Chalkbeat

Mamdani pledges $43 million to fix NYC childcare payment delays before school starts

2026-08-31T18:47:31+00:00

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday pledged to address payment delays that are threatening the rollout of his signature free childcare program for 2-year-olds and pushing some providers to the brink of closure ahead of the Sept. 10 school opening.

Mamdani, who made the expansion of free childcare a major plank of his mayoral campaign, pledged to invest $43 million to rebuild depleted staffing at the Education Department’s Division of Early Childhood Education. He also vowed to reassign staffers from other parts of city government to help speed up the registration of new contracts and expedite interest-free loans to providers whose contracts haven’t been approved.

“We are bringing every resource to bear to get providers paid, get classrooms open and make sure families have the care they were promised,” Mamdani said in a statement.

At an unrelated press conference Monday, Mamdani said the Education Department has reached out to every childcare provider and tripled the number of staffers working on contracts. Providers who applied for a loan by Monday will have it processed by the end of the week, he added.

The inaugural year of free 2-K is set to enroll roughly 2,000 toddlers across five school districts. But some 2-K providers, as well as those contracting with the city to care for 3- and 4-year-olds, have been waiting weeks or months for money they need to pay staff, cover their electric bills, and purchase supplies.

“That puts a stress on providers, not knowing when you’re going to get paid,” said Doris Irrizary, a childcare provider in the Bronx and co-founder of the group ECE on The Move, which advocates on behalf of home-based providers. “Most of us live check to check.”

To provide subsidized childcare for about 150,000 kids under age 5, New York City’s Education Department relies on a sprawling system of private daycare operators like Irrizary who win contracts from the city to provide programs that are free to families.

Contract and payment delays have bedeviled that system for more than a decade. When former Mayor Bill de Blasio launched his Universal Prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds in 2014, roughly two-thirds of the new contracts were delayed by the start of school in September, the comptroller at the time said. In the years that followed, the early childhood department gradually built up the personnel and expertise to help mitigate those delays, former staffers recalled.

But when Mayor Eric Adams took office in 2022, the Division of Early Childhood Education faced a rocky transition. Some longtime staffers left, and the city reassigned hundreds of others as part of a reorganization, including 200 instructional coordinators who worked directly with providers.

Payment delays to providers again grew so acute that some organizations closed their doors for good. That prompted former Chancellor David Banks to deploy a “rapid response team” to speed up payments.

City officials say the staffing reductions from the Adams administration continue to hamstring the early childhood division. An Education Department spokesperson didn’t share the division’s current headcount and how it compares to past years. But Mamdani has pledged to hire 200 new staffers to expand the contracting and outreach teams and ensure there are more staffers providing direct support to programs.

Mamdani’s administration has already faced some operational complexity in recruiting providers — particularly the small, home-based providers who have largely been left out of past childcare expansions — and getting the word out about the program. The program is set to expand to 12,000 2-year-olds next year, and Mamdani has promised it will grow to cover any family who needs care by the end of his first term.

In July, Simone Hawkins, the deputy chancellor overseeing the Division of Early Childhood Education, announced her departure — a worrying sign for some advocates who said Hawkins was making long-needed changes. Mamdani and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels have not yet named a replacement.

Some longtime providers are hopeful that the latest efforts can speed up payments, but wary after seeing similar reforms come and go over the past decade.

“To me, they keep on reinventing the wheel,” said Irrizary. The pressure to quickly open 2-K seats put further strain on a system already dealing with existing issues, such as low pay for providers, a long waitlist for state-funded childcare vouchers, and thousands of unfilled seats, she said.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC school board rejects $1.65 million tech deal in early setback for Mamdani

2026-08-28T21:14:19+00:00

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New York City’s school board failed to approve a technology contract advanced by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration this week, a month after Mamdani’s slate of board members began their terms.

The $1.65 million contract would allow the Education Department to continue using Oracle software that supports “mission critical” functions including an HR help center serving more than 150,000 employees and an enrollment support center fielding roughly 1,000 calls a day about issues ranging from student transportation to special education, officials said. Losing access to the software could result in lost data and prevent families from accessing enrollment information online, a department spokesperson added.

But after fierce pushback against Oracle and its co-founder Larry Ellison during the board’s public comment period, including over the company’s investment in artificial intelligence, city officials could not muster the votes to approve the contract.

