Mike Elsen-Rooney

Great read from @alexzimmerman.bsky.social on NYC’s new chancellor, his vision for the system, and what happens when Mamdani visits an elementary school: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2026...

Come join us Thursday at the Brooklyn Heights library for a conversation on what it means to educate immigrant students in this moment - with educators doing amazing work on the ground + great orgs with resources to share.

Important reality check from @mattbarnum.bsky.social on the oft-heard refrain that loosening admissions at selective schools will harm the lower-scoring students who get in by setting them up for failure.

Research shows precisely the opposite: those students see real benefits.

And speaking of child care, I’ll be out on parental leave until March! Keep up with my fabulous colleagues @amyzimmer.bsky.social and @alexzimmerman.bsky.social for all your NYC education needs at an interesting time!

NYC’s child care voucher waitlist swells to 10,000, leaving working parents in the lurch The waitlist for child care vouchers swelled to 10,000 children, forcing low-income working parents to rely on unstable care. Can Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani fix the problem?

One sign of how bad NYC’s child care crisis has gotten: there are *10,000* kids sitting on a waitlist for low-income child care vouchers b/c the program is out of $. Some observers say that’s a logical place for Mamdani to start his push for universal child care: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

One dramatic example of the rapid enrollment rise + fall is ATLAS HS, formerly known as Newcomers, in Queens. Enrollment more than doubled in 3 yrs, then almost cut in half again over the past two.

Citywide, enrollment is down 2%. But at the 60 schools that took in the largest shares of immigrant students starting in 2022, enrollment is down 11% this year, wiping away years of gains.

And far fewer new students are coming in - down 7% this year so far compared with last.

A wave of immigration boosted enrollment at dozens of NYC schools. Now, their numbers are falling. At dozens of schools that took in the largest shares of migrant students in recent years, enrollment fell by 11% over the past year, wiping away years of gains.

New: the arrival of ~50K migrant students from 2022-24 buoyed NYC schools after years of enrollment decline. But over the past year, as the city closed shelters + Trump took office, that pattern reversed - posing long-term challenges for many schls + the system: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

Dignified Pay for Quality Care: What New York’s Family Child Care Providers Need to Thrive — Center for New York City Affairs As the recent, historic mayoral election campaign demonstrated, the soaring costs and insufficient availability of quality child care continue to be matters of paramount importance to New Yorkers. The...

Rly important work by economist Lauren Melodia finds the median income for NYC’s family child care providers, many of whom rely largely on public funding + will be a critical part of any push for universal child care, is $6 an hour: www.centernyc.org/reports-brie...

On Camera, Fed Agents Point Guns at Mother and Four Kids in Queens The agents came looking for a relative who no longer lived in the apartment, the shellshocked mother told THE CITY. Days later, her children are terrified to leave their parents' sides.

VIDEO: Federal Agents Bust Into Queens Apartment, Pointing Guns at Mother and Her Four Kids www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/19/q...

Principals + parents we spoke w/ at several schools that received exemptions hadn’t even heard about them, much less requested them.

Eric Adams declares victory on class size reduction — by issuing 10,500 exemptions NYC officials quietly issued thousands of exemptions to class size law. Did your school get one?

New w/ @alexzimmerman.bsky.social: NYC declared victory on a major class size deadline: >60% of classes under the caps. What they didn’t mention: they only got there by quietly declaring 10,500 classes exempt. W/o those, DOE would’ve been at 59.5% compliance: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

Providers are asking for the flexibility to convert unused 3 + 4-yr-old seats into infant + toddler seats. That could be a win-win - stabilizing current system while expanding care for kids 2 and under. But it will require a change to existing child care contracts, which were just extended 2 yrs

First puzzle Mamdani’s universal child care plan must solve: NYC’s empty seat problem Last year, more than 27,000 of the city’s roughly 136,000 free child care seats for kids ages 4 and under went unfilled, about 1 in every 5 seats.

Mamdani’s visit to a BK child care center yesterday illustrated one of the problems in the system he’ll have to confront: 2 of the center’s classrooms, meant for 3K/PreK, have sat empty for 5 yrs. Citywide, ~27,000 free child care seats, 1 in 5, were empty last yr: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

The pic here is from Mamdani visiting a preschool pumpkin patch after the press conference. One of the kids shouted (after a prompt) a perfectly pronounced "Mamdani," to which Mamdani said, "he says my name better than Cuomo!"

Mamdani pledged universal child care for NYC. What will it take to get there? Mamdani will face an array of logistical and operational challenges in standing up new public infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of youngsters.

