PS 133 has a 77-point Black-white achievement gap inside one school
The question
Which New York City elementary schools have the largest gaps between their Black and white students at the same campus — and what produces those gaps?
Ten New York City elementary schools have a gap of 60 percentage points or more between their white students' and Black students' fifth-grade math proficiency rates — measured at the same school, in the same year. The biggest gap is at P.S. 133 William A. Butler in Brooklyn: 89% of white students proficient, 12% of Black students. These schools score well on aggregate measures because their white students score near the top of the scale; the Black students at the same campuses score below the citywide Black-student average. All 10 schools are in gentrifying neighborhoods in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Most of them have Gifted & Talented programs or accelerated tracks, so within-school sorting is one candidate explanation worth chasing.
Data analysis
Investigation run 2026-05-31.
TL;DR
Ten New York City elementary schools have within-school Black-white gaps of 60 percentage points or more on the fifth-grade math test. The biggest is P.S. 133 William A. Butler in Brooklyn at 77 points: white students score 88.9% proficient, Black students 11.8%. These schools have strong aggregate scores because the white students score near the top of the scale; the Black students at the same campus score below the citywide Black-student average. The 10 schools cluster in gentrifying parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Top 10 within-school Black-white grade-5 math gaps (2024-25)
Detail: Black vs white proficient %
| School | Borough | Black % | White % | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS 133 William A. Butler | Brooklyn | 11.8% | 88.9% | 77.1 |
| PS 111 Adolph S. Ochs | Manhattan | 14.3% | 90.0% | 75.7 |
| PS 38 The Pacific | Brooklyn | 25.0% | 100.0% | 75.0 |
| PS 33 Chelsea Prep | Manhattan | 15.8% | 90.5% | 74.7 |
| PS 84 Lillian Weber | Manhattan | 28.6% | 100.0% | 71.4 |
| Academy of Arts and Letters | Brooklyn | 18.5% | 89.3% | 70.8 |
| PS 165 Robert E. Simon | Manhattan | 11.1% | 78.6% | 67.5 |
| PS 110 Florence Nightingale | Manhattan | 33.3% | 100.0% | 66.7 |
| PS 889 | Brooklyn | 30.8% | 94.4% | 63.7 |
| PS 9 Teunis G. Bergen | Brooklyn | 17.2% | 78.9% | 61.7 |
Pattern
All 10 schools are in Manhattan (Districts 2, 3) or Brooklyn (Districts 13, 15). All sit in gentrifying neighborhoods where Black families enroll alongside an increasingly white set of peers. None are in the Bronx or Staten Island. The shared structure: zoned schools serving racially mixed populations where the white students' prior preparation, household resources, and out-of-school enrichment all compound.
What the aggregate score obscures
P.S. 38 The Pacific reports 100% of white students proficient. The school looks strong on any school-average ranking. But the 25% Black-student proficient rate is below the citywide Black-student average — the school's high aggregate is being held up by one of its student groups. The aggregate number isn't wrong; it just averages across very different outcomes for different students.
Within-school tracking is one candidate explanation
Most of these schools run Gifted & Talented strands, advanced math tracks, or pull-out enrichment programs. Within-school racial gaps often correlate with within-school tracking. P.S. 33 Chelsea Prep has a Gifted & Talented program; P.S. 9 Teunis G. Bergen has accelerated math. Whether tracking explains the gap, or other factors do, is what cross-tabulating Gifted & Talented enrollment by race at these 10 schools would help answer.
What's next
Profile P.S. 133. A 77-percentage-point within-school subgroup gap inside one Brooklyn elementary is unusual; the story is what's producing it. Also worth pulling Gifted & Talented enrollment by race at the 10 schools.
Methodology & replication recipe — the data sources, queries, and steps behind this analysis.