City public school students have substantially closed the achievement gap with their counterparts in the rest of the state on standardized English and math exams, according to an analysis released Wednesday.
Scores on the English test for city students in grades 3 through 8 lagged the rest of the state by 11 percentage points in 2006.
The gap dropped to 1.3 points last year, when 31.2 percent of city students passed, compared to 32.5 percent for the rest of the state, the Independent Budget Office reported.
In math, city students trailed kids in the rest of the state by nine points in 2006, but by last year, the difference was only 3.4 points, with 37.1 percent passing, compared to 40.5 percent outside the city.
The IBO said that when poverty and disabilities are taken into account, city students in traditional public schools actually outperformed their state peers by 13.1 points in English and 12.5 points in math.
The city’s charter schools came up at the top of the charts — 18.8 points better than the rest of the state in English and 30.1 points higher in math.
“We’ve redoubled our efforts to expand professional development for teachers, and this report shows that New York City students are closing the gap with the rest of the state,” said Department of Education spokeswoman Devorah Kaye.