New Yorkers may disagree on nearly everything, but a new survey suggests they are overwhelmingly united on one point: frustration with the city’s costly public school system and its academic results.
An eye-popping 95 percent of city residents said New York City schools must either raise math and reading performance, reduce spending, or do both, according to a sharply critical poll released by the Empire Center, a good-government nonprofit think tank.
Just 3 percent of Big Apple respondents said New York Public Schools is doing an acceptable job and should remain on its current course, the survey found.
“I have never seen such a broad condemnation of business as usual,” Empire Center President Zilvinas Silenas told The Post.
The strongest concern centered on academics: 91 percent of those surveyed said the Department of Education needs to improve reading and math scores as the city continues to confront deep concerns over literacy and numeracy.
State Education Department figures released this week showed that fewer than half of New York elementary school students — 48 percent — were proficient in reading on the 2025-26 English Language Arts exam, down from 53 percent the previous year.
In New York City, roughly 56 percent of students met the standard on the reading test, marking a 7 percent increase from the year before, according to the data.
The Empire Center poll, conducted July 6-8 among 600 likely New York general election voters in 2026, also pointed to broad unease over education spending, with 35 percent of respondents saying the school system should rein in its budget.
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.
The percentages are taken from total results combined from different categories surveyed in the poll: 60% of respondents said that NYC schools needed to improve test scores, 31% said they needed to improve and spend less money, and 4% of respondents said that the DOE just needs to reduce spending.
The near universal condemnation comes as city schools are grappling with an enrollment crisis that threatens to eat the education system from within.
DOE enrollment has precipitously plunged since COVID, with 12.2 percent fewer students inside public school classrooms today than five years ago.
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.
The city results mirror broader discontent with public school education across the state.
Only 4 percent of respondents in the Empire State approved of the state’s public school system, and 47 percent said that state public schools need to improve reading and math scores.
New Yorkers across the state also felt that the public education system cost too much, with 47 percent of those surveyed saying that schools need to focus on spending less money — with 41% saying schools need to cost less and improve test scores and 6% answering that they just need to cost less.
