| Top Stories Small Class Size Plan for 2026 Mamdani, NYC schools chief announce plan for smaller class sizes for 2026-27 school year NY Daily News, 6/12/2026 After persuading state lawmakers to give it more time, New York City Public Schools released a plan to reduce class sizes that allocates $244 million to hire new teachers across 360 schools. …City schools were given until 2028 to reach full compliance, but under amendments passed by the state Legislature and expected to be signed into law by Gov. Hochul, will have until 2030 to phase in the caps. The allocation is nearly double the investment Mayor Mamdani announced as part of his executive budget plan last month. It’s not clear if the new spending is cutting into the half-billion dollars in savings that Mamdani was banking on to help close the city’s budget gap. School spokespeople did not immediately explain either discrepancy. …Up to 90 schools could be candidates for re-sitings or mergers — a method that Chancellor Kamar Samuels has drawn on in the past, including most recently when he proposed changes to Upper West Side schools that would have created space for an overcrowded school in the district. Those plans are currently on pause. Safety Cuts Mamdani set to cut nearly 300 school safety agents as felony assaults rise in NYC schools NY Post, 6/13/2026 Mayor Mamdani proposed slashing 264 school safety agents from city schools in the coming fiscal year — a reduction parent groups warn could spell disaster in the wake of rising felony assaults in schools. The cut, called for in Hizzoner’s preliminary budget, was announced Monday by New York City Council Education Chair Eric Dinowitz at the fiscal year 2027 budget hearing. “The DOE savings plan calls for a vacancy reduction of 264 school safety agents, meaning that schools would not be able to fully staff SSAs if desired,” Dinowitz said at the City Council hearing. Contract Scrutiny City Council Calls for Tighter Review of N.Y.C. School System Contracts NY Times, 06/11/2026 Two high-ranking members of the New York City Council are demanding greater oversight of contracts in the city’s school system, expressing concern about an investigation into the chancellor over his involvement in a $180,000 no-bid deal for foreign language teachers. …The hearing ratcheted up the pressure on Mr. Samuels just months after Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed him chancellor. Mr. Samuels, who leads the largest school system in the United States, has acknowledged a “lapse in procedure,” adding that his actions were “not for personal gain or to benefit anyone other than our schoolchildren.” Eric Dinowitz, the chair of the Council’s Committee on Education, called the testimony “deeply troubling” and said it underscored the need for more scrutiny of contracts at the City Department of Education, particularly no-bid contracts. Adaptive SHSAT Ready or Not [UPDATED] Specialized High Schools Admissions Test NYCPS, updated 6/4/2026 Beginning in fall 2026, the SHSAT will move to a computer-adaptive test. A computer-adaptive test adjusts its content based on student responses. At the start of the test, students will see an item or passage set of average difficulty. After the student responds, an initial score estimate will be set. As students answer more questions, the testing system re-estimates their score in real time based on all of their responses until that point. If a student answers a question correctly, their estimated score will go up, and they may then receive a more challenging question. If they answer incorrectly, their estimated score will go down, and the next question may have a lower difficulty level. All students will answer the same number of questions, and the test will continually adapt the item difficulty level as the student progresses. Advocacy Corner |
NEW PODCAST EPISODES Councilmember Phil Wong’s Look Ahead on Education PLACE NYC, 6/11/2026 The Impending Enrollment Apocalypse PLACE NYC, 6/4/2026 Grading the News on a Curve PLACE NYC, 5/28/2026 NYC Comptroller Mark Levine Shows Us the Money PLACE NYC, 5/21/2026 Finding the Funding PLACE NYC, 5/14/2026 Petition Save Our Afterschool Programs: Demand Accountability from DYCD for Vendor Contracts PLACE NYC June Primary Election Endorsements Joseph Addabbo, Jr., NY Senate District 15 Grace Lee, Senate District 27 Jenifer Rajkumar, Assembly District 38 Jaime Williams, Assembly District 59 Mariama James, Assembly District 65 Jordan J.G. Wright, Assembly District 70 Early voting is underway from 6/13 to 6/21; Primary Election day is Tuesday, 6/23. Other Headlines Mamdani names new head of NYC public school construction Crain’s NY, 6/12/2026 NYC public school under fire for workshop that splits parents, staff into ‘separate’ racial groups NY Post, 06/11/2026 Mamdani’s DOE accused of ‘stonewalling’ over hundreds of contracts worth massive $12B NY Post, 6/8/2026 Holding Harmless on Shrinking Schools NYC schools with declining enrollments to be fully funded, a practice that raises questions NY Daily News, 6/8/2026 New York City schools with falling enrollment will not face budget cuts this fall, continuing a policy that guarantees each school in the system receives at least as much funding as it did the year before, even if they’re expecting fewer students. Staring down a multibillion-dollar budget gap, Mayor Mamdani faced pressure this year from fiscal watchdogs to rein in costs associated with the push known as “hold harmless,” which was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure financial stability during a crisis. Mamdani was ultimately able to avoid those contentious cuts with the