The New York City public school system is projected to lose an estimated 30,000 students this fall, as enrollment is down for 2022 and more are expected to flee this year.
That is the reason School Chancellor David Banks and Mayor Eric Adams gave for cutting Department of Education (DOE) funding in the next budget.
"Here's what's happening with the Department of Education: We have a massive hemorrhaging of students — massive hemorrhaging," Adams said this week. "We're in a very dangerous place in the number of students that we are dropping."
The city's student enrollment office data shows 28,100 fewer students going to public schools this fall, while another 2,300 fewer are expected by the end of the year, the New York Post reported.
Also, this figure does not include the totals of students in charter schools, schools for kids with disabilities, and other nontraditional public programs, according to the report.
The New York City school system is the largest public school system in the country and projections show 760,439 students will be served this school year; the Los Angeles Unified School District is second with around 600,000 students K through 12, according to the report.
There are almost 50% of schools expecting lower enrollment, as about 120,000 students have fled the NYC public school system in the past five years, according to the DOE.
Among the reasons cited in the report are declining birthrates, cost of city living, and outmigration from the city, which reached a height during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and protocols.
More than a third of 656 schools submitting feedback on the projections say they were expecting far fewer students than the numbers suggest, while 426 school administrators told the DOE the projections that are tied to the cutting of funding will undercount the students they are serving, according to the report.
"[Council of School Supervisors and Administrators] CSA has been advocating that appeals should be heard right away," CSA spokesman Craig DiFolco told the Post.
The counting has been off in the past. Last year nearly 50% of schools had few students than budgeted, while just 10% had more, according to the DOE data.
Charter schools in the city are growing by 1.3% this year, and by 9% since the start of the pandemic, according to the New York City Charter School Center.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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