The Transformation of Public High Schools in New York City

Between 1994 and 2014, New York City engaged in a historic overhaul of its publicly funded high schools. This included the opening of charter high schools (made possible by a 1999 state law) and the creation of new, smaller district high schools that would, in time, replace many of the city's large, traditional, comprehensive, and vocational high schools. The reforms started during Giuliani's mayoral administration and accelerated in 2002 when the Bloomberg administration began methodically reviewing the performance of all its schools and closing those that consistently demonstrated poor performance. Despite independent research showing that the changes led to positive student outcomes, Bill de Blasio brought these efforts to a close when he became mayor in 2014. Now there is a new mayor in town. This report describes the performance of all city public high schools, district and charter, as of 2018-19--comparing them in groups determined by their size, academic selectivity, and origin--and discusses the implications of their performance for the future. Incoming mayor Eric Adams and his administration will soon have the opportunity to rethink how New York's high schools might be reorganized or modified to serve the needs of students with differing achievement levels at the end of middle school: those ready for highly advanced work and those who enter high school clearly unlikely to attain college readiness.