Mark Twain I.S. 239 for the Gifted & Talented

Mark Twain's 2025 proficiency rates — 92.9% in ELA and 92.4% in math — are roughly 30 percentage points above the District 21 averages of about 60% and 63%, respectively. The school's overall score of 3.71 out of 4 sits well above the district's 2.46. Scores have climbed meaningfully over the past decade, and the jump from 2024 (85.9% ELA, 87.9% math) to 2025 (92.9% ELA, 92.4% math) is the steepest single-year move in the available data. All three grade levels are strong, with seventh grade leading at 95.1% ELA and 96.6% math and eighth grade a step behind at 90.8% and 86.5%. In plain English: this is a school where students test at or near grade mastery regardless of which cohort year you're looking at.

The day-to-day picture is mostly reassuring. Attendance runs at 94.2%, comfortably above the district's 91.2% average. Parent satisfaction sits at 93% and trust in the principal reaches 96% — both figures that suggest families feel heard. Teachers rate instruction quality at 91% and trust in their principal at 86%, with collegial trust among teachers at 87%, all in a healthy range. The discipline data is the place to slow down: total suspensions climbed from 1 in 2021-22 to 2 in 2022-23 to 11 in 2023-24, and the 1% suspension rate is double the district average of 0.5%. Eleven suspensions is still a small number for a school this size, but the trajectory is worth asking about. The chronic absenteeism figure of 83.2% is striking and contradictory next to a strong attendance rate; it is worth asking administrators how they define and track it, because by the standard 10%-of-days-missed definition it would imply almost every student is chronically absent, which the attendance rate does not support.

The student body of about 1,241 is unusually large for a G&T program and pulls from well outside the immediate neighborhood. Demographically, the school is 46% white, 27% Asian, 10% Hispanic, 9% Black, 4% multiracial, and 1% Native American — a profile that reflects citywide admissions rather than the surrounding Coney Island-Sea Gate census tract, where poverty runs higher and the racial mix is different. About 15% of students have IEPs and the economic need index of 40.3 indicates a meaningfully more middle-class population than the typical District 21 school. PTA fundraising of $304 per student — nearly four times the district average — is a concrete expression of that parent resource and shows up in what the school can offer.

The school sits in Coney Island-Sea Gate, a coastal Brooklyn neighborhood where the median household income is $43,818 and the poverty rate is 27.8%. Only about 10% of neighborhood households have children, and homeownership sits at 28.6%, with a median home value around $886,000 — a mix that reflects both longtime rent-regulated housing and recent coastal development. About 35.6% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. The student body at Mark Twain looks quite different from the surrounding census tract because admissions are citywide and audition-based, so families who send their kids here are typically commuting in.

The nearest subway is Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue on the D, F, N, and Q lines, about a 12-minute walk from the school. Bay 50th Street on the D is roughly 17 minutes on foot, and the W 8th Street–NY Aquarium station on the F and Q is about 18 minutes. None of the three are particularly close, so most families rely on the school bus, a car, or a longer walk.