Mamdani’s Socialist Education Agenda Will Further Harm NYC Public School Students – RedState

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s education agenda is loaded with socialist slogans such as ensuring “public schools are fully funded with fairly distributed resources” and “free child care for every New Yorker ages 6 weeks to 5 years.”

But the truth is that New York City’s public schools are not suffering from a lack of funding, and New York City parents are not demanding universal, government-run child care.

The real problem, which Mamdani’s socialist policies will not solve, is the fact that New York’s public schools operate in a near-monopolistic manner, free from accountability to the parents they should serve in the first place.

The New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) system is the nation’s largest school district and has the nation’s largest budget. In the 2025-2026 school year, NYCPS will spend $42.8 billion, most of which will not be spent in the classroom.

In total, only $16.6 billion, or less than 40 percent of the total budget, is allocated to “schools and K-12 education.”

Nearly half of that, or $8.5 billion, will be spent on “benefits and pensions” and nearly $4 billion, or about 10 percent of the total budget, will be spent on “debt payments.”

In 2024-2025, approximately one million students attended New York City schools. Not surprisingly, most New York students are required to attend public schools. In 2024-25, New York had 1,597 public schools with approximately 900,000 students enrolled, compared to 281 charter schools with fewer than 150,000 students enrolled.

RELATED: Mamdani’s Authoritarian Tendencies Are Already Disadvantaging New York’s Children

“To die of cold”: the “heat of collectivism” starts deadly in Mamdani’s New York

It’s worth noting that New York spends more per student than any other city or district in the entire country. Last year, the New York Department of Education spent $42,168 per student, an increase of nearly 40 percent from five years ago.

Despite its prodigious budget, NYCPS utterly fails to properly educate students, much less keep them safe on school grounds.

According to a 2024 survey, more than half of New York City students “said harassment, bullying, and bullying from classmates were common,” and two in ten said they felt unsafe most of the time at school.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also called the Nation’s Report Card, New York students are far below national and state averages. Since 2015, New York City student achievement has declined in almost every subject. In 2024, only 23% of New York City eighth graders were proficient in math and less than 30% were proficient in reading.

Against this backdrop of educational ineptitude, as per-pupil spending has increased astronomically and academic performance and student safety have declined, Mayor Mamdani is demanding more money and more government control.

But it won’t solve New York’s education crisis, because it won’t solve the core problem: public schools are not directly accountable to their customers.

On the other hand, private, parochial, and charter schools are responsible to parents who choose to send their children to these nonpublic institutions.

Although school choice options for New York City residents are limited, the concept is very popular. Nearly 80 percent of New York parents support education savings accounts (ESAs), which “[establish] for parents, a government-authorized savings account with restricted but multiple uses for educational purposes. Two-thirds of New Yorkers believe that ESAs “should be accessible to all families, regardless of income and special needs.” And 60 percent of New Yorkers think their local school district is “going in the wrong direction.”

If that’s not a harsh criticism of the NYCPS system, consider this final statistic: In New York City, the average cost of private school tuition is $22,380, or about half of what NYCPS spends per student.

If Mayor Mamdani truly wanted to achieve social justice, he would fight the government monopoly on education and give all New York parents the wish they deserve: universal school choice.

Chris Talgo ([email protected]) is the editorial director of the Heartland Institute.

Editor’s note: Zohran Mamdani is an avowed democratic socialist whose policies are wreaking havoc in New York.

Help us continue to report on his radical communist views and expose the Democrats who support him. Join RedState VIP and use promo code STRUGGLE to benefit from 60% off your VIP subscription.