Schools

Did Prospect Heights' High Schools Make the Grade?

Plus some surprising results on the city's annual school progress reports.

An A, three Bs and a C.

This was how well Prospect Heights' High Schools did on the city's Department of Education's annual progress reports, which were released yesterday. 

In Prospect Heights:

Find out what's happening in Prospect Heights-Crown Heightswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

  • International High School got an A (see full report here)
  • Acorn Community High School got a B (see full report here)
  • Brooklyn School for Music & Theatre got a B (see full report here)
  • Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment got a B (see full report here)
  • The High School for Global Citizenship C got a (see full report here)

The grades were based on performance on standardized tests, but also how well students are doing on a day-to-day basis including progress toward graduation, coursework and attendance.

Extra credit was given for progress made by students with disabilities and ESL students and for high graduation rates by black and Latino boys who entered high school struggling academically.

Find out what's happening in Prospect Heights-Crown Heightswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The scores also reflect morale, incorporating the results from surveys of parents, students and teachers about their schools.

More specifically:

  • International High School got As in student progress and school environment and a B in student performance.
  • Acorn got an A in student progress and a B in student performance, but got dragged down by a D in school environment.
  • Music & Theatre got Bs in progress and performance but a C in school environment
  • Global Citizenship got Cs in progress and performance and an F in environment.

Surprisingly, some of Brooklyn's didn’t get As:

Why?

Several reasons. For one, 60 percent of the report is based on student progress, while only 15 percent is from student performance. Fifteen percent is based on “school environment” which includes attendance and the morale survey results.

Midwood got a D and Brooklyn Tech got a C on school environment, while Murrow got a C on student progress.

Secondly, schools get extra credit for good test scores and graduation rates by ESL students and students who enter high school low performing.

Finally, the schools are given points for how well they compare to other schools with similar students.

“We’re trying to reward progress not absolute performance,” said DOT spokesman Matt Mittenthal.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Prospect Heights-Crown Heights