Two mayoral appointees to the Panel for Educational Policy, as the board is known, abstained from the vote. Three other mayoral appointees did not attend the meeting. The contract failed with nine votes in favor, six opposed, and two abstentions, falling four votes short of the 13 needed to pass.

Shortly before the vote, Deputy Chancellor Lindsay Oates, who oversees human resources, urged the board to approve the contract. She argued that the Education Department relies on Oracle for HR systems that are essential as the city welcomes thousands of new hires to the nation’s largest school system.

“Many of them are coming in and calling the call center with questions about their benefits,” she said. “We are worried about the disruption of service if this contract is tabled.”

Education Department officials said the service would run through September. They did not elaborate on whether they have backup plans to avoid disruptions.

The contract represents a small part of the roughly $13 billion the Education Department spends on outside vendors. But the administration’s inability to secure enough votes for the deal suggests the board may not be a rubber stamp for the Mamdani administration’s agenda. Under previous administrations, the board has generally voted in line with the administration’s proposals, with some notable exceptions.

The vote also suggests that growing pressure on the panel to scrutinize AI and technology contracts could complicate efforts to continue using existing education technology or adopt new tools. Education Department officials have promised to release new guidelines for artificial intelligence and technology before the first day of school on Sept. 10.

In the run-up to the vote, several educators and other tech skeptics criticized the Oracle contract and Ellison, who has embraced AI and supported Donald Trump’s 2024 election bid.

Liat Olenick, a parent, educator, and climate activist, said she worried about the company’s environmental footprint connected to growing AI use. Though the city’s contract with Oracle indicates it would not include student- or teacher-facing AI products, Olenick wondered if there might be other AI applications embedded in it.

“Will Oracle services include AI use by administrators?” she asked before the vote. “Is it necessary to contract with a company that’s fueling the climate crisis and putting New York City students’ health and futures at risk?”

An Education Department spokesperson said there is “no AI use associated with this contract.” Reps for Oracle did not respond to a request for comment.

Others raised concerns about how Oracle would protect sensitive data, including names, addresses, and Social Security numbers. Education Department officials implemented Oracle’s cloud software service “as a proactive measure to safeguard this information,” rather than relying on email, according to contract documents.

One board member said she was reluctant to vote against the contract in part because Education Department contract documents say Oracle would be required to delete the department’s data from its systems within 90 days of the contract’s expiration.

Raysa Rodriguez, whom Mamdani appointed last month, said she took concerns about Oracle “very seriously” but felt it would be riskier to let the contract lapse. She said a new agreement would “further protect the data that we have.”

The two mayoral appointees who abstained, Crystal Vera-Montalvo and Karla Cordero, did not respond to requests for comment. Primo Lasana, another mayoral appointee, said he wished the contract had been tabled until a future meeting so the board could consider it more carefully. He ultimately voted in favor.

Some panel members elected by parent leaders said they voted against the contract because they believed the city should control its sensitive technology systems.

“The staff that manages it should be public servants,” said panel member Naveed Hasan.

Panel chair Greg Faulkner, whose term ends in September, said in an interview that he was frustrated by the vote and worried the Education Department would be forced to scramble to fix its HR systems. But he acknowledged that panel members are feeling pressure to be cautious around tech contracts.

“Anything we do with technology gets scrutinized,” Faulkner said.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Adams inked a $200 million internet deal for student Chromebooks. Mamdani is canceling it.

2026-08-27T16:58:47+00:00

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A year ago, former Mayor Eric Adams launched a sweeping, and costly, new plan to bridge the digital divide in the city’s public schools: purchasing 350,000 new Chromebook laptops equipped with free T-Mobile internet service.

The four-year contract, set to cost the city nearly $330 million, aimed to help schools with large shares of low-income and homeless families whose students lacked internet access outside of school.

But a year into the contract, Adams’ successor, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, is canceling the T-Mobile internet service portion of the contract, which costs the city roughly $3.5 million per month, officials said Thursday. Over the full four years of the contract, the internet service was expected to cost around $200 million.

Mamdani’s administration, which is looking to cut costs amid a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, said the city was paying for more internet coverage than necessary and could secure internet service for students who need it at a lower cost. Officials didn’t immediately say how much they expect to save.

The T-Mobile contract “duplicated existing resources at an unnecessary cost,” Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said. “By discontinuing this component of this contract, we are saving taxpayer dollars while continuing to deliver the internet connectivity we know our school communities rely on.”

