New York, NY –
The number of city schools on a state watch list has dropped in the past year from 32 to 20. WNYC's Beth Fertig has more.
REPORTER: 13 schools did well enough to get off the state's dreaded list of Schools Under Registration Review, or SURR. Four more schools were added. But Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein were especially proud because the list continued to shrink. There are now just 20 schools on the SURR list compared to 77 when Bloomberg took office.
Joseph Viteritti, who studies the schools as chair of the department of urban affairs at Hunter College, says the mayor has some ammunition as he runs for re-election.
VITERITTI: I think it's a good sign especially when the number of schools has grown since 2002 because of charter schools and small schools and other experiments.
REPORTER: Bloomberg is also trying to persuade state lawmakers to renew the law they enacted that year putting him in charge of the schools. Despite these gains however, the SURR list has shrunk statewide; and more than half the schools on the review list are still in New York City. For WNYC I'm Beth Fertig.
Beth Fertig is WNYC’s Contributing Editor for Education. She previously covered politics, which included City Hall during the Giuliani administration, and the U.S. Senate campaigns of Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton. She also covered transportation and infrastructure.
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