American Dream Charter School, Bronx NY

Original Research by School Decision on American Dream Charter School

American Dream Charter School is a grades 6-12 charter serving the South Bronx from a location in Concord Avenue. The school operates as a Spanish-English bilingual program, serving primarily immigrant students and English Language Learners—a distinctive model for families seeking that particular language and cultural focus. In a recent five-year charter renewal, the New York State Board of Regents found the school academically sound and fiscally viable, and approved an enrollment expansion, securing its continued operation and expanding access.

The school's student body is nearly entirely Latino, with a very high concentration of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting deep economic need in its student population. The school does not report counts for special education or English learner enrollment, so information on those populations is not available.

On state testing, American Dream's proficiency rates sit below county average across tested subjects and grades. In mathematics, sixth-grade proficiency is notably low, with seventh grade showing some improvement. The school did not test students in eighth-grade math during this school year. In English language arts, sixth and seventh grades show modest proficiency, while eighth grade's proficiency rate moves into the higher range. Science proficiency at eighth grade sits near the midpoint. Overall, the school's proficiency profile places it in the bottom quartile relative to other districts serving Bronx County.

The school's strength lies in its intentional pedagogy and mission-driven programming. It employs project-based learning, maintains an advisory structure, delivers culturally responsive instruction, and earned a College Board AP Access Award in 2023 for encouraging low-income and underrepresented minority students to take Advanced Placement courses. In 2023, more than half of graduating seniors earned either the Seal of Biliteracy or the Seal of Civic Readiness, suggesting the school's dual-language and civic-engagement curriculum produces measurable outcomes in those areas.

A parent may want to look into the school's graduation rate and college-placement data further, as those metrics were not available. The academic proficiency data, while low, reflects the school's serving a population with high rates of recent immigration and English language acquisition; whether test scores have been rising or stable over time would be worth exploring directly with the school. For families choosing a school, the question turns on whether the school's bilingual mission, civic-readiness focus, and advisory model fit their child's needs and the family's language priorities, weighed against current standardized test performance in core subjects.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

New York Regents Exams

4 courses reported · 2024-25

End-of-course exams required for a New York Regents diploma. Each row shows the cohort size and the share of students scoring at the proficient level or higher.

Course	Students tested	% proficient
Ela	104	67.0%
Social Studies	102	68.0%
Science	74	42.0%
Math	45	9.0%

Math

Grade 621%

School 21% · district not reported

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 19 pts below county median

Grade 737%

School 37% · district not reported

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

Grade 80%

School 0% · district not reported

▼ 37 pts below state median · ▼ 37 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 629%

School 29% · district not reported

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

Grade 747%

School 47% · district not reported

even with state median · even with county median

Grade 851%

School 51% · district not reported

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Science

Grade 852%

School 52% · district not reported

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

This schoolDistrict average, 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 7Lower-income46%Higher-income60%14 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income54%Higher-income25%29 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 7Lower-income38%Higher-income20%18 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income42%Higher-income67%25 pp gap