Top Stories
Kamar Goes to Tweed
Mamdani to pick Manhattan superintendent Kamar Samuels as public school chancellor
NY Daily News, 12/31/2025
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is expected to elevate Kamar Samuels, a local uptown Manhattan superintendent, to chancellor of the New York City public schools on Wednesday, sources confirmed to the Daily News.
…In his current position, he oversaw a contentious plan to reconfigure Harlem schools as part of a broader effort to address enrollment declines in the neighborhood. The move triggered backlash in the community, while earning the praises of top education officials for ensuring all students have access to a variety of classes and programming. The district also covers the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights.
…Samuels will take over the more than $40 billion school system with some 900,000 students as it contends with political pressure from the White House, which has already pulled funding from local magnet programs, as well as an incoming state mandate to lower class sizes that will require significant spending and hiring.
Reversing Course
Mamdani Reverses Call to End Mayoral Control of Public Schools
NY Times, 12/31/2025
In a major shift, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday said that he would no longer seek to end mayoral control of the New York City schools, a decision that came as he formally announced his choice to run the nation’s largest school system.
Mr. Mamdani’s reversal on mayoral control marked a significant change of heart. He argued often on the campaign trail that the system shuts out the voices of too many teachers, parents and students from crucial decisions, and maintained his opposition to the model during the final mayoral debates.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Mamdani said that while he disagreed with the way that the outgoing mayor, Eric Adams, wielded power over education, he understood the need for the mayor to be held accountable for public school outcomes..
And the Appointment Goes To…
Mamdani to name Kamar Samuels as schools chancellor
City & State, 12/30/2025
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will announce Wednesday he’s chosen Kamar Samuels to be his schools chancellor. Three sources with knowledge of the plan confirmed the coming announcement to City & State.
…He is known for leading school mergers with a goal of racial integration, Chalkbeat reported, after overseeing a de Blasio administration effort to increase racial diversity in certain Brooklyn middle schools.
Samuels started his career in education as an elementary school teacher in the Bronx. He was previously a school superintendent in Brooklyn before taking the helm of District 3 in 2022.
Other Headlines
Classroom Phone Bans Work. So Why Don’t All Schools Do It?
Wall Street Journal, 12/27/2025
Trending
The Hottest High Schools in Massachusetts Are Trade Schools
Wall Street Journal, 12/27/2025
On a recent Tuesday here, high-schoolers watched a cat get an ultrasound at the on-campus veterinary clinic, practiced installing electrical wiring to power a building, repaired pipes on a water heater and fixed dents on a car hood.
That is a routine day at Worcester Technical High School, where hundreds of kids vie for admission. The waiting list has run between 600 and 800 students in recent years, the principal said.
…Enrollment in these programs has grown around 25% since the 2011-12 school year, according to the Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based public-policy think tank. Two-thirds of graduates pursue postsecondary education, according to a 2022 book published by the institute.
NYC teachers discover teens can’t read clocks after school cellphone ban
NY Post, 12/26/2025
Lingering Doubts
New York’s Education Shows Improvement, but Questions Remain
Empire Center, 12/24/2025
In the effort to improve transparency and accountability of New York’s education system, the Empire Center has systematized and published grade 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and Maths test scores. The easy to use database shows school and school district data in 2025, with historic dataset going all the way back to 2014.
Based on preliminary analysis, 57 percent of New York students were proficient in Math and 53 percent in English Language Arts (ELA). The proficiency rates increased from the previous school year (2023-24) – 54 percent in Math and 46% in ELA.
Unfortunately, it is unclear whether the 2024-2025 data can be directly compared to that of previous years.
NYC school attendance drops, parents freak out as flu season foils Christmas plans
Gothamist, 12/24/2025
Do Parents Have Favorite Children? Of Course They Do.
NY Times, 12/23/2025
Class Size Law Realities
Engaging students while looking for space: How smaller class sizes are reshaping NYC classrooms
Chalkbeat, 12/23/2025
This is what complying with New York’s class size reduction law looks like at Manhattan’s Stephen T. Mather Building Arts & Craftsmanship High School.
