| Top Stories Discovery Lawsuit Chinese American mother challenges New York’s discriminatory school admissions policy Pacific Legal Foundation, 4/23/2026 Federal lawsuit challenges race-based changes to New York City’s Specialized High Schools admissions. Yi Fang Chen came to the United States from China in 1996 as a teenager, speaking little English. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in statistics from Stanford University and today works as a data scientist in New York City. Like many immigrant parents, Yi Fang has poured her energy into building a better life for her family—and she wants the same opportunity for her children. A New Target Beyond the SHSAT: The invite-only public school admissions test nobody talks about Chalkbeat, 4/16/2026 With an acceptance rate below 10%, Hunter College High School is one of the most competitive public high schools in New York City. It’s also one of the least diverse. Hunter’s 15.3% student poverty rate was the lowest of any public high school in the city, according to public data from the 2024-25 school year. By comparison, Bronx Science and Stuyvesant, two of the city’s specialized high schools, each had about 50% of students from low-income households. The lack of socioeconomic as well as racial diversity at Hunter — which is run by CUNY’s Hunter College — doesn’t get as much attention as the demographics at Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and other specialized high schools in the five boroughs. Like those coveted institutions, Hunter also bases admissions on a test. Except to even qualify for Hunter’s test, you have to be invited, based on state test scores. Promises Made, Promises Broken Mamdani campaigned on fulfilling NYC’s class size mandate. So why is he pushing for a delay? Chalkbeat, 4/2/2026 On the campaign trail, Mayor Zohran Mamdani vowed to take a state mandate to slash class sizes seriously, saying it “will transform our students’ ability to learn.” “The question of compliance has too often been a negotiation,” Mamdani said on the first day of school in September. Now, the Mamdani administration is seeking to do just that: negotiate with lawmakers in Albany to give the city more time to comply. Funding Failure Did New York blow $10 million on reading instruction that doesn’t work? The Hechinger Report, 3/29/2026 In April 2024, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul made a bold promise: The state would revamp its approach to literacy and boost state reading scores by double digits. “We’re turning the page on how we teach students how to read,” she said in front of a first grade class in Albany. The state would raise the share of third graders reading proficiently from 45 percent to 60 percent or higher, she said. …But the course doesn’t reflect the latest research and in fact promotes a teaching strategy that’s been found ineffective and could actually impede students’ progress, literacy experts say. Those reviewers say the course contains far too much material from the now outdated reading method that Hochul said she wanted to see replaced. Advocacy Corner |
| NEW PODCAST EPISODES School Calendar Politics and A Consequential Vote PLACE NYC, 4/23/2026 The Nuances of Implementing AI in Schools PLACE NYC, 4/16/2026 A Conversation with NYC Education Committee Chair Eric Dinowitz PLACE NYC, 4/2/2026 Support a new citywide STEM high school in lower Manhattan for Fall 2026. Next Generation Technology High School is a screened high school for students ready for a rigorous math and science curriculum to nurture them to be ethical creators of technology. The school will admit students based on middle school grades, an alternative (or backup) to Specialized High Schools. The school proposal is up for a consequential vote on Wednesday 4/29. Ways to support the opening of the school: 1. Send an email of support to the Panel for Educational Policy to approve Next Generation Technology High School. Form letter and email addresses here. 2. Attend the PEP meeting on Wednesday 4/29 at 6pm at MS 131. Sign up to speak – form opens at 5:30pm on Wednesday. Pay It Forward – 2026 High School Lottery Admissions Results By Amelie Marian If you’re a parent of an 8th grade child who applied to high school this year, please consider paying it forward and help other parents out by filling out this survey on your results. This form is to crowdsource information from families whose students participated in the HS school match in 2025. The goal is to identify the cutoffs and selectivity of different schools. [Updated 4/19/2026] Results from the 2026 NYC School Admission Lottery Surveys Other Headlines Post investigation reveals NYC DOE has spent $5B-plus on rent to private landlords — including buildings with no commercial value NY Post, 4/24/2026 How NYC’s elite high schools discriminate — on mayor’s orders NY Post, op-ed by Wai Wah Chin, 4/24/2026 Mamdani Rejects Bill Involving Police at School Protests NY Times, 4/24/2026 The math equity gap: Thousands of NYC students miss out on Algebra 1 in eighth grade Chalkbeat, 4/23/2026 Failing Up I’m an NYC teacher — grading ‘equity’ is destroying our schools NY Post, op-ed by Mike Dowd, 4/17/2026 As a New York City public high-school teacher, I’m all too aware that our grading standards have been crumbling. But even I was stunned when I heard of a student at a friend’s school who received credit for all his classes despite failing to show up for an entire semester — with an English credit, for example, awarded based merely on poems he’d written at home. It’s an extreme example, but hardly an isolated one. New York’s race-based STEM programs face constitutional challenges The Hill, op-ed by Erin Wilcox, 4/18/2026 Mayor Mamdani’s belt-tightening order doesn’t keep NYC school bosses from cross-country jaunt. Susan B. Edelman, 4/17/2026 ICYMI NYC’s 2026-27 school calendar is out: late September start, a Monday finish in June Chalkbeat, 4/16/2026 New York City’s 2026-27 public school calendar is out, and families can expect a long summer, with the first day of school starting on Thursday, Sept. 10. They can also expect a late start to next summer, with the