138 NYC Schools That Are Defying Expectations When it Comes to Reading – The 74

This article is part of Bright Spots, a series highlighting schools where every child learns to read, no matter their zip code. Explore the Bright Spots map to find out which schools are beating the odds in terms of literacy versus poverty rates.

When The 74 started looking for Bright Spots — public schools that are beating the odds  helping low-income students learn to read — it was hard to miss how well charter schools performed. Charters made up 7% of the elementary schools in our national sample but 11% of those that we identified as delivering exceptional results, with reading scores that far exceed what might be expected given the poverty rates of the populations they serve.

Charters were even more overrepresented in New York. There, charter schools made up 9.5% of the state sample, but they earned 38.5% of the spots on our list of exemplars. 

By our metric, the 10 highest-scoring schools in the state were all in New York City — and seven of them were charter schools located in the Bronx. Another was a charter school in Harlem, and the other two were traditional public schools in Brooklyn.

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Click on the yellow dots to see the details for each Bright Spot school. Click anywhere in the map to close the data box. (Map: Eamonn Fitzmaurice/The74)

Click to view fully interactive map at The 74.

All serve a high concentration of low-income students, with 66% to 92% of children qualifying for free- or reduced-price lunch. And yet, 90% to 97% of their third graders were proficient readers in 2024, the year of our analysis. In comparison, the proficiency rate for all third graders across the state was just 43%. 

The highest-scoring school by our metric was the Success Academy Bronx 5 Upper Elementary School. In 2024, despite a 90% poverty rate, 94% of its students scored proficient in third grade reading. In 2025, its students did even better, with 96% scoring proficient in reading and 100% doing so in math.

In fact, Success Academy has 21 of its schools on our Bright Spots list. The Icahn charter network has five, South Bronx Classical has three, and both KIPP and the Zeta Harlem Children’s Zone network have two.  

But even beyond charters, it is clear that families with young children in New York City in particular are blessed with a variety of good options. Of the 143 exceptional schools across the state, 97% — 138 — are in the city, and 84 of those are traditional district schools. 

As one example, in 2024, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis elementary (PS 66) had 81% of its students qualify for free- or reduced-price lunch, yet 84% of its third graders read proficiently. It also did even better in 2025, with 71% of students with disabilities, 84% of Hispanic students and 87% of all students scoring proficiently. These rates all far surpassed the statewide average.

These stats may be heartening, but New York City might soon be able to provide even better options for families.

As a district, the city is in the midst of sweeping changes to how literacy is taught. That initiative, called New York City Reads, requires schools to use one of three phonics-based reading programs with a track record of producing student gains. As that program continues to roll out, participating schools saw large gains last year, and incoming Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels promised to double down and make teaching vulnerable students how to read his “No. 1 goal.”

These are promising signs of progress. On the charter school front, it bears noting that there’s a cap on how many can operate in New York City, and as the maximum has already been reached, no new ones can open until that cap is lifted. According to the advocacy group StudentsFirstNY, 163,000 New York City students are on charter wait lists. New Mayor Zohran Mamdani has opposed charter schools’ expansion in the past, but he may need to reconsider, given their prominence among the ranks of Bright Spot schools.

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