New York State spends more per pupil than any other state in the nation—approximately $34,300 during the 2023–24 school year, over double the national average—yet student outcomes remain mediocre, according to a report published by the Manhattan Institute. On the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, just 31% of fourth- and eighth-grade students reached proficiency in reading, while 37% of fourth-graders and 26% of eighth-graders reached proficiency in math, placing the state in the middle of national rankings. The report argues that the state's high spending fails to produce better student results primarily because New York doesn't measure what works or use evidence to guide decisions.
Between 1993–94 and 2023–24, per-pupil expenditures rose from approximately $8,900 to $34,300, representing a near doubling even after adjusting for inflation, while statewide enrollment declined from 2.67 million to 2.42 million students. Total school revenue grew from $23.5 billion to $90.1 billion over the same period. Teacher salaries, historically the largest category of school spending, declined as a share of total expenditures from 41% in 1993–94 to 29% in 2023–24, while spending on fringe benefits, debt service, transportation, and other instructional expenditures increased. Between 2004–05 and 2023–24, fourth-grade reading scores declined from 223 to 215, eighth-grade reading scores fell from 262 to 258, fourth-grade math scores dropped from 238 to 234, and eighth-grade math scores fell from 280 to 271—each measure now at or near its lowest level in two decades. The statewide graduation rate reached 85.5% in 2025, up from 81.7% in 2016, but the share of students receiving the most rigorous diploma—the Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation—declined from 42.1% in 2021 to 30.8% in 2025, an 11.3-point decrease over four years.
The report identifies several measurement failures across the education system. New York doesn't require universal K–3 reading screening, meaning the state has no systematic way to identify struggling students before third-grade exams, by which point achievement gaps have already widened. According to the report, 20 states have adopted or exceeded the International Dyslexia Association's recommended K–2 screening practice, and 16 others have partially met that standard—New York has done neither. The state identifies 21% of its public school students as having disabilities, tied with Pennsylvania and Maine for the highest rate in the nation compared with a national average of 15%, yet the report notes that limited transparency makes it difficult to determine why. A series of audits by the Office of the State Comptroller found that 83% of responding districts maintained wait lists for preschool special-education services and that 93% reported provider shortages, while the state Education Department lacks real-time data on student enrollment, service delivery, and district wait lists.
The report traces these problems to a governance system that makes no one truly responsible for results. The Board of Regents and State Education Department control major policy decisions, but members of the Board of Regents are appointed by the legislature via concurrent resolution, not by the governor, who has no direct role in selecting the state's top educational policymakers. New York is one of only nine states in which the governor has no role in appointing the state's top educational policymakers, according to a recent review by the Education Commission of the States. This appointment process tends to produce a Board of Regents largely aligned with the state's legislative majority, operating largely independent of executive oversight. The report argues this structure concentrates significant policymaking authority in institutions that don't answer directly to voters, creating an accountability gap when outcomes fall short. On teacher preparation, the National Council on Teacher Quality rates New York's policy as "weak" on early reading, placing it among 16 states with policies that don't adequately ensure competency in science-based reading instruction, even as the state maintains some of the country's most demanding teacher certification requirements.
The report recommends three main priorities: measure what works, follow the evidence, and fix the accountability system. It calls for implementing an educational return on investment system to publicly track what each district, charter school, and student group achieves with taxpayer money, along with universal screening in reading and math several times a year starting in kindergarten. The report urges the state to ensure teacher training is based on the best research on reading and math instruction, remove the cap on charter schools—which have often outperformed district schools—and allow families to use the Federal Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which could generate over $1 billion annually for scholarships. It also recommends reviewing the current governance system to create clearer accountability for results. The bottom line, according to the report: the state has invested substantial sums of money but doesn't track what it gets in return.