More than half of New York Citys highest-performing public schools on state math and English exams are charter schools, many of them educating overwhelmingly low-income children in some of the citys poorest neighborhoods.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, a close look at 2025 state test data shows that charter schools account for 59 of the top 100 public schools in math and 53 of the top 100 in English language arts across New York City. These schools are not clustered in affluent enclaves like Park Slope but are disproportionately located in the Bronx, Harlem, and less fashionable parts of Brooklyn, where students are frequently classified by the city as economically disadvantaged.
City and state education websites technically provide report cards for individual schools, but they make it cumbersomebordering on impossiblefor parents or taxpayers to sort schools by test performance or generate a clear ranking. That opacity conveniently shields traditional, union-dominated district schools from direct comparison with charters, and it helps explain why, until now, no one had publicly documented just how dominant charter schools are among the citys top performers.
These results directly contradict the storyline promoted this week by the New York Times in a news article originally headlined, "As Income Gap Grows, So Do Fears Over Access to a Quality Education." The online subheadline warns that "Leaders and parents worry that a widening economic divide amid the current affordability crisis could amplify the role that money plays in access to a robust education in New York," and the article itself asserts that "some education leaders and parents worry that a widening income divide amid the current affordability crisis could amplify the role that money plays in access to a quality education in New York, one of the nations most economically unequal cities."
The Times frames the issue as a story of inequality and anxiety, but it largely sidesteps the most inconvenient fact for that narrative: that many of the citys best public schools are open-enrollment charters serving poor families. When confronted with this omission, the papers silence was telling.
"I emailed the author of the Times article, Troy Closson, 'Don't you think it's worth mentioning that most of the city's best schools by English and math state test scores are charter schools serving poor kids in poor neighborhoods? Doesn't that undermine the whole premise of your story?'" the critic wrote. "He did not respond by deadline."
Buried deep in the Times piece is a brief acknowledgment that "In recent years, some middle-class parents have begun to consider charter schools, which are publicly funded, enroll 150,000 students and traditionally enroll poorer families." That passing reference comes only after paragraphs of hand-wringing about "worry" and a quote lamenting "the growing gulf between not even just the haves and have-nots, but the ultra, ultra wealthy, and everyone else" and the claim that "At a certain point, its like education is a luxury good."
The Times also leans heavily on a single academic voice, Stanford professor Sean Reardon, to bolster its inequality thesis. The article notes his work on "widening income disparity in academic achievement," including his own 2013 New York Times piece headlined "No Rich Child Left Behind," but fails to mention that his conclusions are sharply disputed by other scholars, including his Stanford colleague Eric Hanushek.
That selective sourcing and framing fit a broader pattern in which progressive editors appear unwilling to acknowledge that charter schools are delivering excellent results for low-income children. Admitting that reality would complicate the preferred political script that emphasizes the "income gap" as a justification for higher taxes on the wealthy and for electing hard-left politicians such as Zohran Mamdani, along with the rest of the progressive wish list.
"Rather than reporting on the 'worry,' why not provide readers with the factual information needed to determine whether the worry is justified or unwarranted?" the critic asks. "If the Times wont do it, we will."
The Timess reliance on emotionally charged anecdotes has become a recurring feature of its education coverage. "Unfortunately, the anecdotal lead featuring a worried individual is becoming a grim pattern in Times education coverage," the critic observes, pointing to last weeks story about a University of Pennsylvania law student who "has worried ever since he learned that Trump administration investigators had demanded that his school turn over the names of many Jewish people on campus," and this weeks profile of a parent who "struggled to find the right school for her bright son" under a subheadline about "Leaders and parents worry."
"A lot of the incentives with online journalism are to figure out what your readers might be induced to worry about and then write a headline that will get them to click," the critic notes. "My own worry is that those incentives are at odds with an accurate portrayal of reality, that is to say, the truth."
None of this is to deny that some upper-middle-class parents resent the ultra-wealthy or that families can face real challenges in navigating New Yorks complex school landscape. "Thats not to be dismissive of upper-middle-class envy of the rich or of the difficulties parents sometimes have finding the right schools for their children," the critic concedes, but he adds that "of all the things to possibly worry about in New York City in 2026, income-gap-related fears over access to quality education are not high on any rationally composed list."
There are, of course, many ways to evaluate school qualityparent satisfaction, teacher morale, employer feedback, college enrollment and completion, or long-term life outcomes such as employment, welfare dependency, or incarceration. Yet one widely accepted and legally enshrined measure is whether schools are actually teaching children to read and do math, as reflected in standardized test scores mandated by federal and state law.
On that metric, the news from New York Citys charter sector is strikingly positive. "The good news in New York City is that thanks to a 1998 charter school law that then-governor George Pataki, a Republican, championedand to vigorous efforts in the years since by charter school parents, network leaders, board members, charter teachers and staff, and otherscharter schools where 80 percent or 90 percent of students are classified by the city as economically disadvantaged are getting more than 90 percent of their students to pass state math and reading tests."
"Theres always room for further improvement, and not all charter schools are high achievers," the critic acknowledges. "Yet it is an achievement worth recognizing and appreciating rather than ignoring or denying."
For conservatives who believe in school choice, accountability, and the power of competition, these results are not an anomaly but a vindication of a decades-long fight to break the monopoly of traditional public school bureaucracies. While progressive media outlets prefer to amplify "worry" and inequality narratives that point toward more government control and redistribution, the actual performance data from New Yorks charter schools tell a different storyone in which poor children, given options and high expectations, can and do excel.
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