New City School, Minneapolis MN - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on New City School

New City School is a charter school in northeast Minneapolis serving kindergarten through eighth grade. Its enrollment is moderate for a K-8 school, and as a charter it operates as its own single-school district, meaning the school and the district are the same entity. Families choose to enroll here; there is no assigned attendance zone.

Academically, the school’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it above the midpoint when compared with districts across Hennepin County. That’s a meaningful signal: among many districts in a large urban county, this school’s performance is stronger than typical. Still, the picture is uneven. In reading, proficiency rates across grades three through eight cluster in a band that is solid but not high, with eighth grade reading notably lower. In math, the pattern declines as students get older, with early grades showing stronger results and upper grades where more than half of students are not meeting the state benchmark. Science results are the weakest, particularly in eighth grade, where the share of students reaching proficiency is very low. The school participates in Minnesota’s state testing program, and for grades where science is assessed, the test format changed in the most recent year, something a family may want to ask about when reviewing results. Because the school ends at eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report.

The student body is majority white, with a substantial Black population and smaller shares of Hispanic, American Indian, and multiracial students. Asian and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students make up a very small portion of the enrollment. About half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate that mirrors many urban schools. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the records reviewed, so a parent should ask the school directly about those supports.

Minneapolis is a dense, major urban center with a downtown skyline, a historic riverfront, multiple lakes and parks, and a strong transit system. The school sits in a northeast Minneapolis neighborhood, an area with a mix of older housing stock and recent redevelopment. Home values in the surrounding zip code are moderately high by national standards and have been rising modestly, while rents have been climbing more noticeably. The broader city has seen slight population decline since the 2020 census, though the Twin Cities metro continues to grow. Major employers headquartered in or near the city include Target Corporation, the University of Minnesota, and General Mills, giving the area a stable economic base.

What sets New City School apart is that it is a charter school in a large urban district environment but operates independently. Its performance, while mixed, is above average for the county when averaged across all subjects and grades, which is a real strength. The decline in math and science in the upper grades is a soft spot that a parent should explore further by asking about curriculum, teacher turnover, and how the school supports students as they approach the transition to high school. The school offers no high school programming, so families will need to plan for ninth grade placement elsewhere. The district itself reported no significant recent changes in leadership, enrollment, or policy in publicly available sources, so stability may be the default.

For a family considering this school, the question is less whether it is a uniformly high-performing school and more whether its pattern fits. Early elementary students appear to do reasonably well, especially in math. The middle school years are where the challenges show up, and a parent looking for a school with strong upward academic momentum through the upper grades may want to investigate how the school addresses those dips. The urban location, the charter structure, and the moderate size make it a distinct choice in Minneapolis’s wide array of school options.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 364%

School 64% · District 64%

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 443%

School 43% · District 43%

▼ 8 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 531%

School 31% · District 31%

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 640%

School 40% · District 40%

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 25 pts above county median

Grade 731%

School 31% · District 31%

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 817%

School 17% · District 17%

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 349%

School 49% · District 49%

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 442%

School 42% · District 42%

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 554%

School 54% · District 54%

even with state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Grade 651%

School 51% · District 51%

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 750%

School 50% · District 50%

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Grade 837%

School 37% · District 37%

▲ 1 pts above state median · even with county median

Science

Grade 533%

School 33% · District 33%

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Grade 810%

School 10% · District 10%

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

This schoolNEW CITY SCHOOL, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income36%Higher-income65%29 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income30%Higher-income56%26 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income44%Higher-income64%21 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income22%Higher-income70%48 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income26%Higher-income74%48 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income23%Higher-income60%37 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income46%Higher-income86%40 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income24%Higher-income69%45 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income22%Higher-income40%18 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income21%Higher-income54%33 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income9%Higher-income52%43 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income12%Higher-income27%15 pp gap