The move also comes amid a growing backlash against the reliance on technology in city classrooms. Critics, including some parents and educators, say screen time has become too pervasive, detracting from learning.

Even before the city inked the T-Mobile contract, an existing program allowed principals to secure LTE service for students who need it for $10 per student per month, Education Department officials said. Officials said that service comes through Verizon, and can add internet to any school-issued Chromebooks or iPads.

Officials notified principals Thursday that the T-Mobile student data plans will end Aug. 31. They asked school leaders to compile lists of students who need internet access and purchase service through the Verizon program by the start of school on Sept. 10. Officials said they have already purchased all 350,000 Chromebooks and distributed them to schools, but didn’t say how many were given to students or how many students were using the internet service.

Several principals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, described mixed experiences with the massive internet-enabled laptop distribution.

At one Manhattan high school, about one in five students used the new devices and relied on them to connect to the internet at home, according to the school leader.

The principal worried that ending the T-Mobile contract would shift more costs to the school’s budget.

But at a Brooklyn high school, dozens of the computers sit unused in a storage room.

“It’s a tremendous waste,” the principal said, adding that students prefer to access the internet through their phones. Plus, the school has shifted away from using Chromebooks during class because of concerns that an overreliance on technology was getting in the way of student learning, the principal said.

Some officials and lawmakers began expressing concerns about the T-Mobile contract in the months after it was signed, New York Focus reported last December. One official told the outlet that the city did not approach competing wireless providers, and was stuck paying a flat fee for the service regardless of how many students used it.

Lawmakers also worried the city was paying for internet service for far more students than needed it. A state Education Department survey from 2020 estimated that about 13% of the city’s public school students lacked sufficient internet at home, according to New York Focus. The city’s public schools currently enroll about 793,000 K-12 students, meaning about 104,000 would lack internet if the 13% estimate held.

City officials said in 2025 that about 30% of households, containing around 2.5 million residents, did not have both home broadband and mobile internet access. City officials have separately launched efforts to improve Wi-Fi in homeless shelters.

Adams said the T-Mobile school internet deal was funded in part by savings the city made through another deal that made T-Mobile the city’s major service carrier.

The Education Department spends roughly $13 billion a year on contracts, and Mamdani has identified the agency’s contracting — and particularly its spending on student devices — as ripe for cost-cutting.

Officials said the T-Mobile contract was approved by the Panel for Educational Policy, which oversees Education Department contracts, but was held by the city’s Office of Technology and Innovation.

City officials purchased and distributed some 725,000 devices for students during the COVID pandemic but have not tracked how many of those devices remain operational.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who instituted a statewide bell-to-bell cellphone ban last school year, is considering imposing limits on screen time for younger kids. The Education Department is revising its artificial intelligence guidance for schools and has barred schools from purchasing new software until the guidance is finalized.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC paraprofessionals’ $10,000 pay bump becomes law as City Hall vows a legal challenge

2026-08-19T19:41:35+00:00

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A bill guaranteeing paraprofessionals a one-time $10,000 pay bump became law automatically on Wednesday after Mayor Zohran Mamdani declined to sign or veto it.

But within hours, City Hall announced plans to file a legal challenge, arguing the legislation improperly sidesteps the collective bargaining process.

The confrontation puts Mamdani in an awkward position because he supported similar legislation to boost paraprofessionals’ pay during his campaign, which focused on affordability issues. At the same time, allowing the legislation to stand could weaken City Hall’s power to manage labor costs if other unions began clamoring for legislation mandating pay raises.

Paraprofessionals, school aides who typically support students with disabilities, are among the lowest-paid employees of the city’s public school system with starting annual salaries of roughly $33,000. The $10,000 pay bump — known as the “respect” check — passed without a single dissenting vote in City Council last month.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, vowed an “all-out war” if the mayor tried to derail the bill and has argued it is consistent with state law.

“We are prepared to engage in a legal fight for the RESPECT check and the paraprofessionals who keep our schools running,” union officials wrote in an email to members on Wednesday.

City Hall spokesperson Matt Rauschenbach acknowledged that paraprofessionals are “indispensable” and “they have not been fairly compensated for their essential work.”

