NEW CENTURY HIGH SCHOOLS Evaluation Findings from the Second Year

The New Century High Schools (NCHS) initiative so far has launched three rounds of new small high schools in New York City, working in collaboration with the Department of Education of the City of New York (DOE), the teachers ’ and principals ’ professional associations, and a consortium of funders led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. New Visions for Public Schools is administering the transformation effort on behalf of its partners. This report presents evaluation findings based on data collected during the first two years of the initiative, which were school years 2002-03 and 2003-04. The findings address the operations and results of the 12 schools launched in the initiative’s first year (known here as the Cohort 1 schools) and the 18 schools launched in the initiative’s second year (the Cohort 2 schools). The second year of the NCHS initiative brought two major challenges. The most immediate of these was finding space and facilities for the new schools. Because the creation of the new schools coincided with a district-wide surge in high school enrollment, the NCHS schools found themselves competing fo