Ms 394, Brooklyn NY - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Ms 394

MS 394 is a small public school in Brooklyn serving prekindergarten through eighth grade. Located on Rochester Avenue in Bed-Stuy, it enrolls roughly two hundred students across mixed-age buildings typical of older New York City schoolhouses. The student body is predominantly Black, with a sizable Hispanic enrollment and a small number of Asian students. The vast majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, marking the school as serving a low-income neighborhood.

The school's academic picture is uneven. In third grade, students show strong performance: proficiency is very high in both mathematics and English language arts. By fourth and fifth grade, however, results drop sharply. Math proficiency falls to roughly one-fifth in fourth grade and one-tenth in fifth, with ELA showing similar pressure, though ELA recovers somewhat by sixth grade to about three-fifths of students meeting proficiency. Seventh grade stands out: math proficiency reaches roughly two-thirds, the school's strongest middle-grade performance. Eighth grade retreats again, with math proficiency near one-third and ELA around one-half. In science, the school shows a striking pattern: fifth-grade performance is weak, but by eighth grade science proficiency recovers to roughly three-fourths. State testing participation rates sit in the low-to-mid eighties across most grades, suggesting some families are opting out or students are absent on test days, which parents may want to look into further with the school.

The early strength in third grade followed by a sharp decline in grades four and five is noteworthy. This dip could reflect factors like instructional stability, student transition, or assessment-readiness practices, and a parent considering the school would benefit from understanding what happens between third and fourth grade. The subsequent volatility—stronger seventh-grade math, weaker eighth—suggests students' trajectories are mixed rather than trending in one direction, making it hard to predict where a particular child would land.

Relative to other schools in Kings County, MS 394's overall proficiency index places it below the midpoint. No information was available on the school's attendance or chronic absenteeism rates, so a parent cannot assess whether repeated absence or engagement challenges affect student learning.

The school sits within New York City Geographic District 17, which covers central Brooklyn and is currently under a literacy mandate requiring all elementary schools to adopt one of three city-approved reading curriculums. This change took effect in 2024 and affects how reading is taught across the school. The district has also experienced sustained enrollment decline over recent years, which has prompted re-sitings and co-locations of schools. State law requires class sizes to shrink significantly by the 2027-28 school year, a long-term structural shift.

Brooklyn itself is a dense, walkable urban borough with strong public transit, extensive parks like Prospect Park, and a robust library system. Neighborhoods vary widely; the school's location in Bed-Stuy places it in a historically Black neighborhood with active street life, community anchors, and ongoing residential development nearby. Housing prices and rents in the area remain substantial, though the neighborhood itself has long served working- and middle-income families.

For a family considering MS 394, the key trade-off is visibility into what drives the grade-four cliff and whether the school has supports to rebuild momentum. The strong third-grade showing and the rebound in grades six and seven suggest students can succeed here, but the volatility requires parents to feel confident about the school's ability to diagnose and address academic slides mid-stream.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 3100%

School 100% · District 64% · ▲ 36 pts above district

▲ 41 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

Grade 418%

School 18% · District 58% · ▼ 40 pts below district

▼ 40 pts below state median · ▼ 48 pts below county median

Grade 512%

School 12% · District 50% · ▼ 39 pts below district

▼ 39 pts below state median · ▼ 46 pts below county median

Grade 638%

School 38% · District 48% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 768%

School 68% · District 51% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Grade 829%

School 29% · District 45% · ▼ 17 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 3100%

School 100% · District 61% · ▲ 39 pts above district

▲ 48 pts above state median · ▲ 36 pts above county median

Grade 436%

School 36% · District 58% · ▼ 21 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 60% · ▼ 31 pts below district

▼ 25 pts below state median · ▼ 32 pts below county median

Grade 663%

School 63% · District 53% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 739%

School 39% · District 54% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Grade 848%

School 48% · District 52% · ▼ 3 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Science

Grade 519%

School 19% · District 35% · ▼ 17 pts below district

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

Grade 872%

School 72% · District 38% · ▲ 34 pts above district

▲ 39 pts above state median · ▲ 47 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 581%

School 81% · district not reported

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 827%

School 27% · district not reported

▼ 51 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

This schoolNEW YORK CITY GEOGRAPHIC DISTRICT #17, 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.