Restructuring New York City's Schools

Abstract

New York City's public school system is the largest in the nation. Its administrative structure is correspondingly large. It enrolls nearly one million students and has 120,000 staff people who work in over a thousand buildings. The New York City Public Schools transport over a half million students a day. Its school security staff would be the nation's sixth largest police force. Its budget is over seven billion dollars, larger than that of most states. In addition to its sheer size, the New York City school system has many serious problems. Perhaps most striking are those problems associated with poverty, language, and disability. A third of the children in the public school system are on public assistance, well over 100,000 are of limited English proficiency, and roughly 120,000 are in special education.