To many New York City students, Advanced Placement Calculus feels impractical, full of information they won’t use in their day-to-day lives — though it’s become a status symbol for some high achievers.

But reaching that status symbol has some significant consequences: AP Calculus has garnered a reputation for being a barrier to higher education. The class has become a gatekeeper, with many selective colleges requiring students to take the subject. Those who took it in high school are at an advantage, and schools with majority Black and Latino students tend to miss out. The number of such schools offering calculus has hovered under 40% over the past decade, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

P.S. Weekly producers Mateo Tang O’Reilly, a junior at Central Park East High School, and Jasper Mallorca, a senior at High School of Art and Design, ask: Does AP Calculus serve a purpose other than proving academic rigor to colleges? They explore the unseen value of calculus beyond the classroom.

Mateo sits down with Dash Anderson, a Brooklyn high school math teacher who shares his experience teaching calculus in a way that brings the subject to life with real-world examples, from video games to “Moana.”

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Reach us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

P.S. Weekly episodes will also be featured in the Miseducation feed.

Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

With an acceptance rate below 10%, Hunter College High School is one of the most competitive public high schools in New York City. It’s also one of the least diverse.

Hunter’s 15.3% student poverty rate was the lowest of any public high school in the city, according to public data from the 2024-25 school year. By comparison, Bronx Science and Stuyvesant, two of the city’s specialized high schools, each had about 50% of students from low-income households.

The lack of socioeconomic as well as racial diversity at Hunter — which is run by CUNY’s Hunter College — doesn’t get as much attention as the demographics at Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and other specialized high schools in the five boroughs. Like those coveted institutions, Hunter also bases admissions on a test. Except to even qualify for Hunter’s test, you have to be invited, based on state test scores.

Now, with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his administration backing efforts to bolster integration in public schools, some Hunter students are fighting for change from the inside.

Producers Roberto Bailey, a senior at Hunter, and Zoe George, a senior at Bard High School Early College Manhattan, know the landscape of competitive high school admissions well: They’ve experienced it.

We also hear from Hunter student and activist Kassidy Khuu about the admissions process at the Upper East Side institution, what she and others are doing to try and change it, and the underlying question of who gets access to a “gifted” education.

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Reach us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

P.S. Weekly episodes will also be featured in the Miseducation feed.

Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

Welcome back to P.S. Weekly, a student podcast created in collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell!

In the first episode of Season 3, The Bell’s high school reporters landed an exclusive interview with schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels.

The new schools chief made his three priorities known: safety, academic rigor, and integration. But The Bell’s student reporters grilled him on the issues most important to them, including artificial intelligence, how he plans to approach racial integration, and whether he will fulfil Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s promise to make school buildings greener.

In this episode, you’ll hear Samuels’ answers — and the student reporters’ assessment of his responses.

You can watch the full, unedited video of this interview with the chancellor on YouTube.

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Reach us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

P.S. Weekly episodes will also be featured in the Miseducation feed.

Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.