Mark Anderson

Today my office has released a major new report on student enrollment in NYC. We found that k-12 enrollment in our public schools has fallen by 187k since 2013, with a projected decline of an additional 128k students by 2034. As total enrollment declines, NYCPS is serving a student population with growing needs. The number of students with disabilities is increasing. In the most recent school year, approximately 73% of students were in poverty and 14% were homeless or living in temporary housing. Our report finds the drop in enrollment is driven by declining births and families with children leaving NYC, with a particularly notable drop in public-school enrollment as students transition from elementary to middle school. These trends have massive implications for our schools that we have only barely begin to grapple with. My hope is that this report will spur a long overdue conversation about what the era of falling student enrollment means for NYC, and what we can do to reverse or slow it. 🧵

A decade ago, NYC had over a million students in the public schools. This year we have 885,000. Projected to decline by another 150k over next decade. That drop has left 219 schools with enrollment of less than 200 students each. Some are so small they can't even field a sport team. This is not sustainable. As painful as it is, there is going to have to be some consolidation of schools with sharply declining enrollment.