last day of school falling on Monday, June 28 — a dog-leg day that’s a recipe for low attendance. Hampshire Students Navigate the Chaos of a College Shutting Down Wall Street Journal, 4/16/2026 Screen Debate Parents, Schools Clash Over Movement to Abolish Screens The 74, 4/16/2026 With more parents pushing for limits on screen time in the classroom, Vermont state Rep. Rob Hunter, a Democrat, wants to make it easier for them to opt their children out of using laptops and iPads. He co-sponsored legislation this year that would give parents an ed-tech “right of refusal.” A former English teacher, he was never a fan of the shift toward every student having their own laptop. Technology, he said, isn’t making students any smarter. …“In August, almost no one was talking about this, and now I’m having no other conversations,” said Kelly Clancy, a mom of three in South Brooklyn, New York, who also serves on her local community education council. “There’s a sea change in parents realizing that they don’t want their kids in front of screens.” Why Everyone Hates the Ivy League Wall Street Journal, 4/15/2026 Why Everyone Should Care About How AI Is Used In NYC Public Schools (Lucas Liu) Once City Rising, 4/15/2026 “Flummoxing” Asian enrollment at Johns Hopkins is skyrocketing. No one can say why. The Baltimore Banner, 4/14/2026 The Baltimore university is an outlier among its peers. …“It’s starting to feel like all the freshmen are Asian,” said Wu, an Asian American junior. Last fall, 45% of Hopkins’ first-year students were Asian, the university reported in December, up from about 26% just two years ago. The massive shift came after the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that forbade colleges from considering race in admissions, but other selective colleges did not see such a dramatic swing. It’s flummoxed experts and threatened Hopkins’ reputation as one of the most racially diverse campuses in its class. No grades, no required classes: Experimental Hampshire College folds after 56 years Times Union, 4/14/2026 A Wellness Center for Young Ballet Students (Snacks Included) NY Times, 4/13/2026 Reality Bites A feel-good school law collides with reality NY Daily News, op-ed by Deborah Alexander, 4/12/2026 New York City is scrambling — again — to comply with the state’s class-size mandate. Cue the predictable outrage: City Hall can’t manage. The Department of Education dropped the ball. Kids are being shortchanged. But here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud: This was always going to fail. Not because of incompetence. Because the law itself is fundamentally disconnected from reality. The mandate requires the city to dramatically shrink class sizes across the system. Sounds great: who wouldn’t want smaller classes? There’s just one problem: you need classrooms to do that. And New York City doesn’t have them. Inclusive Upper West Side school faces middle school phaseout plan NY1, 4/10/2026 What A.I. and D.E.I. Have in Common NY Times, op-ed by John McWhorter, 4/9/2026 IB Approach An alternative to gifted education: Why some NYC schools are embracing International Baccalaureate Chalkbeat, 4/8/2026 A few years back, a groundswell of Brooklyn parents in District 13 wanted to ditch gifted and talented classes, concerned about sorting and segregating children starting in kindergarten. …The IB approach embraces inquiry-based, transdisciplinary learning that allows students to go deep into a specific topic across classes, connecting global issues to their own experiences. Educators are trained to facilitate these connections and foster ways for students to become independent thinkers and leaders. The Small Private Colleges Dying in a Winner-Take-All University Marketplace Wall Street Journal, 4/8/2026 NYC’s insane $38B school budget just buys failure — here’s where Mamdani must cut NY Post, op-ed by Danyela Souza Egorov and John Ketcham, 4/6/2026 Harvard’s Push to Cap ‘A’ Grades Has Students Howling in Protest Wall Street Journal, 4/3/2026 Calendar Challengers “I Would Rather My Child Be in School” NY Magazine, 4/2/3026 …This school year, K–8 students are scheduled for complete five-day school weeks just over half of all weeks; for high-school students, 22 of 44 school weeks will be incomplete. The snow has played a part, but the bigger culprits are religious and cultural holidays, as well as staff-development days. …Each closure poses a logistical and financial challenge for parents as they scramble to find babysitters, tap their paid time off, ask their bosses for leniency, or enroll their kids in day camps. Little-known NYC charter school with 22% homeless rate wins state chess championship: ‘Amazing’ NY Post, 4/2/2026 Syracuse Drops 84 Majors Including Classics, Ceramics and Italian NY Times, 4/1/2026 Which Benchmark Many Parents Value Grades Over Test Scores, Missing Signals to Intervene The 74, 3/30/206Parents who value grades over test scores could be missing out on a key indicator their child needs more support – and raises the possibility students are graduating without necessary skills, a new study found. Teacher-assigned grades and standardized test scores usually signal to parents how well a student is grasping reading, writing and math skills, but the two measures “often conflict,” the report said. A college instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work and teach life lessons AP News, 3/31/2026 NYC graduation rates down by largest year-over-year percentage in 20 years NY Post, 3/28/2026 Younger School Safety Agents Amid ‘massive shortfall’ of school safety officers, NYPD deploys assistant agents as young as 18 Chalkbeat, 3/26/2026 Walk into a New York City public school, and you may be greeted by a police official who is not old enough to buy cigarettes or order a drink. The Police Department has deployed 114 assistant school safety agents as young as 18 and fresh out of high school to patrol the city’s elementary schools, city officials confirmed this week. The Classic Learning Test Takes Aim at the SAT–ACT Duopoly Education Next, 3/26/2026 One Reading Skill Might Be Responsible for Many Older Students’ Struggles EdWeek, 3/25/2026 |