NYCs failing $43B schools need some tough Texas tutoring

In failing school districts across the country, administrators are engaged in the clearest sign of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again.Nowhere is that more true than in New York City.The state of Gotham’s public schools is so dire that Amazon’s Jeff Bezos recently took aim.“If we ran Amazon the way New York City runs their school system,” he declared, “packages would take six weeks to arrive, we’d charge you a $100 delivery fee and when the package did finally arrive, it would have the wrong item.”For liberals, the solution is the same one they offer for every other societal problem: throwing more taxpayer money into a bottomless pit.And yet no matter how much is spent, the problems don’t just linger; they grow like a cancer.NYC spends roughly $43 billion a year to educate about 850,000 students, putting the rest of the country’s spending to shame: That’s over $44,000 per child per year.The result of that astronomical figure?Two-thirds of fourth graders can’t do math properly, and nearly three-quarters can’t read at grade level.Along with poor academic outcomes, those billions are buying increasingly unsafe schools: Student assaults are rising even as city schools suspend fewer students.Worse yet, the US Department of Education recently opened a civil-rights investigation following reports of in-school discrimination against Jewish students.It’s a deeply troubled system at every level.But while New York City schools remain trapped in a cycle of apathy and excuses, administrators in another big-city school district are demonstrating another path is possible.In Houston, Texas, just two years into a dramatic state-led intervention, student gains in the Houston Independent School District are the envy of urban districts across the country.The turnaround began in 2023, when Texas Gov.Greg Abbott’s administration took over HISD after years of chronic academic failure, including a persistently underperforming high school that f...