Being the most populous city in the United States, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that New York City has the largest school area. In fact, New York City public schools have more school students in the state of New York City than in any other district or region in the country.
According to statistics, the total number of students in New York Public schools is more than in Los Angeles and Chicago, two other major cities in the United States. If you include Houston in the equation, the total students in the three towns only exceed New York’s by 70,000.
Many factors determine the student population of each area. This could be the inclusion of pre-kindergarten students or when and how students are counted in each district.
Now, considering the number of students that attend New York public schools and their sub-groups, we can deduce that:
- The amount of Black students in NYC is greater than the combined numbers of Black students in LA, Chicago, and Houston, though Chicago has a higher proportion of Black students than NYC (38% vs. 26% respectively).
- There are almost as many Latino students in LA as in NYC (468,734 in LA and 464,102 in NYC). However, these students represent about three-fourths of the school population of LA, but only about 40 percent of NYC’s total enrollment; and
- LA, Chicago, and Houston have proportionally fewer White and Asian students, but NYC has more White and Asian students than all three cities combined.
Policy and research are impacted by the size of the NYC student population. To reach specific groups of students in NYC-such as high school students, English Language Learners (ELLs), or students with disabilities – the number of participants must be very large.
To illustrate:
- 161,896 ELL students live in NYC, more than in Chicago and Houston put together. ELL students alone in NYC are larger than 90 percent of all school districts in the country;
- In New York City, there are 320,393 high schools, more than twice the number in the closest district (LA). Also, there are more high school students in NYC than in all of Houston’s public schools combined; and
- New York City has almost 100,000 more students with incapacities than Chicago, LA, and Houston combined (20% of students in NYC have disabilities, compared with 12% in LA, 14% in Chicago, and 7% in Houston, indicating that the way these students are classified in each city is different.
There are inherent challenges associated with implementing education programs and policies in NYC because of the high number of students and their diversity. As an example, school officials and district supervisors must communicate with families who speak 182 different languages. They are also responsible for supporting and monitoring the implementation of new curricula and interventions in about 1,800 schools.
Despite the size of New York City’s public school population, the city presents many excellent opportunities. For one, NYC’s schools can positively impact the lives of a vast number of students, their families, and communities when they get their policies and practices right. Researchers can also study processes and procedures in NYC’s public schools uniquely that can’t be done anywhere else.
We can also examine differences within student subgroups with large sampling sizes, for instance, and find robust comparison groups (of schools and students) when exploring the impact of various policies, programs, and initiatives.
That there are more students in New York City schools means that there are more students for other pupils to interact with. This is a good thing, especially because students learn better when they’re among colleagues. Like Joan Young, a professional academic writer at Advanced Writers essay services, once said, “There’s no better way to learn than with your peers.”
True, there are other issues related to having too many students in a particular district. Some of these issues are bullying, inattentiveness to some students, insufficient teaching infrastructure and learning materials, etc. However, that doesn’t mean that the idea of many students is that bad. Once the school authority gets the policy right and does what’s expected of them, then every student in the populated area would benefit from the education system, despite their numbers.
