{"id":291652,"date":"2026-07-09T18:51:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/291652\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T18:51:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:51:25","slug":"new-yorks-new-education-budget-rewards-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/291652\/","title":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s New Education Budget Rewards Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin inked<\/a> the city\u2019s $126 billion budget for fiscal year 2027. That sum includes record-busting education spending, amounting to 31 percent of the budget.<\/p>\n

The new surge in funding reflects educational priorities at odds with the needs and preferences of families. The city continues to spend lavishly on underperforming, under-enrolled schools and invest in initiatives unlikely to reverse these trends. More money won\u2019t fix New York public schools\u2019 problems; it will only reward failure.<\/p>\n

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The city\u2019s 2027 budget boosts<\/a> Department of Education funding by $894 million, bringing the total to $38.6 billion. This increase comes despite a projected<\/a> decline in K-12 enrollment next year, including steep losses in pre-K and kindergarten<\/a> students. In the 2024\u201325 school year, the city enrolled 2,500 fewer pre-K students and 1,200 kindergarteners. <\/p>\n

The DOE budget excludes pension and benefits expenses, so the actual cost to New York City taxpayers is even higher. And, because enrollment is declining, per-pupil spending will probably grow from its current all-time high<\/a> of $42,000 per child.<\/p>\n

City officials refuse to admit it, but the uncomfortable reality is that New York City has the most inefficient public schools in the nation. No large urban district spends<\/a> so much and gets so little in results for its children. As long as this reality goes unacknowledged, more money won\u2019t make much difference.<\/p>\n

A new report<\/a> by the Success Academy charter network meticulously details the level of failure in New York City public schools. Of 1,600 schools, 503 had a majority of students who failed the state test in both math and reading last year. The situation is particularly dire in high schools, where 62 percent of students attend a failing school.<\/p>\n

The extent of academic troubles may be even greater, given that many students opt out of statewide testing. In grades three to eight, Success Academy found, 13 percent of students opt out of the ELA state test, and 11 percent opt out of the math test.<\/p>\n

The new budget does nothing to address these dismal academic results; instead, it continues to reward failure. The city has already spent nearly $1.9 billion<\/a> on \u201chold harmless<\/a>\u201d policies since 2020 to keep budgets intact in schools losing enrollment. No plan exists to close even the schools clearly failing to convince families that they are a good educational option.<\/p>\n

Nor is the city taking curricular problems as seriously as it should. The district has made efforts to improve its curriculum through NYC Reads, addressing previous gaps in reading instruction. But one of the program\u2019s curricula, Into Reading, has significant issues<\/a>, including low-quality<\/a> material and not enough depth to build kids\u2019 knowledge base for comprehension. Nonetheless, it remains the most popular choice<\/a> among district superintendents, particularly in areas with higher concentrations<\/a> of low-income students.<\/p>\n

Next year\u2019s budget continues to prioritize funding for underperforming schools while not expanding high-performing, in-demand schools. This approach will shovel more money at kids without corresponding academic improvement. As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. By any metric, that makes the current administration\u2019s approach to New York City public schools insane.<\/p>\n

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City Journal is a publication of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (MI), a leading free-market think tank. Are you interested in supporting the magazine? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and City Journal are fully tax-deductible as provided by law (EIN #13-2912529).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin inked the city\u2019s $126…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-291652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}