Almost half of all Manhattan high schools earned an "A" for their overall performances in 2009. The annual School Progress Reports gave the honor to 45 of the borough's 94 public and charter high schools.15 schools scored "Bs" and 13 earned "Cs". Schools such as Washington Irving High School improved their scores from an "F" to a "C". Others, such as the University Neighborhood High School, fell from a "B" to a "D".
Many of Lower Manhattan's public schools have posted improving graduating rates. Chief among them include Millennium High School, which saw a 98 percent graduation rate for the 2010 class; and 90 percent for the High School of Economics and Finance's 2010 class. All of Millennium's graduating seniors were accepted to esteemed colleges such as Syracuse and New York University. HSFE's graduates have also gone to prestigious colleges such as Boston and Fordham University. Their respective colleges offered the students a total of $3,340,485 in scholarship money upon graduation
Many of Manhattan's high schools offer specialized education in select fields. These include The High School of Economics and Finance, which teaches students economic literacy by offering courses such as economics, banking and accounting; the High School For Environmental Studies, helping to promote environmental literacy by combining environment-based college prep courses with the regular NYC curriculum; and Hunter Science High School, providing science students with research classes teaching them how to conduct research and apply it to certain situations.
Manhattan high schools have enjoyed steadily rising attendance rates since the mid-90s. Between the 1995-1996 and 2003-2004 school years, attendance rates rose from 80.20 percent to 89.24 percent. District 4 has the highest attendance rates of the borough's six districts, reaching 92.02 percent for the 2010-2011 school year. While District 5 was the lowest, it still pulled in an 89.86 percent attendance rate for the 2010-2011 school year. Manhattan's districts across the board have some of the highest attendance rates in the city.