Middle School for the Arts

Ten years after it opened as a replacement school for the failing MS 391 Mahalia Jackson school in 2004, MS 587 the Middle School of the Arts itself closed due to abysmal test scores and attendance far below the city's average for middle school.

Students failed to make progress on standardized tests and the school received a "D" on its 2011 Progress Report. About half of the teachers reported significant problems with safety and discipline at the school, and only 60 percent of the students said they felt safe inside the building, according to the Learning Environment Survey. In 2014 the state named the school one of the most persistently dangerous in the state.

The last class of students graduated in 2014. The school was replaced by yet another new middle school, MS 722, New Heights Middle School which opened in 2012. Also housed in the building is Achievement First Crown Heights Charter School. (Pamela Wheaton, February 2012; updated August 2014)