New York's Schools for Pregnant Girls Will Close

When Joel Klein hired Cami Anderson (formerly a TFA corps member, head of TFA in NYC and chief program officer at New Leaders for New Schools), I thought it was a brilliant hire -- and the news today validates that.  As the statistics below show, these pregnancy schools have become little more than a dumping ground for the neediest students (and, I have no doubt, the worst teachers and administrators), so it's definitely the right call to shut them down entirely (something that should be done for a lot more schools, by the way -- it always drives me crazy when I hear critics of charter schools say they're unaccountable when precisely the opposite is true: a failing charter school will be shut down, whereas failing public schools go on and on and on and, worse yet, generally get MORE money the more they fail!).

The internal data provided to the Education Department by a private consultant showed what dismal results the pregnancy schools have yielded. In the fall of 2006, the average daily attendance at the pregnancy schools was 47 percent, well below the city average. Fewer than 50 percent of the pregnancy school students successfully made a transition back to high school. And the average student only earned four to five credits each year, fewer than half of the 11 credits possible.

It’s not for lack of spending: the Education Department spent $33,670 on each student this year, a cost of more than $10.8 million — more than double the citywide average of per-pupil spending. Ms. Anderson, the superintendent, said she hoped that starting next year, pregnant girls would remain in their regular high schools or switch to small specialized high schools designed for struggling students. “The most powerful thing we can do for parenting teens is help them get their diplomas,” she said. “Your brain does not die when you become pregnant.”

New Yor's Schools for Pregnant Girls Wil Close 

Librado Romero/The New York Times

By JULIE BOSMAN

Published: May 24, 2007

www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/education/24educ.html

 

Librado Romero/The New York Times

A “quilting project” and instruction in breast-feeding were on the agenda of the Harlem school this week.

No pencils, no textbooks, no Pythagorean theorem. Instead, they sewed quilts.

That is what passes for math in one of New York City’s four high schools for pregnant girls, this one in Harlem. “It ties into geometry,” said Patricia Martin, the principal. “They’re cutting shapes.”