Posted on 05/12/2026 6:29:23 AM PDT by Libloather
The numbers don’t add up!
New York City is already dumping a record $43 billion into its public schools while spending heaps more per-student than any other large US district — despite plummeting enrollment and mediocre test results.
The massive price tag for educating Big Apple students could grow even more as Mayor Zohran Mamdani is finalizing his first budget proposal and as the city is already spending $44,000 per student — an unsustainable level of spending, budget watchdogs and education analysts said.
The spending is also unacceptable, given Big Apple students’ middle-of-the-pack showing among urban school districts on standardized math and English exams, experts said.
“Despite the City spending $44,000 per student, too many of its schools are delivering middling results, and some parents are increasingly choosing charters over traditional public schools,” said Andrew Rein, executive director of the Citizens Budget Commission.
“The City should focus its effort and dollars on student learning and shrink spending that’s not delivering results. This includes adjusting school funding when enrollment shrinks and combining schools that have shrunk so much that they are no longer cost-effective to run.”
But right-sizing Big Apple education could be even more difficult after state lawmakers imposed an expensive class size reduction law, even as enrollment shrinks, critics said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and her fellow Democrats in the legislature are considering giving the city more time to comply with the law — championed by the teachers’ union — as part of ongoing budget talks.
“The law is unworkable law. It’s impossible to implement,” said Daniela Souza, an education researcher with the Manhattan Institute.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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Their solution to everything is throw money at it. Never change their policies or people........
Anyone thinks this money is being “spent on the children”, I have a bridge just down the road for sale. I’ll make you a real good deal on it.
If by “public schools” you mean demonicRAT organizations and terrorist groups (but I repeat myself).
Declining scores? Well, obviously we need more money. $64,000 per pupil should do it.
We’ve all learned over the past couple of years that the $43 billion is not being put into public schools. Its being put into a grift system that leaches off of the public schools. Most of it will go to highly paid government bureaucrats and NGOs and non-profits. Probably 10% will actually make it to the students.
“$44,000 per student” is what they tell the public. The real figure is what they spend per teacher and administrator.
They’re not dumping it into the kinds, they’re building war chests for politics and graft. The “kids” is the line item note on the budget to get it passed. Every.Damn.Time.
“Their solution to everything is throw money at it. Never change their policies or people........”
I have to laugh out loud. People think they throw money at schools to help educate the chirren. The politicians throw money at schools because those school employees vote DEMOCRATIC ticket always!!
Best pay for vote scheme in the country.
“... despite plummeting enrollment, poor test results”
Remember Hillary’s “it takes a village”. To New York’s situation we can say “it takes more than a school.”
Whoa! OUTSTANDING point. I am so stealing that.
Retired urban public school teacher here. If there is no way to remove disruptive students from a classroom, then nothing else matters.
Not more money.
Not smaller class sizes.
Nothing.
For those who are not quite sure what I’m talking about, image you’re teaching a high school class. 20 students are in the class. 16 are at least somewhat paying attention.
But one student is talking loudly on his cellphone. Two others are talking to each other. One student is just walking around the room.
You have talked to administrators about this. They tell you it’s your problem. Handle it yourself.
End result: You’ve become more of a policeman than a teacher. And 16 good kids are cheated out of an education.
🙁
As always money laundering, zero Fs given to the kids
Teacher’s Union and then it sends the money right back to the democrats , Money Laundering ?
If not for the taxpayer-funded government school industry, large areas of this country, especially inner cities, would have no economy at all.
Unionized public schools are a money laundering scam for Democrats. Taxpay funds are exchanged for life time, overpaid, part time jobs for teachers who kickback union dues to Democrat campaigns. Diabolical.
Defund public education NOW! We have to burn the village to save it.
I am old now, but when I last attended public school there was discipline enforced & because of that, the teachers had time to actually teach the required suject. That was how it was here in a farly small community. Senior graduation was about 200 students. Now what I am hearing about public schools, it sounds like a waste of time even attending. Surely, this can be changed & it is up to the teachers & parents, but presently, it may not be working. Teachers have a union that may be part of the problem; parents do not.
Most of this “learing center” money will be heading to foreign dumps like Somalia all over the world after the Muzzies and non-native American Injuns grab their cuts.
How many ghost students are on the books...?
How many ghost employees...?
Why so much? It’s financial reward to the teachers union, it’s not for “better education”.
Of course calls to cut back that spending is met with union sponsored protests claiming the cut back would be a cut back to “education”, which 100% is a lie.
However, part of the truth is the very taxes that go into such budgets are taxes on the local economy and in ways that raise the costs of doing anything in New York, which results in the circular argument that the high rewards to the teachers is because New York costs so much.
It’s a vicious circle; public unions demand higher wages and benefits, increasing local taxes, increasing the local cost of living, bringing back the unions claiming their cost of living has gone up and they need pay raises to pay for it.
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