Upper East Side School District Improves in Math, English

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — New York City Public Schools recorded "substantial" gains on state English and math exams announced Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña. Schools in the district that includes the Upper East Side are reflecting those citywide gains, albeit on a less than "substantial" level.

“Our public schools are a cornerstone of New York City,” de Blasio said. “These results represent important progress and outline real improvements across each borough of our City. We congratulate our students, families and devoted educators for this critical step forward. We remain focused on building on these gains and others – such as the highest-ever high school graduation rate – to deliver equity and excellence for every public school student across the City, no matter their zip code.”

The citywide rise in test scores was consistent with the data for District 2 — which spans the Upper East Side and substantial portions of Midtown and Downtown Manhattan. The District is Manhattan's most expansive, lumping Upper East Side school data in with schools in every neighborhood below 60th street other than the Lower East Side and the East Village. As a result the data does not solely reflect school performance on the Upper East Side, but the district as a whole.

The test results released Monday included data for all students grades 3-8, and the data was also further broken down by factors such as gender, ethnicity and free lunch eligibility.

Among all students in all grades tests results increased in both English and math compared to last year's numbers for District 2. The percentage of students scoring Level 3 or 4 (the highest performing) in English jumped from 67.6 percent to 68.6 percent. The improvement was more noticeable when it came to math scores, where the percentage of students in Level 3 or 4 jumped from 59 percent to 66.4 percent.

"New York City public school test scores are getting better as we strive to have the best schools," said the Upper East Side's City Council Member Ben Kallos. "Thank you to the leadership of Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Farina in improving public school education and test scores."

When the numbers are broken down by students' ethnicity, the data shows that the district still has work to do. While improving for the most part, numbers among black and Hispanic students are still much lower than among white and Asian students. The same goes for students eligible for free lunch, where the eligible students scored achieved lower test scores on average than students not eligible for free lunch.

Here's how the test result numbers break down by ethnicity in District 2:

Percentage of students scoring Level 3 or 4 in math:

• Black: 31.1 percent in 2015, 29.4 percent in 2016
• Hispanic: 37.4 percent in 2015, 40.4 percent in 2016
• White: 76.9 percent in 2015, 78.1 percent in 2016
• Asian: 80.7 percent in 2015, 86.6 percent in 2016

Percentage of students scoring Level 3 or 4 in English:

• Black: 29.4 percent in 2015, 36.4 in 2016
• Hispanic: 35.9 percent in 2015, 45.4 percent in 2016
• White: 71.9 percent in 2015, 78.5 percent in 2016
• Asian: 61.9 percent in 2015, 68.3 percent in 2016

Here's how the test result numbers break down by free lunch eligibility in District 2:

Percentage of students scoring Level 3 or 4 in math:

• Free lunch: 54.0 percent in 2015, 54.9 percent in 2016
• No free lunch: 76.1 percent in 2015, 76.6 percent in 2016

Percentage of students scoring Level 3 or 4 in English:

• Free lunch: 41.6 percent in 2015, 48.9 percent in 2016
• No free lunch: 69.7 percent in 2015, 76.5 percent in 2016

Photo Credit: Shutterstock