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Harlem Academy in the Education Landscape 2017-18

Harlem Academy drives equity of opportunity for promising students, guiding them to thrive at the highest academic levels and one day make a mark on the world.

Harlem Academy in the NYC Education Landscape

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Introduction

Harlem Academy was founded in 2004 with a singular goal: to overturn the status quo for high-potential children in Harlem. We sought to create a school where success would be based on ability and drive, not on a zip code, a lottery, or a family’s wealth. We intentionally planted our roots in an area with the lowest performing public schools and set a mark for success alongside the highest performing private schools in the country. Moving forward, we seek to establish Harlem Academy as an enduring institution and permanent pathway to opportunity for promising, low-income children for generations to come. Our Board has purchased a half-acre lot in Harlem that will be the site of our future home. This new space will enable us to extend the school’s transformational impact to 420 children in kindergarten through eighth grade, each year graduating 60 students prepared to thrive at the highest academic levels and one day make a mark on the world. Disparities for High-Potential, Low-Income Children Promising children from economically disadvantaged communities rarely realize their potential as they are pushed into low-performing schools with few resources for high achievers.

• By first grade, low-income children are only half as likely to be high achievers1 as their more affluent peers.

• By fifth grade, only 56% of these students maintain their status as high-achievers in reading.

• During high school, high-achieving, low-income students drop out or do not graduate on time at twice the rate of higher income peers (Wyner, Bridgeland, and Diiulio, 2009).

• By college, only 14% of freshmen at the nation’s top 160 colleges (Barron’s) come from the bottom half of the income distribution (Giancola and Kahlenberg, 2016).

1 Low-income refers to the bottom half of the income distribution; high achiever refers to students performing in the top quartile nationally.

Bottom Quartile, 5%

2nd Quartile, 9%

3rd Quartile, 18%Top Quartile,

69%

Enrollment at Top Colleges By Income


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Behind the Disparities: A Critical Gap in the Education Landscape Public and Charter Schools: Raising the Floor for Low Performers Public and charter schools focus on closing the achievement gap for our nation’s lowest performing students. They admit students without selectivity (generally via lottery) and strive to pull low-achieving students to proficiency. Public and charter schools in Harlem, Washington Heights, and the Bronx, however, do not come close to realizing universal proficiency, with the majority of students performing below minimum state standards (NYC DOE, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c).2 Given these significant hurdles, few resources are focused on promising students who already meet these basic thresholds. Selective Programs: Inaccessible to Low-Income Children Selective options, such as gifted & talented (G&T) programs, independent schools, and competitive supplementary programs, admit students who already have top scores. Low-income children lack the advantages of their wealthier peers and are overwhelmingly unprepared to compete for admission to these schools and programs. In New York City, students must perform above the 90th percentile to access any G&T programming. The best programs are available only to students scoring above the 97th percentile and, in practice, fill up with students in the 99th percentile (NYC DOE, 2018a). In the low-income neighborhoods we serve, just 0.2% of kindergarteners have the resources or preparation needed to test into the citywide G&T programs. The rates in other neighborhoods are 27 times higher (NYC DOE, 2016a, 2016b).

2 In local public schools (Harlem, Bronx, and Washington Heights), the percentage of students meeting proficiency standards is 28% in English and 24% in math. In local charter schools, it is 47% in English and 50% in math.


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Similarly, most NYC independent schools are out of reach for low-income families who cannot afford the average annual tuition of $41,551. At these elite schools, even families receiving financial aid pay an average of $13,273 per year (NAIS, 2016). Other selective programs targeting low-income and minority children, such as A Better Chance, Breakthrough New York, Harlem Educational Activities Fund, Prep for Prep, and Oliver Scholars, do not begin until middle school. By then, most promising, low-income children have already lost too much ground to qualify for these opportunities. Harlem Academy Fills a Gap for Promising, Low-Income Children As a private school, Harlem Academy has the flexibility to admit students, hire teachers, and develop curriculum based solely on the high standards we set for realizing our mission. Most students enter Harlem Academy with scores at the 70th-85th percentile nationally – too high to receive attention at public or charter schools and too low to gain admission to the city’s competitive programs. During their time at Harlem Academy, students experience tremendous growth, preparing them to compete at the nation's top secondary schools and ultimately to succeed in any endeavor they pursue. The chart below underscores the difference in outcomes between Harlem Academy and other local options. By eighth grade, 100% of Harlem Academy students reached proficiency in both English Language Arts (ELA) and math – 2 to 5 times the proficiency rates in local public and charter schools.3

3 Unlike NYC public and charter schools, Harlem Academy does not administer the New York State Assessment, which places students in four proficiency buckets (below basic, basic, proficient, advanced). Instead, HA students take the ERB CTP4, which reports nationally normalized percentile rankings. To provide a sense of how our students compare in terms of proficiency, we have used the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s (NAEP) translation of proficiency to nationally normalized percentiles to create the charts above (https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2015/#reading/scores?grade=8). This data is available only for fourth and eighth grade and the NAEP translation varies by grade and subject; the above comparison looks at eighth-grade performance.

