New Study: NYC Public Schools See Widening Achievement Gap

Study finds a growing “proficiency gap” between low- and higher-income school districts

NEW YORK, NY — High school graduation rates are up in New York City. Proficiency levels in English and math are on the rise. But those in low-income areas are lagging behind their higher-income counterparts, according to a new study. If this trend continues, both low- and higher-income school districts will continue to improve, but the income-based “proficiency gap” between them will widen in favor of students in more affluent communities.

Manhattan Institute policy analyst Alex Armlovich finds that, encouragingly, student proficiency on Common Core-aligned English language arts (ELA) and math exams improved, on average, by about 4 percentage points and 6 percentage points, respectively, across New York City’s 32 public school districts.

Students in lower-income areas, though, are not keeping pace with their higher-income counterparts. The study finds that the poorer a school district was in 2013, the less proficient its student population was in 2013 and 2015, and the slower its progress was in boosting proficiency over that period.

Asian students are the exception to this unfortunate rule. Asian students in low-income school districts during 2013-15 narrowed the income-based proficiency gap in ELA and kept pace in math with their Asian peers in higher-income areas—a finding that merits further study.

If Mayor de Blasio truly wishes to “take dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities,” this study shows the need for him to embrace meaningful reform focused on narrowing the income-based proficiency gap.

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