Chalkbeat

As Mayor Zohran Mamdani scrambles to plug a multi-billion-dollar budget gap, his administration is looking more closely at the money New York City spends on private school tuition for students with disabilities. The payments — which topped $723 million last school year, up more than 300% from a decade earlier, according to the Independent Budget Office — have long generated intense debate about which families are benefitting. Now, according to data the Education Department previously declined to share, officials have revealed a staggering inequity: The vast majority of students who have access to that money are white.

Black and Latino children, who make up about 75% of students with disabilities, represented just 24% of children receiving tuition reimbursements. (About 1 in 5 families did not disclose their race.) The families who benefit from those tuition payments are also much more likely to live in wealthier zip codes, the data confirms.