19%

37%

37%

52%

100%

100%

MATH

ELA

Percentage of Students Achieving ProficiencyGrade 8

Harlem Academy Harlem/Bronx Charter Harlem/Bronx Public


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Changing the Trajectory Our most recent graduates entered Harlem Academy with scores in the 71st percentile and earned 17 points of growth, rising to the 88th percentile. These results reverse the downward trajectory that often defines the opportunities available to low-income children. Nationally, a promising, low-income student starting first grade at the 70th percentile will lose 14 points by eighth grade, dropping to the 56th percentile.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

Demonstrated Excellence Our rigorous curriculum focuses on academic skill development, preparing students to tackle advanced problems with confidence. Harlem Academy students emerge as avid readers, strong writers, and critical thinkers, growth that is underscored by their standardized test scores below.

90

85

94

89

91

90

88

90

Word Analysis

Verbal Reasoning

Vocabulary

Reading Comprehension

Writing Mechanics

Writing Concepts and Skills

Mathematics

Quantitative Reasoning

Median National Percentile Rank, 2017 ERB CTP4

Harlem Academy Student Performance


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Lifelong Impact The eighth graders’ growth to the 88th percentile last year allowed 100% of the class to enter selective programs. Most earned full scholarships to independent schools, including Andover, Spence, and Riverdale. Almost all of the students from Harlem Academy’s first two graduating classes are enrolled at four-year colleges, including Brown, Lehigh, NYU, and University of Rochester. A Model Education: Sharing Best Practices Harlem Academy is a laboratory for innovative, replicable curricula designed to meet the needs of promising, low-income children beyond its walls. We develop core academic skills in reading, writing, and critical thinking, prioritizing depth over breadth and the development of successful habits for learning and contribution. In many cases, we have written our own curricula and textbooks to ensure our students develop the skills they need to succeed at the highest level. Harlem Academy shares successful strategies for supporting this important but neglected population by publishing in national journals, partnering with the Klingenstein Center at Columbia University, speaking at conferences, and hosting hundreds of teachers and school leaders to study our programs.


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References Giancola, J., & Kahlenberg, R. D. (2016). True merit: Ensuring our brightest students have

access to our best colleges and universities. Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.jkcf.org/assets/1/7/JKCF_True_Merit_Report.pdf.

National Association of Independent Schools (2016). Data and analysis for school leadership

[Data file]. New York City Department of Education. (2016a). Summary of 2016 Testers by Grade, District,

and Eligibility. Retrieved from http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/9A9A7BB7-6652-4FD4-B91A-FFE178FC98F0/0/2016GTEligibilitySummarybyDistrict.pdf

New York City Department of Education. (2016b). Summary of 2016 gifted and talented testers

scoring 99 compared to 2015. Retrieved from http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/3E508396-00F5-4E9D-8B3D-9867B604060E/0/2016GT99thPercentileRankingSummary.pdf

New York City Department of Education. (2017a). NYC Results on the New York State 2013-

2017 English Language Arts (ELA) Test (Grades 3-8) School Summary [Data file]. Retrieved from http://schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/data/TestResults/ELAandMathTestResults

New York City Department of Education. (2017b). NYC Results on the New York State 2013-

2017 Mathematics Test (Grades 3-8) School Summary [Data file]. Retrieved from http://schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/data/TestResults/ELAandMathTestResults

New York City Department of Education. (2017c). NYC Results on the 2013-2017 New York

State Math and ELA Test (Grades 3-8) Charter School Summary [Data file]. Retrieved from http://schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/data/TestResults/ELAandMathTestResults

New York City Department of Education. (2018a). 2018 Gifted & talented program handbook.

New York City Department of Education. Retrieved from http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/50ED2416-343A-4EBF-82DC-F64EFB4BBD09/0/2018NYCGTDirectory2013ENGLISH.pdf

U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education

Statistics, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study [United States]: Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, Kindergarten-Eighth Grade Full Sample.

U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education

Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). (2015a). 2015 Mathematics and Reading Assessments. Retrieved from http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2015/#reading/scores?grade=8


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U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). (2015b). 2015 Reading Trial Urban District Snapshot Report, New York City, Grade 8, Public Schools. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2015/pdf/2016048XN8.pdf

U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education

Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). (2015c). 2015 Mathematics Trial Urban District Snapshot Report, New York City, Grade 8, Public Schools. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2015/pdf/2016049xn8.pdf

Wyner, J. S., Bridgeland, J. M., & DiIulio, J. J., Jr. (2009). Achievement trap: How America is

failing millions of high achieving students from lower-income families. Retrieved from http://www.jkcf.org/assets/files/0000/0084/ Achievement_Trap.pdf

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