Bloomberg Touts School Salad Bars, Rising Graduation Rate

The campus of Columbia University with the Butler Library in the foreground in Manhattan on June 21. On Monday, July 30, Mayor Bloomberg announced an agreement to create a new institute for data sciences and engineering at the college. (Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK—In his weekly radio address, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg discussed the upcoming first day of school and related topics, including the city’s fight against obesity.

The recent announcement of Whole Foods donating around $300,000 for the installation of 57 salad bars in New York City schools was hailed by Bloomberg as “providing a foundation for good health.”

Currently, there are more than 1,000 salad bars in schools; by 2015, Bloomberg’s administration wants a salad bar in every school.

Graduation rates are another positive, having risen nearly 41 percent since 2005, according to Bloomberg. In 2010 the graduation rate was 65.1 percent, up from 59 percent in 2005, according to records from the city’s Department of Education.

Students graduating college ready—or not needing remedial classes when they enter college—have lagged, according to testimony given by City University of New York (CUNY) officials in front of City Council’s Committee on Education in April.