Pace High School

Pace doesn't publicly report school-level ELA or math proficiency in this dataset, so direct score comparisons aren't possible here. What we can say: this is an education-option school with a competitive admissions screen, an AP course offering, and a designated AP Humanities track — academic expectations are clearly meant to be college-track. The 22% IEP share and dedicated ELL Support program mean the school runs support services alongside its accelerated track rather than sorting students out of them. District 2's high schools average 73% ELA and 73% math proficiency, the kind of ceiling selective admissions tend to clear.

The family picture is unusually strong for a high school: 91% parent satisfaction, 92% parent-teacher trust, and 96% parent-principal trust — all roughly at or above District 2 norms. The teacher side tells a more uneven story. Teachers rate the quality of instruction highly (91%, above district) and feel collegial with each other (77%), but only 69% trust the principal, which is the loudest number on this page and worth asking about on a tour. Zero suspensions is a remarkable figure for a high school of nearly 600 students — the climate approach here is clearly not punitive.

The student body skews heavily Hispanic (49%) and Black (31%), with Asian students making up 10% and White students 6% — a noticeably different mix from many District 2 selective schools and a near-mirror of the surrounding neighborhood's immigrant population. The 77.7 economic need index is high, meaning a large share of students come from low-income households, and 22% have IEPs. This is not a school where every kid arrives with a private tutor — it's a school where many kids are first in their family navigating selective admissions, and the community reflects that.

Chinatown-Two Bridges wraps the school, and the census numbers tell a particular story: median household income sits around $35,000, about a third of residents live below the poverty line, and homeownership is below 11%. Only about 8% of households have children — this is overwhelmingly a neighborhood of adult renters, many of them recent immigrants, in a market where the median home value still tops $600,000. Three subway lines converge within a few blocks, which is one of the better transit setups in Manhattan.

Three subway stations are an easy walk: Grand St (B, D) in about 3 minutes, with Bowery (J, Z) and East Broadway (F) each around 6 minutes — this is one of the better-connected high school locations downtown.