New "Lost Student" Number Cited by NYPost: Only 73,000

Yesterday, I wrote about a New York City parent who discovered that City Hall and the DOE greatly overstated the actual drop in enrolled students in city schools. In short, City Hall and the DOE wanted to cut school budgets so much next year that they pretended the city had lost 760,000 children when, in fact, they had not. 

Almost everyone in the press allowed them to share this mistruth with little or no fact checking. 

Almost.

Today,  The NY Post published an article about how the DOE is now fighting for the budget cuts they want so much (the ones that will hurt children and school staff next year) by appealling a court order blocking the cuts. 

As part of the story, Post reporter Cayla Bamberger cited just 73,000 as the accurate number of students the city has lost since the start of the pandemic. 

The budget cuts come as the public schools — including 3K and preK, as well as charter schools — have lost 73,000 students since the start of the pandemic, according to data from the city’s Independent Budget Office.

That's right. A journalist didn't even bother using NYCDOE's data. She used IBO data instead. The numbers the IBO published are more than ten times lower than the number the mayor and the chancellor say. 

To be clear, a loss of 73,000 students is significant. This represents an approximate 6.7% loss in student enrollment in New York City (from 1.1 million).  But in his Executive Budget last February, the mayor proposed cuts closer to 10% and the #312 million mentioned today is higher number than that -and all of it is scheduled to come from school budgets. All of it. 

Don't forget, the mayor and chancellor are cutting the DOE budget by just 1% overall but all of those cuts, (totalling $312-$375 million) are coming only from school budgets. No cuts to Tweed. No cuts to supes. No cuts to central. Only cuts to schools. 

And they have such a problem with the truth that the New York Post won't even use the numbers they are claiming. Let that sink in.

That the papers will no longer publish data provided by the NYCDOE should be evidence enough that the DOE in New York is broken and can no longer be trusted.  But you tell me if the cuts n your school seem reflective of a 6% loss in student enrollment. And then fell free to tell me whether you think your school budget was the place to cut.