About
How to read this site
Start with your address. The map centers there and tags the elementary and middle schools you’re zoned for. You can also search by school name or DBN.
Tap any number to see what it actually measures. Most of these labels hide a definition that changes the answer. “Economic Need Index” is not the poverty rate. “College ready” covers English only.
The scale under each number shows where that school sits among all NYC schools that year. The shaded middle is where half of them fall.
Hit ♥ to save a school, then compare up to five side by side. Your shortlist lives in a link you can send to anyone.
Where the numbers come from
All of it is public data directly from the city and state, and each row here links to the dataset it came from. The one thing calculated here is the percentile: where a school’s number falls against every other school’s that same year.
| Dataset | Feeds | Last published |
|---|---|---|
| LCGMS school directory | Core school records: DBN, name, address, lat/lon, grades, contacts | Refreshed weekly |
| Demographic Snapshot | Enrollment, demographics, Economic Need Index | 2024-25 |
| School Quality Reports (EMS & HS) | Survey summaries, achievement measures, attendance rates | 2023-24 |
| Average Class Size by School | Class size | 2025-26 |
| NYC School Survey | Safety, teacher trust, family engagement | 2024-25 |
| NY State test results (ELA/Math) | ES/MS academic outcomes | 2024-25 |
| Graduation outcomes | HS grad rates, Regents, college readiness | 2024-25 |
| HS/MS/Pre-K directoriesHigh school · Middle school · Pre-K | Programs, admissions methods, AP/IB, sports, arts, accessibility | 2021 (Pre-K 2018) |
| School zone boundaries (ES/MS)Elementary · Middle | Zoned-school lookup | 2024-25 |
How to read a number here
A range instead of a number. When a value reads “Below 5%,” that range is what the DOE published into its dataset.
Withheld for privacy. The DOE hides a value when the group it describes is small enough that publishing it would point at individual kids.
Not yet reported. That source hasn’t published the measure for that year. These datasets each run on their own schedule, so this is common, and it is not the school’s doing.
Every number wears its year. A school’s 2022 test score and its 2025 enrollment both sit on the same page. The year rides along with each one so you never have to work out which is which.
What to know
In New York City, just under a million kids are enrolled in approximately 1,900 different district and charter schools across the five boroughs. The city publishes a mountain of data on all of them: test scores, attendance, class size, what families say on the annual survey. Then it scatters that data across a dozen datasets that each update on their own schedule. Answering one plain question about one school means opening six spreadsheets.
The gaps between schools are wider than most people expect. On the 2022-23 state reading test, 47% of students met standards at the median school. At the bottom tenth of schools it was 26%. At the top tenth, 77%.
Most of that range sits inside districts, not between them. In the typical community school district, the highest- and lowest-scoring school are about 60 points apart.
That’s why you won’t find any “grades” here. In District 30 in Queens the range runs from 14% to 98%. At the school on the bottom, 95% of students were still learning English. At the two on top, 3% and 4%. Both numbers are accurate. Averaging them into a ranking would tell you nothing true about either school.