Why a good elementary school is so hard to identify
What’s the quality of education like at Brooklyn’s P.S. 307?
This was the elementary school where New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones sent her daughter. In a much-discussed essay, she described low expectations, an indifferent administrator, and disappointing outcomes. But that was several years ago, and schools can change as staff turns over. Indeed there is a relatively new principal (who declined an interview request).
So imagine you’re the parent of a child zoned for P.S. 307 trying to figure out how the school is doing now. Or you’re a city official who wants to determine whether it needs urgent intervention.
You might start by looking at math and reading test scores.
In 2025, only a quarter or so of P.S. 307’s students wereproficient on state exams, less than half the city average. This is alarming, of course. Yet raw scores like these are not good measures of how well schools are educating their students since there are so many other factors at play. The vast majority of P.S. 307 students come from low-income families and nearly half qualify for special education.
To account for this, many experts suggest looking at how much progress students make at a given school. Yet growth scores produced by New York city and the statetell different stories about P.S. 307. By the city’s measure, the school is well below average, but by the state’s it’s slightly above.
At this point if you’re the parent or the city official, you’re understandably confused. So what is going on here?
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The current principal ducked an interview request — not the sign of a confident leader where a quarter of kids passed state exams. Barnum will next report on what P.S. 307 parents told him.
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2025-2026 Madison 4k-3rd grade Early Literacy Screener report: The bar moves faster than the kids.
