While schools received their own individual results in the summer, NYSED just released the ELA and math exam results for all schools and subgroups. New York City charter school students continue the multi-year trend of attaining proficiency at higher rates than their New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) school counterparts in both ELA and math.
On the ELA exam, 67.5% of NYC charter school students scored proficient in comparison to just 56.3% of NYCPS students—an 11.2 percentage point difference! The difference between charter and NYCPS school students was slightly larger with 68.6% of charter school students scoring proficient—11.8 percentage points higher than NYCPS students’ 56.9%.
Black and Hispanic charter school students continue to outperform their NYCPS peers. In math, Black charter students are significantly more likely to be proficient as their district peers (68.7% vs. 43.0%); the same holds true for Hispanic students where 65.7% of charter school students were proficient compared 43.1% of NYCPS students.
Assessment results for students with disabilities follow the patterns above: in ELA, 42.8% of charter school students with disabilities scored proficient as compared to 26.7% for their NYCPS’ counterparts. In math, the gap is greater: 47.5% of charter students scored proficient compared to 29.1% of their NYCPS 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 six-year period (2019-2020 SY to 2024-25 SY), the NYCPS enrollment for kindergarten through grade 12 decreased by more than 11%, while charter school enrollment increased by nearly 14% for the same grades.
