Alex Zimmerman

Alex Zimmerman

Reporter, Chalkbeat New York

Alex Zimmerman joined the Chalkbeat team in 2016. Before that, he was a staff writer at the Pittsburgh City Paper and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Village Voice, Vice and Atlas Obscura. Alex can be reached at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org

Class size reduction is projected to cost billions of dollars. We asked the mayoral candidates how they approach the state mandate and where the money should come from.

Chalkbeat asked every mayoral candidate whether they would keep the NYC Reads and NYC Solves curriculum mandates in place. Here’s what they told us.

Voting was halted on the first day over ‘technical issues.’ Problems have snowballed since then.

Advocacy groups blasted the changes to the Foundation Aid formula, arguing that they will harm high-need school districts.

After fierce community pushback, the Education Department plans to phase out M.S. 394 over three years instead of closing it all at once.

The Education Department is using an emergency contract to buy 15 X-ray machines, circumventing the regular purchasing process.

In an exclusive interview, Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos explained why she believes middle school math curriculums should be standardized despite outcry from the teachers union.

The mayor’s reading and math curriculum mandates will cover all middle schools by fall 2027. It will likely fall to his successor to implement them.

City officials spent nearly half a billion dollars installing AC units. But the cost of repairing and replacing them now falls on individual school budgets.

City officials also promised to help stabilize Head Start providers facing funding threats from the Trump administration.