| Top Stories All for Naught Bill de Blasio’s Diversity Push for These Schools Lowered Admissions Standards—and Didn’t Increase Diversity Reason, 12/3/2025 New York City’s eight specialized public high schools have exemplified American meritocracy for over a century. Through an admissions process that relies solely on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), which cuts through the noise of privilege to home in on raw intellectual potential, students from all five boroughs have a chance to attend these elite institutions, regardless of socioeconomic status. But the meritocracy of these schools has been waning. In 2018, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio lambasted the specialized high schools, which are largely attended by white and Asian students, for having a “diversity problem.” He blamed the SHSAT. De Blasio initially attempted to eliminate the test entirely, but the state Legislature stopped him. So in the fall of 2019, he expanded the Discovery Program, which fills the remaining seats at these schools with students who missed the SHSAT cutoff score of the city’s least competitive specialized high school. In the six years since, the program has failed to achieve any of its goals. Newly released data reveal that admissions criteria have been markedly weakened, while their racial demographics remain virtually unchanged. Reading the Tea Leaves Who will Mamdani tap to lead NYC schools? Here are some possible contenders. Chalkbeat, 12/7/2025 With less than a month until Zohran Mamdani takes office, he has yet to reveal one of his biggest personnel decisions: the leader of the nation’s biggest school system. Hiring a schools chancellor will be his first major education test and could signal how he hopes to shape the city’s public schools over the next four years — a topic he largely avoided on the campaign trail. The mayor-elect indicated he is open to keeping current Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos. But he has offered few other clues about who is on his short list, and it is unclear how close he is to a decision. Earlier this week, Mamdani’s team solicited suggestions for major appointees from its education transition committee, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the communications. The Elephant in the Classroom Mamdani vowed to lower class sizes. But he’s facing major financial and logistical hurdles. Politico, 12/4/2025 Zohran Mamdani will soon face a massive financial challenge that could imperil the democratic socialist’s ability to implement his costly and ambitious plans to remake New York City’s social safety net. A state law capping school class sizes is expected to add billions of dollars in new hiring and construction costs and threatens to collide with Mamdani’s key campaign promises, including free child care and free bus fares. The looming financial hit is approaching as New York City is already grappling with a multibillion-dollar deficit. …Further complicating matters is the politically fraught reality that a disproportionate share of that funding will likely benefit schools primarily serving students who are already high achieving. Advocacy Corner PLACE NYC parent volunteers are back for kindergarten applications. |
| Register here: https://tinyurl.com/2025-K-Applications Other Headlines Affordability crisis, Trump immigration crackdown drive NYC public school enrollment declines NY Daily News, 12/14/2025 NYPD deploys more cops to NYC universities after Brown University shooting NY Daily News, 12/13/2025 Brooklyn teacher NYC tried to fire decade ago for fixing grades is back in classroom and under fraud probe again: ‘No accountability’ NY Post, 12/13/2025 The New Diversity Without affirmative action, elite colleges are prioritizing economic diversity in admissions AP News, 12/11/2025 Some of the country’s most prestigious colleges are enrolling record numbers of low-income students — a growing admissions priority in the absence of affirmative action. America’s top campuses remain crowded with wealth, but some universities have accelerated efforts to reach a wider swath of the country, recruiting more in urban and rural areas and offering free tuition for students whose families are not among the highest earners. Failed ramps, cost overruns, years of delays: School construction projects infuriate NYC parents Chalkbeat, 12/11/2025 Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani touts $6B universal childcare plan but offers few details — except it’ll be modeled after Quebec NY Post, 12/11/2025 Early Decision Consequences The Early Decision Option Is a Racket. Shut It Down. NY Times, op-ed by Daniel Currell, 12/10/2025 This week, about 200,000 applicants to elite colleges will learn the result of their one and only binding early decision bid, which offers by far the best odds of admission. But for those who get in, the news comes with one giant asterisk: Back when they applied, they had to commit to attending the school if they were accepted — without knowing how much financial aid they’d get and without being able to weigh better academic or financial options elsewhere. As for those who don’t get in, the news can be crushing. Their silver bullet missed its mark. New York City Parents Petrified About Ongoing Bomb Threats to Specialized High School People, 12/9/2025 Kindergarten applications are open. Here’s what you need to know. Chalkbeat, 12/9/2025 Civil Rights Rule Changes DOJ rolls back anti-discrimination rules Politico, 12/9/2025 The Justice Department on Tuesday moved to end long-standing civil rights policies that prohibit local governments and organizations that receive federal funding from maintaining policies that disproportionately harm people of color. Repealing the government’s 50-year-old “disparate impact” standards will make it harder to challenge potential bias in housing, criminal law, employment, environmental regulations and other policy areas. More Harvard Undergrads Are Reporting Disabilities, Bringing Rate in Line With National Average Harvard Crimson, 12/8/2025 Zohran Mamdani sparks outrage by tapping radical who praised notorious cop-killer Assata Shakur for education transition team NY Post, 12/6/2025 Math Differentials Girls and boys solve math problems differently – with similar short-term results but different long-term outcomes The Conversation, 12/5/2025 Among high school students and adults, girls and women are much more likely to use traditional, step-by-step algorithms to solve basic math problems – such as lining up numbers to add, starting with the ones place, and “carrying over” a number when needed. Boys and men are more likely to use alternative shortcuts, such as rounding both numbers, adding the rounded figures, and then adjusting to remove the rounding. But those who use traditional methods on basic problems are less likely to solve more complex math problems correctly. These are the main findings of two studies our research team published in November 2025. NYC’s Institute for Collaborative Ed. (ICE) has a branding problem Gothamist, 12/4/2025 State reports big increase in student reading proficiency Times Union, 12/4/2025 That Time of the Year Pity the Eighth-Grade Parents New York City’s high-school application closes today. It’s been a season of agony. NY Magazine, 12/3/2025 Being furloughed without pay through October and most of November was a nightmare for federal workers across the U.S. But for Emma, who lives in Chelsea with her twin eighth-graders (and asked to use a pseudonym), the break had a silver lining: It gave her the time she needed — though many parents might argue that no amount of time is truly enough — for the singularly painstaking task of applying to New York City’s public high schools. How the Cheng twins fulfilled their mother’s dream of becoming a doctor for themselves QNS, 12/3/2025 DSA calls to infiltrate NYC government through community boards, PTAs — as Hochul ends up on ‘enemies’ list NY Post, 12/3/2025 Flashpoint? Accommodation Nation: America’s colleges have an extra-time-on-tests problem. The Atlantic, 12/2/2025 Administering an exam used to be straightforward: All a college professor needed was an open room and a stack of blue books. At many American universities, this is no longer true. Professors now struggle to accommodate the many students with an official disability designation, which may entitle them to extra time, a distraction-free environment, or the use of otherwise-prohibited technology. The University of Michigan has two centers where students with disabilities can take exams, but they frequently fill to capacity, leaving professors scrambling to find more desks and proctors. Juan Collar, a physicist at the University of Chicago, told me that so many students now take their exams in the school’s low-distraction testing outposts that they have become more distracting than the main classrooms. ICYMI School Integration Has Lost Steam. Will Mamdani Revive It in New York? NY Times, 12/2/2025 More than 71 years ago, the United States embarked on an ambitious project to desegregate the nation’s public schools. …in New York City, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has spoken about the issue in striking terms. He will soon lead one of the country’s most diverse cities, home to the nation’s largest school system — one in which nearly 900,000 students speak more than 180 different languages. Though Mr. Mamdani’s mayoral campaign shared only a limited vision for public education, he was the only candidate who ran in the general election to identify integration as a priority. How New York Families Can Save for College — and How Some Have $100 Already The City, 12/1/2025 Education Snubs NYC charter schools snubbed by Zohran Mamdani transition team as special interests gobble up posts NY Post, 11/26/2025 Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani didn’t give charter school officials and advocates any of the 37 seats on his transition team’s education committee — even though 15% of Big Apple students now attend the city’s 285 charters. The democratic socialist didn’t appoint any officials from the charter sector to his Committee on Youth & Education — one of 17 teams that include 400 people — nor did he appoint members of groups that support merit-based education such as gifted and talented programs and specialized high schools. …Mamdani’s team does include teachers’ union president Michael Mulgrew and advocates more concerned about combatting school segregation — Nyah Berg, the director of Appleseed New York, and Matt Gonzales, of New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools. ‘A Recipe for Idiocracy’: What happens when even college students can’t do math anymore? The Atlantic, 11/19/2025 High-Achieving Black and Latino Students Are Often Shut Out of Algebra 1 EdWeek, 11/18/2025 Kids Don’t Need Phones Honestly Podcast, 11/18/2025 |