MAMDANI'S EDUCATION AGENDA FOR LESS LEARNING

NEW YORK SCHOOLS NEED MORE CHOICE AND BETTER CURRICULA, BUT THE CITY'S NEW MAYOR WANTS TO TAKE CHOICES AWAY.

- DANYELA SOUZA EGOROV

NEW YORK MAYOR-ELECT Zohran Mamdani is inheriting a public school system that has made some progress in student learning but is completely dysfunctional in terms of financial stability and operations.

And his campaign promises are likely to worsen the system’s flaws.

New York City’s public schools once educated more than a million students, but the system’s enrollment has been steadily declining. Since 2020, it has lost 10 percent of its K-12 students. Even with the expansion of pre-K and 3-K programs for young children, the schools are serving 115,000 fewer students than they did seven years ago.

Yet the budget for the city Department of Education (NYC DOE) has greatly increased, rising from $33 billion in 2019 to over $40 billion this year. This disconnect between enrollment and budget has led to the highest per-pupil spending in the nation, which the Citizens Budget Commission estimates will reach $42,000 this year.

The shrinking number of students seems set to continue. Prekindergarten applications decreased by 8 percent this school year. In 2020, the New York school system had 59,143 kindergarteners; last year, that number was 55,461.

Because of this loss of students, the number of schools that are too small to remain financially viable has increased. In the 2023-24 school year, there were 80 schools with fewer than 150 students; that number has risen to 112 this year. Mayor Eric Adams closed or merged 16 schools, but he also opened or planned to open 28 new ones. Closing schools is unpopular and requires political will, and Adams showed no appetite for that.