Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
Maintaining a sprawling system of underenrolled schools is fiscally irresponsible and educationally unsustainable.
New York City operates the nation’s most expensive public schools, and they are empty.
The city’s proposed Department of Education budget is $38 billion, an 8% increase from last year. At the same time, enrollment continues to decline. Last year alone, New York City lost 3,500 pre-K and kindergarten students. This is not an anomaly. The School Construction Authority projects that enrollment will decrease by another 153,000 students over the next decade. This decline is mostly due to demographic changes — since 2000, the number of children born in the city has decreased by more than 20%. But also, New York families are increasingly choosing charter schools and homeschooling.
Currently, 380 schools — nearly 25% of all city schools — already operate below 60% capacity.
Maintaining a sprawling system of underenrolled schools is fiscally irresponsible and educationally unsustainable. Even left-leaning publications such as the Atlantic have acknowledged the growing crisis facing NYC school districts with shrinking student populations.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Daily Wire. Based off a recent report.
______________________
Danyela Souza Egorov is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.