Poverty is not an excuse to not fix NYC failing public schools

Mississippi and Houston have higher poverty rates than NYC, they are also better at improving their public schools

Kids in NY are more likely to be poor than adults. Of 62 counties in our state, 4 have a children's poverty rate higher than 25%. These four counties (Bronx, Kings, Broome, and Chautauqua) have a student population of 500,000 in public schools.

Governor Hochul has an opportunity to offer private scholarships to these kids at no cost to the finances of the New York State. Unfortunately the governors of Oregon and New Mexico already announced they will deny this opportunity to the low-income kids in their states.

But the majority of kids in NY will continue to be educated by the public schools. Improving public schools is possible despite poverty and other social problems. Look at the Mississippi miracle, which went from 49th in the country to 21st in fourth-grade reading since 2013.

Or look at the Houston School District under Superintendent Mike Miles. After two years, the district doubled the number of high-performing schools and now has zero failing schools.

Mississippi's rate of poverty is 18.7%, Houston’s is 19%, and NYC’s is 17%.

But the leading mayoral candidate for our city says that “In order to fix our schools, we first also have to fix our city.”

Imagine that you are running to manage a $41 billion budget responsible for educating more than 900,000 students, and you have no plan!

John Ketcham and I have an op-ed at the NY Post about all of this today.

---

What I am reading lately

I read “Dear Diary Boy: An Exacting Mother, Her Free-spirited Son, and Their Bittersweet Adventures in an Elite Japanese School,” which was recommended by

Alina Adams

. It’s about a single mother navigating the expectations of private schools in Japan with her adopted son. It made me reflect about the pros and cons of the more flexible education system (and societal norms) that we have here in the US.

• Summer Reading Can Help Boost Literacy. Why Don’t High Schools Require It? (The 74)

• The Achilles’ Heel of Classical Education (AEI)

• Audit spurred by students’ investigation finds financial mismanagement by San Dieguito high school foundations (The San Diego Union)

• Former youth organizer for AOC busted after urging ‘attack’ on Jewish students at Brooklyn public high school (NY Post)

• What Is Mamdani’s Vision for New York City’s $40 Billion School System? (NYT)

• NY state courts are blocking Children’s Services in domestic violence cases — and that needs to change (NY Post)

---

Please share this newsletter with your friends and families.

Contact me if you want to help bring education freedom to NY! #SchoolChoiceNY