schools

12,000 Additional Students Across 40 Schools Will Benefit From $6.2 Million Expansion
20 Schools Selected to Participate in an Innovative Model Combining Extended Day with Additional
Reading & Tutoring
Schools Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn today
announced the 40 middle schools that will now be a part of the Middle School Quality Initiative, 20
of which will be a part of the new pilot program that will use an innovative model to extend the
school day and offer intense literacy training for high needs middle school students. Today,
principals from the selected schools will meet with Department of Education officials to learn about
the programs. Chancellor Walcott and Speaker Quinn first announced the MSQI expansion and pilot
program at the Urban Institute of Mathematics in the Bronx and were joined by Council Members
James Vacca, Andy King and Annabel Palma, DOE Chief Academic Officer Shael PolakowSuransky,
Robin Hood Foundation Chief Program Officer Michael Weinstein, the President of The
After School Corporation (TASC) Lucy Friedman and Harvard Ed Labs Chief Academic Officer
Meghan Howard.
Broken down by borough, the extended learning day pilot will be in six middle schools in the
Bronx and Brooklyn, five in Queens and three in Manhattan. Overall, the MSQI expansion will be in
14 middle schools in the Bronx, 13 in Brooklyn, seven in Queens, five in Manhattan and one in
Staten Island. This expansion brings the total number of schools in the MSQI to 89.
“We are committed to ensuring that all students are prepared for college and 21st century
careers, and the Middle School Quality Initiative has been central to this mission,” said Schools
Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott. “We are sharing best practices across our system of great schools
and are pleased that this program will expand to 89 schools this fall to benefit thousands of current
and future middle school students. I want to thank the New York City Council, Robin Hood, The
After School Corporation, and Harvard Ed Labs for their enormously generous support.”
“We’re proud to announce that beginning next September, all sixth graders in each of these
20 middle schools, for a total of 2,000 students – will experience 2.5 more hours of learning time per
day as part of our new pilot program,” said Speaker Quinn. “This pilot is a part of the Council and
DOE’s Middle School Quality Initiative, which has already shown promising results with both low
and high performing kids, and we are confident that a daily dose of extra tutoring for students
struggling with English Language Arts will significantly increase students’ ability to comprehend at
grade-level across all subjects. I want to thank my Council colleagues, Robin Hood, The After
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School Corporation, Harvard Ed Labs, the Department of Education and members of the Middle
School Task Force for their continued dedication to improving New York City’s schools.”
“Middle schools are an integral and formative part of an adolescent’s academic experience
where they come into their own and continue to gain the necessary skills for critical thinking and
social learning. Considering the heavy emphasis on testing during these transitional years of a young
adolescent’s life, the extended hours of literacy will provide the much needed support for students to
master the skills and knowledge that will ensure their future success,” said Council Member Robert
Jackson, Chair of the Education Committee. “I thank all the involved partners for contributing to
the Middle School Quality Initiative with a comprehensive program that will continue to help at-risk
students stay on track of their educational goals.”

School Name Cohort Borough
Juan Morel Campos Secondary School MSQI +
Pilot Brooklyn
M.S. 223 The Laboratory School of Finance and
Technology
MSQI +
Pilot Bronx
Waterside School for Leadership MSQI +
Pilot Queens
PS/IS 116 William C. Hughley MSQI +
Pilot Queens
Queens United Middle School MSQI +
Pilot Queens
Eagle Academy for Young Men MSQI +
Pilot Bronx
The Highbridge Green School MSQI +
Pilot Bronx
East Flatbush Community Research School
MSQI +
Pilot Brooklyn
P.S. 043 MSQI +
Pilot Queens
J.H.S. 143 Eleanor Roosevelt MSQI +
Pilot Manhattan
South Bronx Academy for Applied Media MSQI +
Pilot Bronx
I.S. 30 Mary White Ovington MSQI +
Pilot Brooklyn
Renaissance School of the Arts MSQI +
Pilot Manhattan
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Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social
Change
MSQI +
Pilot Manhattan
I.S. 340 MSQI +
Pilot Brooklyn
Andries Hudde MSQI +
Pilot Brooklyn
Frederick Douglass Academy V. Middle School MSQI +
Pilot Bronx
P.S. 109 MSQI +
Pilot Brooklyn
J.H.S. 123 James M. Kieran MSQI +
Pilot Bronx
Village Academy MSQI +
Pilot Queens
Academy of Public Relations MSQI 3 Bronx
