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 metric that takes the graduation rate and divides it by the "college and career readiness rate" as defined by New York State.
High schools that have a ratio below "2" are in blue and giving their students a world class education while high schools with ratios greater than"3" are listed in red and are simply diploma mills. Parents should make sure their academically achieving students should stay away from them.
The list is based on the 2015-16 school year.
School...........................Graduation Rate.....College Ready
Cambria Heights Academy........79%......................9%
Academy of Medical Tech..........66%......................8%
Fredrick Douglas Academy VI....66%......................8%
QIRT........................................70%.....................12%
Rockaway Park.........................62%.....................11%
Humanities and Arts.................79%.....................14%
August Martin...........................39%....................7%
Rockaway Collegiate.................63%....................13%
Martin Van Buren......................66%....................18%
Newtown.................................71%....................19%
Pathways College....................71%....................20%
Hillside Arts & Letters...............81%....................24%
Law Enforcement.....................81%....................25%
Science, Research, and Tech.....70%....................22%
Excelsior Prep.........................78%....................24%
Queens Prep...........................72%....................24%
Flushing.................................63%....................18%
Channel View..........................95%....................31%
John Adams.............................66%....................22%
Richmond Hill...........................64%....................22%
Long Island City.......................63% ...................25%
GroverCleveland.....................63%....................27%
Queens HS of Teaching............91%....................37%
George Washington Carver......86%....................35%
Writers Academy....................82%....................36%
Hillcrest.................................72%....................29%
Queens Collegiate...................77%....................33%
Information & Technology........76%....................34%
Community Leadership............84%....................37%
John Bowne............................74%....................33%
Applied Communications.........80%....................38%
Robert F. Kennedy...................86%....................42%
Arts And Business...................90%....................40%
William Cullen Bryant..............69%....................34%
Metropolitan HS......................92%....................46%
Robert H. Goddard...................89%....................50%
Middle College HS...................82%.....................49%
Writers Journalism..................94%....................51%
Robert Wagner........................87%....................51%
Queens Vocational...................84%...................51%
Civic Leadership......................91%...................55%
Maspeth HS............................99%....................63%
TV & Media.............................98%....................62%
Forest Hills.............................88%...................56%
Bayside..................................95%...................63%
East-West...............................97%...................66%
Cardozo..................................89%...................60%
Thomas Edison........................93%...................71%
Francis Lewis..........................88%...................73%
Finance & Enterprise...............91%...................77%
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 three Bloomberg small schools in the Far Rockaway campus inhabit three of the top four positions with the worst matrices on the list, while the worst school metric is by Cambria Heights Academy, while last year's winner (loser), Rockaway Park Environmental Sustainability rounds out the top five. By contrast, the best two school;s 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. 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 in "college and career readiness".
To look at last year's list you can find it Here.