Most of the conversation about whether Mamdani can deliver universal child care has focused - rightfully - on cost. But I've been curious (as a reporter and parent of an infant + toddler) what it would take operationally. So I talked to lots of knowledgable ppl: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

Former NYC schools chancellor in the running for head of Chicago Public Schools Meisha Ross Porter, who led New York City Public Schools until 2021, will interview with Chicago Board of Education members, a community panel, and the mayor next week.

Plot twist in NYC's chancellor search! Meisha Ross Porter, a former schools chief under de Blasio who's considered a top contender for the job under Mamdani, is a finalist for CEO of Chicago schools.

www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2025...

At one Manhattan HS for newcomers, enrollment is down ~200 students this year, the school’s superintendent said last week.

A chart shows NYC’s school enrollment between 2020 and 2025

A little more election-eve news for NYC schools: Enrollment is down 2.4%, the largest drop in 4 yrs. Seems likely immigration played a role - the influx of 50K migrants propped up NYC’s enrollment the last 3 yrs, but that’s ground to a halt under Trump.

www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

It’s a ‘blessing’: NYC schools get to keep their cash, despite lower than projected enrollment Schools that missed their enrollment targets won’t have to return millions in funding midyear back to the Education Department. Some principals say it’s a ‘blessing.’

A bit of news for NYC schools: schools w/ lower-than-projected enrollment won't have to give back $ midyear. That could be especially beneficial to schools that have enrolled large immigrant populations + have seen big drops under Trump. W/ @amyzimmer.bsky.social: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

But this is currently happening at the individual school level and won't come close to meeting the need. School leaders I spoke to hope for a bigger, citywide mobilization to use schools as food distribution sites, like happened during COVID.

As SNAP cuts loom, NYC schools scramble to deliver extra food Schools are launching fundraisers, setting up food pantries, and collecting donations to try to secure extra food for families at risk of losing SNAP benefits.

Hundreds of thousands of NYC students + families are about to lose SNAP. Their schools are scrambling to set up ad hoc food pantries, raise $, + collect donations to keep them fed. Another way schools are trying to hold up a crumbling social safety net: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

Seeking free child care for kids under 2? A NYC pilot program is about to open 240 seats. City Council leaders hope the pilot program will be a blueprint for further expanding free child care to a wider swath of the youngest New Yorkers.

As momentum builds for universal child care in NYC, the city is for the first time piloting free, non-means-tested seats for kids 2 and under. Here's the list of neighborhoods getting priority: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

How NYC schools become lifelines for children after ICE arrests their parents Educators and advocates say a growing number of schools are stepping in to support students who have had one or both parents detained by ICE.

As more NYC public school parents are detained by ICE, schools are often the first places the family members left behind turn for help picking up the pieces. Here’s how some schools are supporting those students: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

Mamdani’s opponents want to grow NYC’s gifted programs. Attracting students isn’t easy. Cuomo and Silwa want to expand kindergarten gifted classes. Mamdani prefers to keep programs starting in third grade. A new analysis uncovered lagging enrollment in the current program.

After Mamdani announced plans to phase out gifted programs, Cuomo + Sliwa said they would expand them instead

Eric Adams tried to do that — and roughly 1 in 3 of the city's gifted programs are underenrolled. Heres why w/ @michaelelsenroo.bsky.social
www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

They wandered back to the hotel shortly after to their terrified children who had already seen video of both of their parents being detained. "It was like something out of a movie,” they told me.

Federal Raid Outside Row Hotel Migrant Shelter Rattles Residents In what appears to be a first under the current Trump administration, federal agents targeted migrants just outside a shelter.

This has been updated with strange new details. I spoke to one person who was arrested but then released, who described being taken to a subterranean parking garage and questioned by agents who said they were with ICE and told them they were looking for Venezuelans..

www.thecity.nyc/2025/10/17/r...

Mamdani announcing a teacher recruitment plan where NYC will offer tuition assistance, mentorship, other support to prospective teachers in exchange for commitments to stay at least 3 years. Class size law requires thousands of addl teacher hires in coming years

NYC gifted and talented: Mamdani’s calls for change comes amid already shifting landscape Mamdani wants to rethink gifted and talented in NYC schools. The program has already seen big changes.

Lost in the debate over NYC’s gifted and talented program rekindled by Mamdani’s proposal was the fact that the program underwent a big change in recent years: eliminating its admissions test. @alexzimmerman.bsky.social dug into how that change has played out: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

The shutdown canceled their U.S. Capitol tour. These Bronx students got one from AOC instead. Students from Zeta Charter School got a tour of the Capitol they’ll never forget when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez escorted them through the building.

The rare feel-good gov't shutdown story: I talked to some Bronx 8th-graders on a field trip to DC whose tour of the Capitol was canceled bc of the shutdown - and who ended up getting a personal tour from @aoc.bsky.social instead: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...