Yonkers School System- On the Rise?

The skinny on the Yonkers school system is that it is not very good. Yonkers, the fourth largest city in the state of New York, had trouble with their school system in the 70’s and 80’s due to battles about subsidized housing, (the full story is in the book Show Me A Hero by Lisa Belkin, handily highlighted on the side here)

However, a recent study of Yonkers students recently graduated suggests that the schools are better than their reputation.

From the Journal News:

A recently released survey of high school students who graduated in the spring echoes Delotch’s contentment and suggests that there is widespread student satisfaction with the city’s five public high schools. The 772 graduating seniors gave the public schools overwhelmingly positive marks on issues such as learning experiences, teachers’ high standards and demand for quality work.

On the question about the schools providing a safe environment, 89.5 percent of respondents approved of the district’s security while 84.5 percent said they felt academically prepared to go to college.

So either those students don’t know what they are talking about, or the reputation of Yonkers is wrong. (Doing a little more research, recent testing of Yonkers students show that Yonkers students outperform students from other large NY Cities (Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo) So things aren’t all bad, anyway.

The interesting thing from the Journal News article is that 23% of Yonkers children DON’T go to public schools– they attend private and parochial schools. That seems very high….