Dive Brief:
- New York City Department of Education data reveals that roughly 7,000 fewer elementary and middle school students will be required to attend summer school this year.
- For the past five years, roughly 26,000 (or 8.3%) of New York students in grades 3-8, had to attend summer school, compared with 19,000 (or 6.2%) this year.
- The data also shows that fewer students have been held back a grade since Bill de Blasio became mayor last year.
Dive Insight:
The city has attributed the drop to a change in state law last year that mandated educators look beyond a student's score on state tests when deciding whether to move them on to the next grade or not. Instead, teachers and schools must look at a student's progress throughout the year, a spokeswoman for the city told the New York Times.
The city's previous mayor, Michael Bloomberg, made raising the bar to move from one grade to another more difficult, based largely on state test scores.
Still, fluctuations in graduation rates and indicators of more students progressing successfully through the education system should often be taken with a grain of salt. An NPR investigation found that districts and states across the country inflate their graduation rates by reclassifying students or by keeping them off of dropout lists. And many school reform proponents have argued that schools are moving many students on to the next grade before they've mastered the material of the previous ones, failing to prepare them for future academic success or potential careers.