While Zegarra and his colleagues agree that having smaller class sizes has made a world of a difference for them and their roughly 340 students, it’s meant playing a game of jigsaw puzzle in the building they share with four other schools.
“People are teaching in offices, people are teaching in the hallway at some point because we just don’t have enough classrooms,” said Ivette Dobarganes, a Spanish teacher and United Federation of Teachers chapter leader at the school.
NY education officials won’t say if state is complying with ‘FAFSA’ law meant to grant access to $1B in fed aid
NY Post, 12/23/2025
Pay teachers more, 311 for parents, move district boundaries: How Mamdani could improve NYC schools (Part 2)
Chalkbeat, 12/22/2025
Post Affirmative Action Updates
Elite colleges admitting one student minority group at incredible rates, post affirmative action
NY Post, 12/22/2025
If we needed further proof affirmative action wasn’t working for some groups – look no further than admissions of Asian students to elite colleges.
Two years after the Supreme Court banned use of race in deciding college admissions, the percentage of Asian American freshmen has nearly doubled to 45% at Johns Hopkins University, according to newly compiled data.
“I was like, wow, that’s a big one,” Yiatin Chu, a Queens mother who’s soon to start preparing to go through the college process with her teenager, told The Post.
Tutoring, campus mergers, affordable housing for teachers: How Mamdani could improve NYC schools (Part 1)
Chalkbeat, 12/19/2025
Ninety New York Educators Receive $300k+ in Annual Pay
Empire Center, 12/19/2025
A public school for hip-hop is coming to the Bronx
Chalkbeat, 12/18/2025
Left On The Table
NYC school bus audit: Nearly $43M in penalties left uncollected
NY Daily News, 12/17/2025
New York City public schools left tens of millions of dollars on the table last year in penalties from yellow bus companies, as poor service continues to strand students and force parents to miss work, a new comptroller’s audit found Wednesday.
The penalties were for violations related to GPS technology that drivers must log into at the start of their routes so parents can track the bus or their children once aboard.
Jeff Bezos and wife Lauren Sánchez awarding $5M to founder of a neurodiversity education network
NY Post, 12/17/2025
Eric Adams Pledged to Help Dyslexic Students. Many Say He Fell Short.
NY Times, 12/17/2025
While colleges struggle to diversify teaching programs, UAlbany sees success
Times Union, 12/16/2025
Dumbing Down
College Board’s Defense Doesn’t Pass Muster
Wall Street Journal, 12/15/2025
The College Board says its SAT and AP examinations haven’t been “dumbed down.” Chester E. Finn Jr. suggests the company’s tests are the best on offer (Letters, Dec. 9 and 13). Unfortunately the evidence bears neither out.
Trevor Packer and Priscilla Rodriguez assert that the median pass rate of all AP exams and the proportion of students earning a 1,400 or higher on the SAT are unchanged. This ignores the board’s own distribution tables for many core AP subjects, which show more students receiving higher marks, and the documented fall in student achievement across the U.S.
Adams appoints GOP’s Borelli to school panel, stacking another board before Mamdani takes office
NY Daily News, 12/15/2025
More Class Size Law Disruptions
New York’s Class-Size Law is Wreaking Havoc
City Journal, 12/15/2025
In September 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul signed S960, a bill limiting the size of classes in New York City public schools. The law phases in class-size limits—20 students for grades K–3; 23 students for grades 4–8; and 25 students for high school—over six years.
…But where it has been implemented, the law is causing disruptions. At Brooklyn Technical High School, the city’s largest high school, administrators have proposed several compliance strategies. Among them: creating a separate annex in a different building for freshmen, or expanding the school day from 7:20 a.m. to 4:19 p.m. One student in a “leftovers” class—an additional class created to comply with the law—reportedly “found the experience uncomfortably different from the Tech standard.”
At School District 2 in Manhattan, parents of M.S. 255 Salk School of Science students resisted a proposed merger inspired by the class-size law. The district had considered merging Salk with 75 Morton Middle School, an under-enrolled middle school. While parents claim that they have scuttled the plan, they worry that “uncertainty about Salk’s future location continues to threaten its stability and location.”
Board of Regents’ wish list: $1.1 billion hike for homeless students, early college, and arts
Chalkbeat, 12/15/2025