................90%....................51%
Information & Technology.......84%....................46%
Community Leadership............91%....................47%
Queens Collegiate...................80%....................51%
Robert F. Kennedy...................81%....................47% 
Arts And Business...................90%....................59% 
William Cullen Bryant..............72%....................49%
 Queens Vocational..................84%....................54%
 TV & Media.............................98%....................63%
Metropolitan HS......................86%....................68% 
Middle College HS...................73%.....................56%
World Journalism....................97%....................61%
Robert Wagner........................93%....................66%
Civic Leadership......................96%...................66% 
Maspeth HS............................98%....................63%
Forest Hills.............................88%...................71%
Bayside..................................97%...................78%
East-West...............................93%...................72%
Cardozo..................................91%...................72%
Thomas Edison........................89%...................70%
Francis Lewis..........................89%...................78%
Finance & Enterprise...............97%...................84% 


 The citywide "college ready" average is 46%.

Obviously, the lowest rated schools are "diploma mills" and for the most part, are located in Southeast Queens or are "Renewal schools".  By contrast the best schools are located in two areas  Northeast Queens and the Long Island City/Astoria area.  The Bloomberg small schools in the Far Rockaway and Beach Channel campuses inhabit most of the top positions with the worst matrices on the list, while the worst school metric is by Rockaway Park Environmental Sustainability with a metric of 4.5.. By contrast, the best two schools remain Finance and Enterprise and Francis Lewis, when it comes to the metric.

The takeaway is that all the high schools in the Far Rockaway, Beach Channel, and Campus Magnet campuses are academic failures and the Springfield Gardens campus is not far behind.  Moreover, the Jamaica Educational Complex is showing gradual deterioration with one school already failing and the one of the other two unscreened schools showing a significant drop.

While my metric is not perfect it serves as a useful guide for parents who want the right Queens high schools for their academically proficient student. You can see the metrics for the last two years Here and Here.