Manhattan Institute

In 2014, the New York City Department of Education classified 94 low-performing schools as “renewal schools.” New York’s Renewal School Program (RSP), announced Mayor Bill de Blasio at the program’s launch, represented a big change to the city’s education policy: whereas former mayor Michael Bloomberg favored closing failing schools, RSP would fix them instead.

Is RSP succeeding? The release of renewal schools’ spring 2016 state test results in math and English language arts (ELA) allows for a one-year evaluation. This report applies regression models to measure how renewal schools perform relative to how they would have fared absent RSP.
View Report