help of Gov. Hochul, who provided state aid and budget flexibility for the city. NYC proposal would add younger students to school leadership teams — and pay them for it Chalkbeat, 6/5/2026 Repeal it Class-size law delay should lead to full repeal NY Daily News Editorial, 6/5/2026 It’s welcome relief that the state Legislature has delayed for two years the onset of its unnecessary and unreasonable (and pricey) class size mandate on New York City. The next step is to scrap it all together. Of all the fixes to the myriad issues plaguing our public schools, a mandatory reduction in class sizes from 25 to 20 is one of the more expensive and least-supported ones. …Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani backed the concept and voted for it and promised during his mayoral campaign last year to implement it. Well, now he’s mayor and he’s agreeing with the prior mayor, Eric Adams, that it interferes with running the city’s public schools. …That said, we’ll take a delay, but this is a conversation that should be continued next session. Even if the full implementation is in 2030 as opposed to 2028, that still is a requirement that will impose substantial annual costs in perpetuity. Mamdani breaks promise, pays bribes to do the right thing on class-size law NY Post Editorial, 6/3/2026 Five Things to Know About Colleges Reinstating the SAT Wall Street Journal, 6/3/2026 Power Move Powerful UFT snags teacher pay bumps of up to $9.5K in compromise deal to delay NYC class size law NY Post, 6/2/2026 The powerful teachers’ union delivered a master class in wheeling and dealing — winning pay bumps of up to $9,500 as part of a deal delaying New York’s class size mandate. Under a compromise, the United Federation of Teachers agreed to amend the state law, giving Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his Department of Education two additional years to lower class sizes in city public schools. …City taxpayers will dish out $151 million for Hochul and state lawmakers’ sweetheart deal to the UFT and other public labor unions – largely undoing pension reforms enacted in 2012 that slightly reined in runaway spending. NY cellphone ban takeaways: Students paid more attention, bullying declined NY Daily News, 6/1/2026 NYC Schools chancellor makes whopping $363K — more than Mayor Mamdani: source NY Post, 5/31/2026 Kids without screens? One NYC school district works to break the habit NY Daily News, 5/30/2026 Professors Demanding Testing Citing middle-school level skills, UC faculty want to restore math, science testing for applicants San Francisco Chronicle, 5/28/2026 Hundreds of University of California faculty members signed an open letter this week calling for the return of standardized testing requirements for applicants to math and science majors by next year. The UC system disbanded the decades-old standardized testing requirement in 2020, under a legal challenge from students who argued that the metric gave students who could afford test prep services and travel to exam sites an advantage. The system’s nine undergraduate campuses were among hundreds of colleges nationwide that made the test optional during the COVID-19 pandemic. But more than five years later, a coalition led by UC Berkeley math professors argues the drop in students’ math levels is “severe.” OP-ED: Stop passing the ball: New York must fund special education training now! Amsterdam News, op-ed by Natassja Rappa, 5/28/2026 Yale reinstates SAT, ACT requirement after six years of flexible policy Yale Daily News, 5/27/2026 NAEP Reforms…for the better The Nation’s Report Card Just Got More Informative City Journal, 05/26/2026 Last week, the National Assessment Governing Board announced that it will start publishing National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) state-level data on 12th-grade math and reading and eighth-grade science, and will add an eighth- and 12th-grade civics exam. …The NAEP’s addition of state-level data for 12th-graders is especially encouraging, as several states have reduced or eliminated high school graduation requirements. Karen Vaites, founder of the Curriculum Insight Project, reports that at least seven states have weakened these requirements since 2020. Vaites also calls the addition of a civics test for eighth- and 12th-graders important because “schools have been spending less and less time on social studies and geography, especially in the elementary grades, and the Civics push can reinforce the critical role of content area study.” The Academy Rethinks the SAT Wall Street Journal, Editorial, 5/28/2026 An upper Manhattan mom was tired of screen time. She convinced 38 schools to take a ‘screen break.’ Chalkbeat, 5/22/2026 NYC after-school contract shakeup sparks fury after beloved, long-term providers are ousted Chalkbeat, 5/21/2026 Math Curriculum Mandate Mamdani launches NYC elementary school math curriculum overhaul, following in Adams’ footsteps Chalkbeat, 5/21/2026 New York City will soon require elementary schools in four local districts to use city-approved math curriculums, one of the first education initiatives under Mayor Zohran Mamdani outside of early childhood. The announcement Thursday marks the first time elementary school math teachers will be required to shift their instruction as part of the city’s broader curriculum mandate. Schools in Manhattan District 5, Bronx Districts 11 and 12, and Queens District 25 will be required to make the shift by this fall. Harvard Caps A’s as Selective Colleges Attack Grade Inflation NY Times, 5/20/2026 The Enrollment Cliff Is Here. Which Schools Will Survive It? The New Yorker, 5/19/2026 Flat