NYC Schools Are Losing Students and Burning Cash. Mamdani Could Make the Situation Worse.

New York schools need more choice and better curricula, but the city's new mayor wants to take choices away.

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.

Continue reading the entire piece here at Reason (paywall)

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Danyela Souza Egorov is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images