The school progress report cards issued this week by the New York City Department of Education — the last from the Bloomberg administration and perhaps ever — show that the level of school success depends largely on where in the city a child lives.

In District 2, centered on prosperous East Side and downtown areas of Manhattan, 95 percent of zoned elementary schools received either an A or B on their newly released progress reports, which cover the 2012-’13 school year. In second place, District 26, which includes middle class and affluent Queens neighborhoods near the Nassau County line, 90 percent of zoned elementary schools received either an A or B. In District 3 in Manhattan’s West Side, 82 percent of schools received top scores.

Those three districts also happen to have fewer low-income students than all but one other in the city.

On the other end of the scale, in District 18, which serves the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Flatbush and Canarsie, one-third of zoned elementary schools received a B; the rest were graded C or D.

We’ve mapped elementary school progress report grades for the areas served by zoned elementary schools — those to which students are assigned based on their home address. Areas that appear blank on the map either do not assign students to specific schools or were closed for much of last year following superstorm Sandy, and therefore were not rated by the Department of Education. The Department of Education groups zoned schools into larger districts for administrative purposes.

Click on the map to see progress report card grades for zoned elementary schools

Other districts with fewer than half of schools receiving an A or B include Districts 28 and 29 in Jamaica, Queens; District 19 in East New York; District 5 in Harlem; District 13 in downtown Brooklyn; and District 11 in the northeast Bronx.

Meanwhile, at least three in four schools scored an A or B in two high-performing Queens zones: District 24 in Elmhurst and Middle Village and and District 25 in Flushing.

The disparities emerge even though the Department of Education grading formula takes pains to account for the differing student populations, so that the scores reflect the value of the school’s instruction and not external forces like a family’s income or the share of children in special education.

Kim Nauer, the Education Project Director of the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, suggests that the concentration of A and B schools in more affluent areas may be the result of a 2011 rules change that set a floor of a C grade for schools that performed in the top third of city schools on state tests.

“Schools and parents were complaining that the grades didn’t make sense,” said Nauer.

P.S. 116, on the East Side of Manhattan – one of the 90 percent of schools in District 2 that received an A or B on newly released school report cards. Photo: Inside Schools

The progress reports look not only at a school’s performance on state tests, which accounts for 25 percent of a grade, but also student growth on those tests, which accounts for 60 percent, and environmental factors including surveys and attendance data, which make up the remaining 15 percent.

Using this data, the city compares a school with a group of up to 40 schools with similar demographic profiles, such as average entering proficiency levels, the number of students with disabilities and the number of students who have been left behind. The progress report grades reflect how schools perform against their peer group.

Nauer agrees that it is important that schools be measured against schools with similar demographics. “Test scores are completely tied to economic status,” she said.

In previous years, a D or F grade, or a third C grade, could land a school on the turnaround list, which could ultimately led to closure. This year, the administration is using the grades to help schools develop plans for increasing performance.

As for charter schools, citywide 65 percent received either an A or B, compared to 68 percent for zoned schools. Though performance varied greatly between boroughs.  In Brooklyn, the borough with the most charters, 54 percent of charters received high marks. In Queens, which only had eight charters last year, only 43 percent of charters received either an A or B.  Both of Staten Island’s charters received high marks, and 81 percent of the Bronx’s 26 graded charters received either an A or B.

To see how the city’s school progress formula affects the picture of the performance of an individual school, compare the map above to the performance of the same schools on the math and English Language Arts tests last year that factored into their scores.

Math

English Language Arts