Closing of 11 Schools Called Revolutionary

The Department of Education is shutting down 11 schools for struggling students next month, and more shutdowns could come next year, Chancellor Joel Klein said yesterday. The schools will be replaced with new options for the high-risk students who make up the city's District 79 — a shakeup Mayor Bloomberg's deputy for education, Dennis Walcott, called revolutionary.

The schools — four for pregnant women, known as "P-Schools," and seven one-year transition programs designed to help children who've failed elsewhere, called "New Beginnings" programs — now enroll about 600 students, a department spokeswoman said.

At least two years of study led to the overhaul, beginning with a 2006 report that nearly 140,000 of the city's 16- to 21-year-olds are either at risk of dropping out or already have. Deeper investigation disclosed a disturbing picture, Mr. Klein said. The attendance rate at P-Schools is 48%; at New Beginnings programs, the rate is 67%. Also, only 12% of students who start alternative degree programs, which could face cuts next year, actually get GEDs.

District 79's new superintendent, Cami Anderson, while citing hurdles the students face such as drug addiction, incarceration, and poverty, said the difficulties could not excuse the disappointing results. "Despite all of these amazing challenges, they keep showing up at our doorstep," she said of her district's students. Ms. Anderson promised to match students' determination with a menu of strong options, including a new program for students studying for the GED, called GED Plus; new referral services centers in each borough, and five more transfer high schools, a model the department said has shown impressive results.

A community leader who helped run a New Beginnings school, Verona Middleton-Jeter, said she was disappointed by the news, pointing to positive results in her program.

Ms. Anderson insisted partnerships would continue, and the staff director of the Neighborhood Family Services Coalition, Michelle Yanche, attested to that commitment. "There's never been a department of education that has understood the role of community-based organizations … the way this one has," she said.

Mr. Klein emphasized the city still has one puzzle left to solve: poor adolescent literacy. In that area, he said, "We've got an invention challenge."