Dive Brief:

• In his resignation as principal of the Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, Bernard Gassaway criticized the New York Department of Education for not doing enough to help failing schools improve.
• “You label schools as ­being struggling, but the policies of the Department of Education have contributed to the problems we’ve experienced over the past five years,” he was quoted as saying by the New York Post. 
• During Bloomberg's time in office, Boys and Girls HS received three consecutive "F" grades and was one of 23 poor-performing schools that placed into a "special" new district.  

Dive Insight:

The city is asking the state for more time to create a turnaround plan for the school. Paying attention to the city's failing schools is important, as New York is a state that touts charter schools, so understanding how failing public schools are treated gives us an idea of what the state's grand scheme for the education landscape may look like. It seems drastically unfair to penalize schools and not help them become better. That would be like giving a student a 0% and then not taking the time to re-teach the material they didn't know.