But Rauschenbach said in a statement that legislation sets a “dangerous precedent” and allows “politicians to bypass workers and their unions and dictate the terms of employment themselves.” He added: “The City is filing a lawsuit to protect the right of every union to negotiate on behalf of its members.”

City lawmakers swiftly criticized the administration’s lawsuit against the council.

“The Respect Check passed the Council by a vote of 49 to 0 because members across every borough and every political perspective agreed these workers deserve better,” Eric Dinowitz, chair of the council’s education committee, said in a statement. “Rather than build on this consensus, the administration has chosen to sue the body fighting for our paraprofessionals.”

City Council estimates the total cost of the $10,000 payments, issued in four installments between January and August 2027, will be about $325 million. Roughly 25,000 paraprofessionals are eligible in addition to substitute paraprofessionals, whose pay bumps will be prorated based on the number of days they work.

The union argues the pay increases are essential to begin addressing a shortage of roughly 1,600 paraprofessionals. Those vacancies can have severe consequences for students with disabilities, some of whom are not able to ride school buses without an aide.

The legislation has strong support from many paraprofessionals who say they deserve wages that reflect their importance to the school system and must work second or third jobs to make ends meet.

Undrea Polite, who has worked as a paraprofessional for 30 years, said she was disappointed that the city is fighting the pay bumps in court. She said she planned to use the money to help equip her sister’s house with a ramp so her elderly mother could get in and out more easily.

“I am so sad that the city is choosing to fight us — and fight some of the most underpaid, dedicated workers that they have,” she said.

Yet others argue the one-time payments aren’t a long-term fix and are frustrated the pay bumps won’t count toward their pensions.

“I’m all for getting more money but this does not solve the problem,” said Marie Wausnock, a union executive board member who co-founded a slate called Fix Para Pay, which largely opposes Mulgrew’s Unity Caucus. “The paras are pawns in this political game.”

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC teachers were promised $8,500 bonuses for large class sizes. The details are murky.

2026-08-18T19:03:17+00:00

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When Mayor Zohran Mamdani secured a two-year delay in fully complying with the state’s class size law, the teachers union won a concession: Educators could receive pay bumps of up to $8,500 if their classes exceeded the caps.

But more than two months after the union announced the bonuses — and with the first day of class less than a month away — it remains unclear which teachers will receive them.

Teachers may be eligible for extra pay if their classrooms are exempt from the law because their building doesn’t have enough space or if their school can’t hire enough educators to staff smaller classes. But not every teacher in an exempt classroom will get a bonus, according to the union. The Education Department declined to explain how bonuses will be awarded or how much money has been budgeted for the payments.

Union officials contend the payments create a powerful “accountability incentive.” The possibility of doling out big pay bumps could push the city to shrink class sizes rather than seek exemptions from the law, which generally require union approval. Last school year, the city relied on thousands of exemptions to comply with the law, which generally caps class sizes at 20 to 25 students depending on the grade level.

But experts and advocates said the bonuses could disproportionately flow to teachers at more affluent schools, where classrooms tend to be more crowded. They worry that could exacerbate turnover at high-poverty schools by adding a financial incentive to move to a lower-poverty one.

“I wish they were using strategic compensation to do the opposite: to try to retain teachers in our lowest performing, traditionally hardest-to-staff schools,” said Evan Stone, CEO of Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group that has raised equity concerns about the class size law. “The priority is about pressure to meet class size.”

Dan Goldhaber, a teacher labor market expert at the University of Washington, said pay differentials can help with retention. The city could strategically deploy them to the most effective teachers who wind up teaching larger class sizes in a bid to keep them in the system, he noted.

But the ambiguity about which teachers will ultimately get pay bumps could dampen the effect on retention, he said. There is no guarantee that teachers who receive the bonus this coming school year will get it again the following year when the value rises to $9,500. It’s unclear if the pay bumps, which count toward educators’ pensions, will continue after that.

“The effect would be a lot larger if it’s really clear what are the parameters of the program going forward,” Goldhaber said. “That is, I think, an example of a real missed opportunity.”

Education Department officials are expected to hash out which classrooms will be exempt from the law by November, which means teachers won’t know whether they will receive a bonus until the school year is underway. This coming school year, the law requires 70% of the city’s classrooms to comply with the class size caps or win an exemption, which are subject to approval from the Education Department and unions representing teachers and principals.

