A staggering 95 percent of New Yorkers say the city’s public schools need to improve reading and math scores and/or spend less money.
Zilvinas Silenas, president and chief executive of the Empire Center, an independent think tank that promotes public policy reforms grounded in free-market principles, personal responsibility, and the ideals of effective and accountable government
, delivered the damning assessment in a new poll released by his organization.
Only 3 percent of city residents approved of the job the New York City Department of Education is doing and said it should continue as is, according to the survey of 600 likely 2026 general election voters in New York conducted July 6-8.
“I have never seen such a broad condemnation of business as usual,” Silenas told The Post.
The poll broke down the 95 percent into distinct categories of dissatisfaction. Sixty percent of respondents said NYC schools needed to improve test scores, 31 percent said they needed to improve and spend less money, and 4 percent said the DOE just needs to reduce spending.
A whopping 91 percent of respondents said the DOE needs to improve reading and math scores as the city struggles with an illiteracy and innumeracy crisis.
Less than half of all New York elementary students — 48 percent — are proficient in reading, which dropped from 53 percent the year before, shocking state Education Department stats on the 2025-26 English Language Arts test revealed recently.
In NYC, about 56 percent made the grade on the reading test, according to the data. The city results mirror broader discontent with public school education across the state.
Widespread dissatisfaction with the DOE’s spending also emerged from the poll. Thirty-five percent of respondents said the school system needs to tighten its purse strings.
The budget for city schools has ballooned to $45 billion in the 2026 school year — a monumental $53,000 per pupil, more than anywhere else in the country.
Only 4 percent of respondents in the state overall approved of the state’s public school system. Forty-seven percent said state public schools need to improve reading and math scores.
New Yorkers across the state also felt the public education system cost too much. Forty-seven percent of state respondents said schools need to focus on spending less money — 41 percent saying schools need to cost less and improve test scores and 6 percent answering that they just need to cost less.
The near universal condemnation comes as city schools grapple with an enrollment crisis.
A post-Covid trend has seen families hit the exits over the past five years, adding up to a 12.2% decline.
Over 40 percent of NYC students failed state reading and math tests in the 2024-2025 school year, representing a slight improvement over the year before. Yet the more recent 2025-26 data show a sharp reversal on reading, with the statewide proficiency rate falling to 48 percent.
Charter schools have grown their enrollment during the same period in which traditional public schools have lost students.
Traditional schools lost 13.3 percent of their K-12 enrollment between the 2018-19 school year and the 2022-23 school year; in contrast, K-12 charter school enrollment increased by 17.4 percent over the same period.
The polling data reflect frustration even as some recent initiatives show modest gains.
Mayor Eric Adams and Public Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles Ramos announced they would be expanding the pilot NYC Reads and NYC Solves programs to 186 additional schools across 14 districts, with the expansion set to go into effect for the 2025-26 school year, bringing the programs to over 490,000 students.
Despite those modest improvements in some screener data, the latest state test results revealed a significant setback.
New York City students’ scores on state reading tests dropped 6 percentage points this year, underscoring the challenge facing education leaders as they implement a major overhaul in literacy instruction.
In the viral moment that sparked the news coverage, the Empire Center released the results of a large-scale poll showing that New Yorkers are united in their dissatisfaction with the city’s public school system. The survey conducted mid-July found that only 3 percent of voters approved of the DOE’s performance, while 95 percent said the system needs either better test scores, less spending, or both. The results were stunning in their unanimity, cutting across political lines and demographic groups to reveal a consensus that the status quo is unacceptable.