{"id":374472,"date":"2026-10-16T03:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T03:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/374472\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T03:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T03:21:17","slug":"why-parents-at-brooklyns-p-s-307-like-the-school-despite-its-low-test-scores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/374472\/","title":{"rendered":"Why parents at Brooklyn\u2019s P.S. 307 like the school, despite its low test scores"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you know search engines like Google are changing the way you see news? Keep Chalkbeat\u2019s valuable education coverage at the top of your feeds by clicking here<\/a> and checking the box next to our name.<\/p>\n

On a bright Wednesday morning in Brooklyn, students walked into P.S. 307 holding their parents\u2019 hands or tumbled out of a yellow school bus. A crossing guard, a security officer, the principal, and others greeted them warmly. <\/p>\n

An observer would never know that the school has been the subject of nationwide furor following Nikole Hannah-Jones\u2019 New York Times essay<\/a> about her daughter\u2019s negative experience there years earlier. Overnight, P.S. 307 had to some become a national exemplar of a failing school. <\/p>\n

Since Hannah-Jones\u2019 daughter left, the school has gotten a new principal, and I was curious what parents think of it now. <\/p>\n

What they told me was striking and perhaps surprising. Among the dozen parents I spoke to, nearly all of them praised the school\u2019s staff, programs, and communication. Most parents hadn\u2019t heard that the school was in the national news.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u201cwonderful, very good. I love the way they interact with the children,\u201d said Sheila Langley, after dropping off her first grader. Jessica Ramos, the parent of a fourth grader, agreed: \u201cI don\u2019t have anything negative. Everything has met the standards of what I want for my kids.\u201d When she\u2019s sought out extra help, the school has provided it, she added.<\/p>\n

This sample of parent perspectives doesn\u2019t mean P.S. 307 is thriving now or that the serious problems described by Hannah-Jones have been resolved. The school still has low overall test scores<\/a>, and some families might not have easy access to objective information about how their children are doing academically. <\/p>\n

But the generally positive takes show that many parents are happy with schools that are widely assumed to be low-performing, perhaps because they see and value things that are not easily measured. <\/p>\n

P.S. 307 parents praise teachers\u2019 dedication and communication<\/p>\n

I arrived outside of P.S. 307 on a recent Wednesday at 7:30 a.m., half an hour before the school day started. The school sits across from a public-housing complex, where it draws many of its students. It\u2019s also blocks away from high-rises on the Brooklyn waterfront where one-bedroom condos are listed at over $1 million. The school is small<\/a>, under 300 students as of last year, and includes a prekindergarten program. The vast majority of students come from lower-income families, and nearly half have a disability. <\/p>\n

The school\u2019s principal was outside greeting students and families when I visited. He declined to speak with me. <\/p>\n

But most parents, aside from a few who were racing to work, were happy to talk. Parents\u2019 comments centered on the care and the dedication of the staff. \u201cIt is a community and a family, and they treat every kid very well,\u201d Brandon Mata, father of a second grader, told me after dropping his son off. \u201cI can see that even down to the security guard \u2014 there is a familiarity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mata had been concerned about how his 7-year-old son, a \u201cpandemic baby,\u201d would do in school. Indeed, his son struggled with the strict rules at a charter school he\u2019d previously attended. Mata likes that his son has more independence at P.S. 307 and says teachers have worked with him on behavioral issues. <\/p>\n

He appreciates that the school doesn\u2019t only call home when problems arise. A while back someone called to say that his son\u2019s painting would be hung up in the school lobby, where it remains today. The one time Mata raised a concern \u2014 he didn\u2019t like that a staff member showed his son a video on their personal phone \u2014 the school swiftly addressed it.<\/p>\n

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Mata\u2019s only complaint, surprisingly, was about resources. He wants the teachers to be better paid and the gym to be better stocked with equipment. After Hannah-Jones\u2019 article was released, many commentators noted that P.S. 307 has a high level of per-pupil funding.<\/p>\n

Mata is pleased with his son\u2019s academic progress, and the school says he\u2019s testing well above average.<\/p>\n

Overall, though, only about 1 in 4 third through fifth graders at P.S. 307 scored proficient<\/a> on state exams in 2025. These scores are estimates of whether children are learning the basic math and reading skills they will need to succeed throughout school and eventually adulthood. National surveys show that parents often believe<\/a>, based on information provided by the school, that their child is on grade level, even when tests show otherwise.<\/p>\n

In a follow-up call, I asked Mata if he knew about P.S. 307\u2019s poor test scores. He didn\u2019t, so I shared them. \u201cThat kind of concerns me and surprises me because I don\u2019t think that\u2019s being communicated to the parents properly,\u201d he replied. Yet Mata is not convinced those numbers are a reflection of the school, as opposed to external or family factors. \u201cYou gotta work with what you got,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

In a recent piece, I described why it\u2019s difficult to objectively evaluate<\/a> the performance of elementary schools like P.S. 307. Students come in at different levels with different needs, so looking at raw scores can be misleading. In 2025, fourth and fifth graders at P.S. 307 made slightly above average growth on state tests. <\/p>\n

The group of parents I talked to does not seem to have been an unusually positive bunch. In surveys<\/a> administered by the city, P.S. 307 families also gave the school high marks. For instance, 96% of those who responded to the survey in 2025 said teachers worked closely with parents to meet students\u2019 needs. (The school also had decent parent ratings<\/a> when Hannah-Jones\u2019 daughter was there.)<\/p>\n

This high level of parent satisfaction is not as surprising as it may seem. Polls have long shown <\/a>that while the public rates American schools as poor, most families give their own children\u2019s school strong reviews. In New York City, there are widespread and relatively accessible school choice options.<\/p>\n

The only P.S. 307 parent I spoke with who didn\u2019t praise the school had just enrolled her daughter the day before, so she couldn\u2019t judge yet. She picked the school because she had heard good things about it on Facebook. <\/p>\n

Parents react to Times piece<\/p>\n

Nadirah Reynolds was one of just a handful of parents I spoke with who was familiar with the Times article. \u201cIt made me feel kind of sad because I know how hard they work within the school,\u201d she said, noting that she wasn\u2019t questioning Hannah-Jones\u2019 experience as a parent.<\/p>\n

Reynolds\u2019 experience, though, has been \u201camazing\u201d since she enrolled her daughter in preschool here a few years ago. The teachers are communicative, and her daughter seemed to be learning and growing. Reynolds has heard mostly positive things from other parents. Her daughter is in kindergarten, so she\u2019ll be watching to see if any issues crop up as she moves on to later grades.<\/p>\n

Carmen Tirado, mother of a fifth grader and preschool student, had also heard about the Times essay. Her three older sons, now all in high school, had previously graduated from the school, so she has seen it evolve. Tirado says the new principal has been a \u201cvery big upgrade\u201d over the prior one, whom Hannah-Jones described as ineffective.<\/p>\n

Tirado recommends the school to everyone, she says, and has an 8-month-old she plans to enroll in preschool here. \u201cWhen she turns 3, they already have her folder and everything ready,\u201d Tirado said.<\/p>\n

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat\u2019s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did you know search engines like Google are changing the way you see news? Keep Chalkbeat\u2019s valuable education…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,4146,137793,27640,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-374472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-chalkbeat","tag-daniel-hale-william-elementary-school-ps-307","tag-ideas","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}