The top and bottom 15 middle schools by test scores

Schools that screen come out on top and schools that take neighborhood students fall to the bottom of our next rankings installment, which tackles middle schools.

A few charter schools are also in the mix — both on the top and bottom lists. Unlike our elementary school list, we included charter schools in these rankings.

To generate the rankings, we averaged the percentage of students who scored proficient across all the tested grade levels. (We excluded schools that don’t include grades six, seven, and eight.) In response to reader requests, we also listed the borough of the school in parentheses after each one.

The results contain very few surprises. All of the schools on the top-scoring lists except the two charter schools have a selective admissions process. Students must score high on standardized tests and sometimes pass in-person interviews in order to get into schools like Anderson, NEST+m, and Mark Twain Middle School — all of which rank high on these lists.

In contrast, all of the schools that rank lowest in math and reading are either zoned schools that must take all students who live in their neighborhood or schools that do not draw a strong applicant pool. Several schools, particularly on the reading list, serve only new immigrants.

Among the few exceptions to this pattern are two charter schools that made it to the top-ranked schools for math — both part of the Harlem Village Academy network. Another charter school with a 54% special education population, Opportunity Charter School, fell into the lowest-scoring schools for both math and reading.

Meanwhile, one district school that made it to the top-scoring schools in math, East New York Family Academy, serves a more challenging population in lower-performing District 19 than other selective schools on the list. East New York also just barely missed the top reading list, falling at No. 16.