09.12.2014 | New York Post | About one in four NYC middle-school students — 52,292 out of 227,474 — are at least one year older than their peers because they repeated a grade, according to figures obtained by Advocates for Children of New York. And 8,644 junior-high students are at least three years older than other kids in their classes because they were held back several times. But the city provides only 446 seats in alternative programs for students who want to enter ninth grade but are more than 15 years old, according to city data. Overage middle schoolers are twice as likely to drop out, studies show. “They’re significantly older than their peers, they’re stuck with students who are 11 to 13 years old, and most of the Department of Education’s options are not available to them,” said Ashley Grant, a lawyer for the advocacy group, which got the data through a Freedom of Information filing. Read article