Nearly Half of NYC’s Public School Grads Require Remedial Courses in College
Nearly half of all New York City public school graduates who head to local community colleges are forced into remedial classes to survive their first semester, troubling new data obtained by The Post reveal.
Amid chronic absenteeism, widespread grade inflation, and a failure to prepare students for higher education, city school kids are being shoved through an educational revolving door without truly learning, experts told The Post.
“Most of the kids we get from New York City schools are underprepared for college,” said Mohammad Alam, assistant dean of enrollment at Borough of Manhattan Community College.
In Fall 2022 across the City University of New York’s seven community colleges, 5,046 former Department of Education students were enrolled in a remedial math course, while 4,250 had to take remedial English — 47% of all new DOE high school graduates, a CUNY spokesperson said.
The lack of readiness for college work leaves students, some now parents themselves, frustrated — and angry.
“I don’t think high schools, especially public schools in The Bronx, prepared me enough” Priscilla, a Bronx mom with two children, stated that she is not ready to go to college and that she has yet to receive an associate’s degree at BMCC. “That’s how the public school system runs: ‘These are not my kids, I just don’t care.'”
Sáleenal Butler, 20, complained that teachers at her former high school, Millennium Art Academy in the Bronx, “got annoyed when people asked questions” – which was why she had to start her Bronx Community College career in a remedial math class.
Nathan Ortiz, 18 years old, said that his classes at Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School (South Bronx) were excellent. “weren’t engaging or motivating. The education system in New York is just outdated.”
“Most are just overwhelmed by how many students they have,” Butler said.
Julian Espinosa was 24 years old. “barely given the tools to succeed” At Manhattan’s A. Philip Randolph High School. The Bronx resident had to take remedial math when he first enrolled at BCC in 2016 – an experience so discouraging, he promptly dropped out.
“I don’t remember anything [I learned] from high school,” admitted Elian Luna, 21, who graduated from Bronx Academy of Software Engineering in 2019 and liked his teachers but had to take remedial math at BCC.
Students reach high school and the cracks in this system are evident long before they get to college.
Post-pandemic Test scores are falling In Public schools K-8 Across the city, chronic absenteism was last year Hit an all-time record of 40% This is a total of 352,919 students who missed 18 days or more of instruction or 10% of their entire school year. According to the DOE, chronic absenteism among seniors at Bronx high school reached a shocking 58.2%.
Yet, the graduation rates for high schools increased miraculously to 84% last year, compared with 73% four-years earlier. This was despite lower standards.
“Dumb it down until everybody passes,” Wai Wah Chin is the founder of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York, and a school-choice booster.
In the name of “equity” — just to get students through the system — harms grads as well as society, Chin argued.
To boost their political ambitions, former mayors demanded that graduation rates be increased each year. As a result, DOE grade inflation – and even fraud – has surged.
Dewey High School, Brooklyn, put hundreds upon hundreds of kids who were failing in 2015 In phantom classes Without teachers who are certified. Principal Kathleen Elvin The scheme is also known as “Project Graduation.” It was dubbed by kids “Easy Pass.”
Maspeth HS under Khurshid Abdul-Mutakabbir was ex-principal. He created fake classes, gave credit to failing students, and fixed grades in order to push kids out, teachers claimed. The Post 2019 Students called the no-fail policy the “Maspeth minimum.” Abdul-Mutakabbir said that he would give a student who was struggling a diploma “not worth the paper on which it was printed.”
Last year, administrators were charged by William Cullen Bryant HS Queens teachers They were forced to promote students who skipped classes – or never came at all – and did little or no work. Children can graduate or pass in the DOE. You don’t even have to go to class.
The DOE a>=”https://nypost.com/2021/12/25/new-schools-chief-vows-to-slash-bloated-doe-whose-budget-grew-10b-under-de-blasio/”>bureaucracy Ballooned. Managers, analysts, supervisors and specialists — educrats who don’t step foot in classrooms — rose to 5,100 from 3,500 between 2014 and 2021, the Independent Budget Office tallied.
David Banks, Chancellor of the United Kingdom, promised to reduce the bloat. However, in his first six months DOE central offices and district offices failed to deliver. Racked up $725 million in expenses, over $100 million more than budget, for FY 2022. This is despite school budgets being cut.
The coronavirus epidemic provided new reasons to scrap graduation standards. State Regents tests were canceled altogether in 2020 – and when they returned, new rules allowed kids to “pass” They will receive a 50% grade.
This is what causes college to collapse.
The 2022 audit of students by Thomas DiNapoli, state Comptroller, found that only 57% of DOE graduates were sampled. “college ready” – and of those who went on to higher ed, a staggering 37% dropped out in the first semester.
Many DOE graduates fail the CUNY admissions exam in English or math. This forces them to take remedial classes at community colleges in order to master material they should have learned years ago. Those who fail the exams will be barred from CUNY’s four-year colleges.
“The kids who come out of high school unprepared end up in the community colleges,” Ray Domanico, the Manhattan Institute’s education maven, said it. “And those two-year colleges have awful graduation rates – like in the 20s. A lot of those kids don’t make it past that first year.”
According to one admissions officer at BCC, more that 50% of high-school graduates are unable to handle college-level work.
In an effort to increase those pathetic numbers and to keep students enrolled in the university, CUNY now places students who require remedial assistance in credit-bearing programs “corequisite” Courses To make the system work “more equitable,” Officials agree.
While enrollment in DOE schools has plummeted – 121,000 students have left since 2017 — charter schools promise a superior education for kids lagging behind in reading and math in DOE-run schools, advocates said.
“DOE schools have shown their ability to promote students through the grade levels, or graduate from the system entirely, regardless of proficiency on state assessments and classwork or even meaningful attendance in school,” Emily D’Vertola, Empire Center for Public Policy.
“Public charter schools, on the other hand, are held to legal standards of operation, reporting and student achievement, as laid out in charter law,” She said. “If they do not ‘pass,’ they will be shut down.” Minimum 20 New York “zombie charters” Advocates want to grant licenses to other schools for those who have lost their licenses.
Charters, publicly funded but privately run, offer options that mirror higher-performing DOE schools.
Shontai Gillard (17 years old) was a junior at Brooklyn Lab Charter Academy when she transferred from It takes a Village Academy to Brooklyn Lab Charter Academy. “Now I have rigorous courses, I get a lot of AP classes,” She agreed. Her new teachers “are supportive, and they always push us.”
“There’s more discipline, more order” at Brooklyn Lab, said classmate Jamiyah Snipes, 16, a fellow public-school refugee.
Students say that accountability is also required by charters. At Brooklyn’s MESA Charter High School, for example, each teen meets with their faculty adviser twice a day, reviewing weekly reports from every class and escalating absences – including cut classes – to parents.
“That was really important for me, to kind of keep me in check,” said Cynthia Estevez, a MESA 2020 grad. “I still talk to my adviser to this day.”
Chin agreed — accountability is key to success.
“What the charters are doing is that once the kids get in, kids are held to higher standards,” She said. “It’s not that if a kid is not performing, you lower the standards to meet the kids. You raise the kid to meet the standard.”
A Decade Of Dumbing-Down
From 2012 to 2022, the graduation rate in NYC’s public high schools leaped – even as chronic absenteeism rose and standards declined amid the coronavirus pandemic.
| 2012 | 2022 | |
| Graduation rate | 65% | 84% |
| Chronically Absent | 25% | 40% |
| Regents Diploma Requirements | Five state Regents exams: 65% | 50% discount on five Regents Exams, with passing grades in the related courses |
During this time, per-student spending in the city nearly doubled.
2012: $18,620
2022: $35,941
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