PreK Enrollment Despite Mamdani’s Outreach, Interest in N.Y.C. Pre-K Programs Is Flat NY Times, 5/19/2026 Mayor Zohran Mamdani has spent months promoting his goal of expanding New York City’s public preschool offerings into a free universal child care system. He has marketed the city’s programs for 3- and 4-year-olds on his social media accounts, on LinkNYC sidewalk kiosks and on televisions in yellow cabs to encourage more families to apply for seats. But despite the media blitz, roughly the same number of New York City parents applied to the preschool programs this year as they did last year, when then-mayor Eric Adams was hardly publicizing them, according to application data shared with The New York Times. More than 94,400 applications were submitted for seats in the 3-K and pre-K programs this fall, about 400 fewer than last year. School Districts With Fast-Rising Test Scores Have 5 Things In Common Forbes, 5/19/2026 Life After Regents School districts prepare for life after Regents exams Times Union, 5/19/2026 Nearly two years after the Board of Regents announced that Regents exams would someday become optional for students to earn their high school diplomas, school districts are taking matters into their own hands. …He acknowledged that many school officials have asked for more details from the Board of Regents, which has not yet written the regulations that will end mandatory Regents exams. Nor has the group set a date to vote on those regulations, although Regents said two years ago that they would “sunset” the mandatory exams “by fall 2027.” Parents Are Fuming About Other Peoples’ Kids Getting Extra Time on the SAT Wall Street Journal, 5/18/2026 As school districts cut budgets, DEI work may be first to go The Hechinger Report, 5/15/2026 PTA Funding NYC PTA funding inequities: See how much your school’s PTA raises Chalkbeat, 05/15/2026 New York City’s public school system has long been defined by inequities of concentrated wealth and poverty, and nowhere is that more pronounced than in parent-teacher association fundraising. Of the money PTAs raised last year, the top 30 schools, or just 2.5%, raised nearly half of the total amount of the 1,240 schools included in the recently released Education Department data for the 2024-25 school year. Yale Medical School Discriminated Against White and Asian Applicants, DOJ Finds Wall Street Journal, 5/14/2026 Cursive Club, Where Students Learn With a Flourish NY Times, 5/14/2026 The Grand Tradition of Suing for School Tuition NY Magazine, 5/14/2026 Testing Decline Why U.S. Test Scores Are in a ‘Generation-Long Decline’ NY Times, 5/13/2026 Something troubling is happening in U.S. education. Almost everywhere in America, students are performing worse than their peers were 10 years ago, according to new, district-level test score data released Wednesday by the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford. Compared with a decade earlier, reading scores were down last year in 83 percent of school districts where data was available. Math scores were down in 70 percent. The declines have affected both rich and poor districts, and crossed racial and geographic divides. The new data provides the first national comparison of school districts through 2025, and offers a detailed picture of how individual school districts have performed over time. It underscores that many districts have experienced a long-term slump in student achievement, not just a blip during the pandemic. Look Up Your School District’s Test Scores NY Times, 5/13/2026 UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000, greatly expanding undergraduate aid University of Chicago News, 5/13/2026 Making the (easy) Grade ‘A’ Grades Are Suddenly Everywhere Since the Arrival of ChatGPT Wall Street Journal, 5/13/2026 AI is making “A” grades easier to come by, a new study shows—and making them less useful to employers trying to size up college graduates. The share of A’s in college classes heavy on writing and coding—in other words, work more prone to artificial intelligence use—has grown more significantly than in other classes since ChatGPT’s debut, according to a paper from the University of California, Berkeley, released Wednesday. Professors teaching AI-exposed classes gave out about 30% more A’s and fewer A-minus and B-plus grades. The results suggest that students have relied on generative AI to do better in their studies, not that these classes of students are learning more, says Igor Chirikov, a senior researcher at Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education and the paper’s author. Help! My Kindergarten Is All In on AI. New York Magazine, 5/12/2026 Bezos Family Gives $100 Million for Preschool Education in New York NY Times, 5/12/2026 Troubling Trend What to Do About NYC’s Empty Schools Manhattan Institute, 5/12/2026 The National Center for Education Statistics projected that enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools would decrease by 6% between 2020 and 2030.[4] This decline will not be uniform across the country; 39 states are expected to see at least some decrease in enrollment between 2025 and 2031. New York is expected to have the ninth-highest decline, as shown in Table 1. An analysis by the Fordham Institute listed 500 schools identified by states as low-performing that have also had “a substantial enrollment decline in the wake of the pandemic.”[5] Of the 40 of these schools in New York, four have already closed; most of the others continue to see drops in enrollment (Table 3). The revolt against i-Ready: Private equity-backed software faces parent, teacher and student fury NBC News, 5/12/2026 |