Jersey City Public Schools

Jersey City Public Schools includes 39 schools—26 elementary, four middle, eight high and one alternative—serving students across different grade spans. Results vary sharply from school to school: third-grade ELA ranged from 98% at Cornelia F. Bradford School to 5% at Whitney M. Young Junior School, a 93-point gap. In a comparison of five high schools, average NJGPA math proficiency was 30%, 31 points below the state’s 61%; ELA averaged 60%, 16 points below the state’s 76%. The most important takeaway is that districtwide averages can hide very different school experiences, with middle-grade math a particular concern.

Several schools stand out for strong results. Bradford led grades 3–5 ELA and math, including 98% in third-grade ELA and 85% in fifth-grade math; Infinity Institute reached 100% in ninth-grade ELA, compared with 12% at Henry Snyder High School. Dr Ronald McNair High School led grade 11 science at 95%. SchoolDigger ranked Infinity 3rd of 434 high schools, McNair 7th of 434, and Bradford 4th of 1,331 schools. Among middle schools, Academy I had 92% proficiency in seventh-grade math, while Whitney M. Young Junior School had 2%—a 91-point difference.

Recent trends offer another way to compare schools, but SchoolDigger rankings are not test-score changes. Innovation High School rose from the 24th to the 58th percentile between 2023–2024 and 2025–2026; Franklin L. Williams School fell from the 27th to the 14th percentile. Across eight high schools with ninth-grade ELA results in both years, the average dipped from 54% to 53%, while the state average rose from 50% to 51%. As context, free/reduced lunch eligible figures for sy 2024–2025 were 10% at Bradford, 35% at McNair, 53% at Infinity and 87% at Young; these observations do not show that income measures caused test results. Attendance also varied: chronic absenteeism was 54% at Young and 6% at Academy I, while Bradford and McNair paired strong results with 8% absenteeism each.