Navigating school options in NYC
Next week is National School Choice Week and I will be moderating a panel of NYC parents and educators to discuss which school options are available in our city and what policy and governance changes may be on the horizon under the Mamdani administration.
Come join us on Jan 29th and talk to Yiatin Chu (Founder of PLACE), Tim Castanza (Founder of Bridge Prep Charter School), and Adrienne Jensen (NYC based homeschooling advocate and mother of four). You can register here.
Navigating School Choice in NYC:
Options, Access, and the New Mayoral Administration
Thursday, January 29, 2026
New College Rankings
If you have a child deciding which college to go to, check out the new City Journal College Rankings. It includes more factors than the established evaluation tools consider, for example:
Does a college encourage respectful discussion and vigorous debate?
Is the curriculum strong, or is the university coasting on a reputation that it earned a century ago?
Does the school force divisive ideology on its students?
Do administrators prioritize activism over education—and even tolerate chaos and violence?
Does the university prepare students to earn enough to pay back their tuition and thrive as citizens and workers in the twenty-first-century economy?
What I am reading this week
NY’s quest for universal child care sounds enticing — but reality is simply unrealistic (NYPost)
Universal Childcare Could Hurt New York’s Kids (City Journal)
Top 5 Schools in Each State Beating the Odds in 3rd Grade Reading (The74)
Please share this newsletter with your friends and families.
Contact me if you want to help bring universal education choice to NY! #SchoolChoiceNY
Thanks for sharing my piece on the need for a national curriculum usage database! Heck, NYC needs one of its own... why aren't we getting clearer signals on the aggregate performance of the Into Reading vs Wit and Wisdom vs EL Education schools?
On that note, I hope NYC parents are reading this excellent piece from a teacher using Into Reading, on the ways the curriculum's choice to design around excerpts instead of whole books effectively bastardizes the content. Read it for the confusing illustration alone!
https://itselementary.substack.com/p/excerpts-are-anti-knowledge-not-always?r=wsgsa&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay&triedRedirect=true