It remains to be seen how much the financial hole – which is being touted as an official recession” – that New York City finds itself in, affect the education sector, which Governor David Paterson said is likely to see cutbacks, but a top administration official said that education reforms targeted at immigrant students has been largely successful.

Dennis M. Walcott, Deputy Mayor of Education and Community Development, said at a meeting co-organized by New York Community Media Alliance at City Hall last week, that a new management structure in the City – focused on school leadership, engaging families, along with cutting down on bureaucracy – and enhanced salaries for teachers, lower attrition rates and luring top teachers to the toughest assignments, have seen a jump of 13 percent in graduation rates from 20 years ago – from 47 percent in 1986 to 60 percent in 2006.

The old school system was not et up to succeed, said Walcott, citing the antiquated system of 40 districts, setting their own rules and standards which resulted in limited accountability and generations of students leaving the system without the skills and knowledge they needed to succeed.

Only about 50 percent of fourth graders were meeting State standards in math and reading and only 30 percent of eighth-graders were meeting State standards in math and reading.

At present, the Department of Education has streamlined the bureaucracy, creating 10 regions, each comprising three or four community school districts, headed by a regional superintendent.

This has helped in diverting $200 million from the bureaucracy to schools and classrooms, and smaller classroom size. Also, a Leadership Academy is in place to train and support new and existing principals; starting teacher salary is up by 43 percent.

The DOE has enhanced the curriculum, having implemented uniform math and ELA curricula and are introducing new curricula in the arts, social studies, and science. They have in place a parent coordinator in every school. Results show that major crimes are down more than 13 percent and other incidents are down by more than 45 percent.

Replying to a question, Walcott, while not citing numbers, said that attrition rates for teachers are “lower,” as well as hiring of teachers from overseas “is going down because we have enough applications coming in.”

He pointed out that there are at least five applications that come in domestically for every teacher position in N.Y.C. A controversy that arose over a visa hassle with some teachers from the West Indies some years ago had also made the State wary of hiring teachers from overseas, he added.

According to a presentation by Walcott, there are no more forced transfers or bumping of teachers. A Lead Teacher program and housing incentives have created a positive effect in getting top-notch teachers.

Saying that both he and Governor Paterson were in favor of choice for parents and students alike, Walcott said that DOE has created 286 new schools, 45 new charter schools, 16 ELL focused schools, 12 new transfer schools for students who have fallen behind, 10 new GED programs, 21 young adult borough centers for students who are over-age and under-credited and 39 Learning to Work program to help students get back on track and learn useful skills.

The DOE is also experimenting with more gender-specific schools, especially for girls.

Yet, there is lot of work to be done: there are at present 148,000 students who are over-age and not graduated in four years of high schools.

There are incentives for principals and teachers to do well at N.Y.C. schools: principals can earn $25,000 annually for agreeing to take over a high-needs school for at least three years; and teachers can earn $3,000 bonus or more for raising achievement at 200 high-need schools.