New York City parents fight to rebuild post-pandemic education system
Hudson Crozier
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Parents across the country are tired of K-12 schools putting identity politics above providing a quality education to their children. Democrats have attempted to portray this sentiment as partisan and right-wing, but it apparently persists even in a city where their politics otherwise dominate.
Election results released Friday reveal that a slate of candidates running on support for merit-based academic standards won seats in New York City’s Citywide & Community Education councils, the equivalent of school boards. Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, a right-leaning advocacy group, saw victories for 115 of their 147 endorsed candidates, who will occupy 40% of seats in the councils.
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Like other communities, New York City suffered a brutal decline in academic performance among schoolchildren during the period of remote learning deemed necessary due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The path forward has been difficult as less than half of students in grades 3-8 got passing test scores in English and math last year, and schools have struggled to recover from the loss in enrollment.
Left-wing leaders further hampered progress by swapping a traditional admissions test for top high schools with a lottery system that relied less on academic standing. Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio had been eyeing the goal for years as a way to increase ethnic diversity in student bodies.
The city later rolled back these standards, and the momentum toward improving children’s futures has continued, thanks to PLACE.
“Advocates of merit-based programs support: preserving the status quo at specialized high schools such as Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, which require a single admissions test for entry; the use of academic grades and other merit screening to enroll at other middle schools and high schools; more gifted and talented and honors programs and rigorous Regents Exams for high-school graduation,” the New York Post reported. The outlet also noted that Asians and immigrants make up large portions of some districts in which these candidates won.
The founders of PLACE have appealed to the common sense of parents who are increasingly skeptical of their education system’s priorities. Woke “land acknowledgments” for indigenous people “don’t teach anybody more math,” co-founder Maud Maron said defiantly ahead of the election.
By contrast, Parents for Middle School Equity, which supports what local media calls a racial “integration plan” in schools, saw less than a fourth of its candidates win.
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The racial disparities in schools that New York City activists and Democrats focus on are real. But more and more voters are refusing to make peace with academic decline, and rightfully so. If certain demographics are struggling, help them. Don’t teach them that success is unattainable, and don’t teach those who are already high achievers that their effort won’t be rewarded. Many parents know that a system of entitlement is not a healthy way to run your own household, much less society.
Amid widespread Republican victories on educational issues, PLACE’s success proves yet again that conservatives’ no-nonsense approach is popular. The GOP would do well to keep it up.
Hudson Crozier is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.