Before the start of the 2024-25 school year, schools across New York State received access to their own results for the Spring 2024 English Language Arts (ELA) and math assessments (grades 3-8). NYSED has now released the full data file. New York City charter school students attain proficiency at higher rates than their New York City district school counterparts in both ELA and math.
In ELA, charter schools saw 58.2% of their students scoring proficient–9.1 percentage points higher than their district counterparts (49.1%). As in past years, 2024 saw the gap in Math proficiency rates widen with 66.3% of charter school students proficient as compared to 53.4% of NYC district schools—a near 13-percentage-point difference!
Black and Hispanic charter school students continue to outperform their district peers. In math, Black charter students are nearly twice as likely to be proficient as their district peers (65.9% vs. 38.4%); the same holds true for Hispanic students where 63.7% of NYC charter school students were proficient compared 39.7% of NYC district students.
Assessment results for students with disabilities follow the patterns above: in ELA, 33.8% of charter school students with disabilities scored proficient as compared to 21.1% for their NYC Public Schools’ counterparts. In math, the gap is greater: 46.0% of charter students scored proficient compared to 27.4% of their NYC Public School peers.
The continued success of NYC’s charter schools is likely one reason for the increase in enrollment of charter school students across NYC. Over a five-year period (2019-2020 SY to 2023-24 SY), the NYC Public Schools enrollment for prekindergarten through grade 12 decreased by more than 11%, while charter school enrollment increased by nearly 14% for the same grades.
For more information on charter school performance, see our interactive dashboard at https://nyccharterschools.org/new-york-city-charter-school-center-test-score-analysis-2024/. For general inquiries on charter schools or how to enroll in a charter school, visit the NYC Charter School Center website or call (212) 437-8300.
