Staff Reports
New York City just saw another education misstep. Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels quietly pulled the plan for a screened, AI-focused high school and shelved related school closures after the Panel for Educational Policy balked. That move shows a city leadership more afraid of noise than of losing students, dollars, and academic opportunity.
PEP Pulls the Plug on an AI High School
The proposed Next Generation Technology High School — an AI-focused school with screened admissions — was withdrawn after Panel for Educational Policy Chair Gregory Faulkner said he would not approve it as written. The plan would have taken students who showed basic math readiness and offered a rigorous tech curriculum. Instead of standing up for rigorous programs, City Hall folded. This isn’t a debate about “equity” versus excellence; it’s a retreat from offering real options to families who want their kids prepared for the future.
Enrollment Is Falling. The City Is Pretending It’s Not a Problem.
The School Construction Authority’s projection is blunt: New York City could lose roughly 153,000 public school students over the next decade. The Citizens Budget Commission warns that about 380 school buildings are under 60% capacity, and that the “hold harmless” funding rule is costing taxpayers about $400 million a year. Yet the city voted to open new schools — including a hip-hop-themed high school — while refusing to close or consolidate chronically underused and low-performing buildings. That is not smart budgeting. It’s political theater.
School Choice and the Risk of More Exodus
Governor Kathy Hochul’s move to opt New York into the federal tax-credit scholarship program will give families more ways to leave the public system. Combine that with the city’s failure to expand high-quality seats and you have a recipe for even more students fleeing. Parents vote with their feet. When the system cancels hard-edged programs and props up empty schools, families will find alternatives — private, charter, or out of the city entirely.
Fix It: Follow the Students and Reward Success
Here’s what leaders should do if they actually wanted to solve the problem. First, stop rewarding empty classrooms: tie funding to actual enrollment and stop the costly “hold harmless” policy. Second, close or merge chronically under-enrolled and failing schools and put the savings into proven programs and classrooms that are working. Third, stop demonizing screened or specialized schools that can deliver real skills. If New York won’t expand seats where demand exists, other options will gladly take those kids.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Chancellor Kamar Samuels can either keep pretending everything is fine, or they can make the hard choices that protect students and taxpayers. If they keep choosing politics over performance, the enrollment numbers — and the bill for them — will only get worse. It’s time to stop applauding perky press releases and start running a school system that actually serves families.
