The top reported proficiency rate is 86% in Science. The lowest is 66% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Ps 147 Issac Remsen
PS 147 Isaac Remsen sits on Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn, part of New York City Geographic District 14, which covers Williamsburg and Greenpoint. It serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, so there is no graduation rate to report, and no AP or career pathway data applies at this level.
The school is quite small. Its enrollment across all grade levels, including pre-k, is modest by any measure, and class sizes within tested grades are correspondingly intimate. A state law passed in 2022 requires New York City schools to phase in lower class-size caps through the late 2020s, a change that should gradually affect classroom conditions at schools like this one, assuming compliance timelines hold.
The tested grades are third through fifth, where New York administers the state proficiency exam. The results reported here are from the most recent school year. In third-grade math, the vast majority of students who tested scored at the proficient level, which is a strong result. ELA proficiency in third grade was also high. Fourth and fifth grade math proficiency rates were lower, still above half of testers but meaningfully below the third-grade figures. ELA in grades four and five was also strong, with most testers reaching proficiency. Fifth-grade science results were similarly high among students who were tested. The social studies data in the file is from a much earlier school year and is not current enough to be useful here.
There is an important caution, though. Participation rates on state tests were substantially below what would be expected for a full cohort, and the number of students counted in each tested grade is very small. When only a handful of students sit a given assessment, a single student's result can shift the proficiency figure dramatically. The positive rates are real data, but a parent should understand they rest on a thin base, and a conversation with the school about testing participation would be worthwhile.
Among the districts in Kings County, the school's overall proficiency index, which averages performance across tested subjects and grades, places it in the top quartile. That is a meaningful position, read alongside the caveat above about small tested counts.
The demographic picture shows that a very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing the school among higher-poverty settings by that measure. The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with Black students making up the next largest group. Data on English learner status and students with IEPs was not available in what was provided, so those dimensions of student support are gaps a parent would want to ask the school directly about.
The broader district context carries a few things worth knowing. District 14 has experienced steep enrollment declines in both elementary and middle school grades since before the pandemic, declines that have run steeper here than in much of the rest of the borough. That trend has contributed to a wave of school mergers and consolidations concentrated in Brooklyn. A family choosing this school would reasonably want to ask the district about its stability plans. The city's shift to lottery-based middle school admissions is also relevant context for families thinking past elementary years, since how a fifth grader from this school will transition to middle school no longer follows the old screened-admission path that once dominated this process.
Brooklyn's Bushwick and Williamsburg corridor is highly walkable and transit-served, embedded in a borough that publicly reported robust new housing development. Home values in this zip code have risen well above the state midpoint, and rents have climbed steadily as well, which is the housing reality for any family weighing a move to be near this school.
Chronic absenteeism data was not available for this school.
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