Because of Course: NYC Throwing Tax Dollars at Public Schools While Enrollment and Test Scores Tank

Like everything else they are in charge of, liberals have destroyed the public school system. If it is not students who graduate not knowing how to read or write, then it's the radical agenda of climate change, transgenderism, and America sucks. Their standard fix for all of it: Just keep asking for more money. How is that working out? All you have to do is look at New York City.

🚨WATCH: This is who’s teaching your kids in New York City Public Schools.

A man openly calling to seize private businesses and make it illegal to leave the city.pic.twitter.com/eJlIURW4eC
— Derrick Evans (@DerrickEvans4WV) February 6, 2026

When it comes to education, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is apparently engaging in the same fuzzy math that is being taught to New York City school children. Right now, the Big Apple spends roughly $43 billion a year, which comes out to around $44,000 per student, despite enrollment nosediving and mediocre test scores. But as Mamdani prepares his first city budget proposal, hide your wallets, New Yorkers. That price tag could be going up.

Andrew Rein is the executive director of the Citizens Budget Commission and stated:

“Despite the City spending $44,000 per student, too many of its schools are delivering middling results, and some parents are increasingly choosing charters over traditional public schools. The City should focus its effort and dollars on student learning and shrink spending that’s not delivering results. This includes adjusting school funding when enrollment shrinks and combining schools that have shrunk so much that they are no longer cost-effective to run.”

However, the state may make any downsizing of New York City's education budget a bit thorny. Even as enrollment drops, a law passed in 2022 requires that New York City classrooms have 20 to 25 students at most, depending on grade level, by the 2026-27 school year. There must be 100 percent compliance by the 2027-28 school year. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, along with her fellow state Democrats, is considering extending the deadline.

This should radicalize you:

💰NYC spends $44,000 per student per year
📚38% of 8th graders are functionally illiterate
💼The DOE employs almost as many non-teachers as teachers, including many highly-paid admins pic.twitter.com/NHRtZ06fbn
— Angela Morabito (@AngelaLMorabito) May 12, 2026

So, what are New York City taxpayers getting for their money? Not much. According to the city Department of Education, there are fewer students than a decade ago but more schools. Of those schools, 15 percent operate under 50 percent capacity. But it's here where both taxpayers and students lose. Just one-third of fourth-grade students were rated "proficient" at math, and 28 percent were proficient at reading. As students progress through the system, it doesn't get better. Of the eighth-grade students in the city, 23 percent were proficient in math and 29 percent in reading.

ALSO READ: Teachers' Unions Now Blowing $2M on Protest Training While Kids Can't Read

Many New York City parents have had enough. Independent, publicly funded charter schools boast an enrollment of 150,500 students in 285 schools. And those schools are delivering results. In the South Bronx, one of the city's poorest areas, students in some classrooms had a 90 percent or more pass rate on state reading and math exams. In some cases, that far exceeded public school test results by 25 percent.

With numbers like these, there is no way that New York City students will be equipped to succeed, and they are not the only ones. America will not be able to compete with other nations like China. But for a socialist like Zohran Mamdani, that's okay. Just as long as other people's money keeps rolling in.

Cowardly Mamdani keeps bankrolling failure in NYC’s schools City Hall's educrats are displaying a shocking failure to adapt at a time when NYC families are plainly voting with their feet and leaving the city school system en masse. https://t.co/FghNs1KALg pic.twitter.com/eELCjFXxZ7
— UnfilteredAmerica (@NahBabyNahNah) May 12, 2026

Editor's Note: President Trump is fighting to ensure America's kids get the education they deserve.

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