Hunter’s Point Community Middle School MSQI 3 Queens
Urban Science Academy MSQI 3 Bronx
Brownsville Collaborative Middle School MSQI 3 Brooklyn
Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science,
The MSQI 3 Bronx
J.H.S. 050 John D. Wells MSQI 3 Brooklyn
Dr. Susan S. McKinney Secondary School of the Arts MSQI 3 Brooklyn
P.S. 007 Samuel Stern MSQI 3 Manhattan
Kappa V MSQI 3 Brooklyn
Accion Academy MSQI 3 Bronx
P.S. 157 Benjamin Franklin MSQI 3 Brooklyn
Middle School 322 MSQI 3 Manhattan
P.S. 089 Bronx MSQI 3 Bronx
Staten Island School of Civic Leadership MSQI 3 Staten
Island
I.S. 232 MSQI 3 Bronx
East Fordham Academy for the Arts MSQI 3 Bronx
I.S. 238 Susan B Anthony MSQI 3 Queens
P.S. 20 P.O. George J. Werdan III MSQI 3 Bronx
M.S. 246 Walt Whitman MSQI 3 Brooklyn
J.H.S. 014 Shell Bank MSQI 3 Brooklyn
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In 2007, the City Council convened a task force that included academics, unions, the DOE,
parents, CBOs, and former principals to produce the Middle School Task Force Report. This report
was adapted into the Blueprint for Middle School Success, which the DOE currently uses. The
current Middle School Quality Initiative grew out of that work and is still overseen by the Task
Force. Introduced in 2011 with 18 schools, MSQI has deepened instruction in grades 6-8, and
currently works with 49 schools across the city. School leaders, teachers, and networks receive
professional development on Common Core-aligned literacy strategies and promising practices.
MSQI schools also receive targeted funding for literacy-focused training and instructional materials.
This fall, 40 additional schools will take part in the initiative – bringing the total number of MSQI
participating schools to 89. By year three, the expansion will benefit approximately 12,000
additional students.
Most significantly, the expansion of MSQI will provide the opportunity to develop a new
model for accelerating middle grade students’ progress toward meeting Common Core literacy
standards. Through a partnership with The After School Corporation (TASC) and the Education
Innovation Laboratory at Harvard University (EdLabs), participating middle schools will be able to
offer their students an additional twelve hours per week of literacy-focused support embedded
within an engaging, high-interest extended learning day. This model could play an important role in
our City’s progress toward ensuring that all graduating 8th graders leave middle school securely on
the pathway to college and career success.
MSQI’s expansion next year is made possible through $4.65 million in grants provided by
Robin Hood and the New York City Council, with the help of other funders. The New York
Department of Education is also contributing $1.55 million dollars to the expansion.
This year alone, MSQI facilitated over 78 days of professional development and supported
more than 400 educators. The initial results of the program are promising – and for the students who
need it most: On nationally-normed assessments of reading comprehension, students who attend
schools participating in MSQI are on track to exceed the average annual growth of middle school
students nationwide. Further, evidence shows that students who severely struggled with reading
demonstrated 1.5 grade levels of progress between February and June of 2012. These severely atrisk
students reaped the greatest gains due to MSQI efforts, substantially exceeding the annual
benchmarks set for their peers nationwide.
Of the 40-school MSQI expansion, 20 of those schools will participate in TASC/EdLabs’
innovative learning model. TASC will work with community-based organizations across the city to
offer students high-dosage reading tutoring and an array of learning activities aligned with students’
interests and affinities through an extended school day. An estimated 2,000 students per year over
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the next three years will participate in this component of the program. EdLabs will work with the
Department to design the reading tutoring model, and will also evaluate the project and identify
effective practices that can be shared across middle schools citywide and beyond. The 20 schools,
which have not yet been identified, will be randomly selected from among a pool of applicants. The
program, like MSQI as a whole, will be targeted at middle schools across the City that serve highneeds
students.
By the end of next school year, MSQI will have served approximately 27,000 students total.
The Department hopes to build on the early success of the program and see even greater gains for
students participating in the new extended day and reading tutoring components of the program.
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Contact: Erin Hughes – DOE (212) 374-5141
Justin Goodman – Council (212) 788-7121