The city’s Independent Budget Office estimated that at least 2,463 general education teachers could be eligible for the bonuses based on last year’s exemptions. If all of those teachers receive the full $8,500, the pay bumps could cost roughly $21 million in the first year.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew recently told Chalkbeat that the union is still hashing out details about the pay bumps. He declined to address concerns about whether teachers at more affluent schools will disproportionately benefit.

“We’re working through it right now, so we will let you know as soon as we are there,” he said. Union officials have previously suggested that higher-need schools would be “addressed first.”

Some teachers have expressed mixed feelings about the pay bumps. Robert Effinger, the union chapter leader at the Bronx High School of Business, said he is already trying to manage teachers’ expectations about them.

Most of the teachers who are aware of the bonuses have assumed they will be eligible for them, he said. “I have to patiently explain to them that it’s not that simple.”

One of Effinger’s social studies classes last year had 34 students — the current limit under the teachers’ contract — which generates significantly more grading and administrative tasks. His classroom is so crammed that he doesn’t have space for students to do group work or other activities, he said.

Effinger said he would rather teach classes of no more than 25 students than win a pay bump.

“The money is not going to make up for all the amount of work,” he said.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC official overseeing Mamdani’s childcare expansion for 2-year-olds is stepping down

2026-07-31T21:24:47+00:00

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A top Education Department official overseeing Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s ambitious childcare program for 2-year-olds is stepping down.

Simone Hawkins, the deputy chancellor of the division of early childhood education, is leaving her post in September, city officials said Friday afternoon.

Her departure comes at a key moment for Mamdani’s free childcare initiative. The program, which could be Mamdani’s most operationally complex campaign promise, is set to launch this fall with 2,000 free seats in a handful of neighborhoods. Families are expected to receive offers on Aug. 4.

City officials did not say why Hawkins is stepping down and declined to make her available for an interview.

“Over the last few years, Deputy Chancellor Simone Hawkins was a leader in making New York City more affordable and accessible for working families,” schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said in a statement. He praised her for helping to grow early childhood programs, tackle payment delays to providers, and expand programming for preschool students with disabilities.

The news of Hawkins’ departure shocked many early childhood education advocates and others who worked with her in city government.

Brooklyn City Council member Lincoln Restler framed the news as an “enormous loss” for the early childhood education system, noting Hawkins was responsive to his concerns and helped open vacant childcare centers the city was paying for.

“I’ve seen the (Education Department) bureaucracy eat good people alive,” he said. “Deputy Chancellor Hawkins was one of the few people who could tame it.”

Other advocates said she helped shore up the division after former Mayor Eric Adams made cuts to preschool programs for 3-year-olds.

“We appreciate the work that Simone has done over the past two years to strengthen early childhood education,” said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children, including “shoring up 3-K and making sure it would be here to stay permanently.”

Hawkins was appointed deputy chancellor by former Chancellor David Banks in 2024. She assumed the role as the division had long struggled to pay providers on time, undergone a bumpy staffing shakeup by Hawkins’ predecessor, and was rolling out a controversial curriculum mandate for early childhood programs that city officials recently loosened. Early childhood advocates and elected officials praised Banks’ decision to appoint her.

Her portfolio includes the city’s universal pre-K programs for 3- and 4-year-olds as well as subsidized programs for infants and toddlers.

Hawkins has held multiple roles in the city’s Education Department. She served as the chief executive for operations in the early childhood division in 2022, but resigned eight months into the role shortly after testifying at a City Council hearing that focused on late payments to providers. Officials said her resignation had been in the works before the hearing and was for “personal reasons.”

Officials did not say if Hawkins has a new job lined up.

“Over the past two years as Deputy Chancellor, we’ve improved practice, launched 2-K, a historic program that will deliver affordable child care for New York City families, and opened schools that for too long have sat vacant,” Hawkins said in a statement.

“I am truly grateful for the opportunity to have worked with a slate of dedicated and committed public servants at New York City Public Schools.”

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Adams mandated NYC preschools adopt a single curriculum. Under Mamdani, they’re getting more choice.

2026-07-29T20:27:20+00:00

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New York City Education Department officials in recent months quietly relaxed a controversial curriculum mandate for early childhood education programs, Chalkbeat has learned.

The 2023 mandate, part of former Mayor Eric Adams’ sweeping NYC Reads curriculum overhaul, required all classrooms in the city’s publicly funded early childhood education system to adopt The Creative Curriculum, a nationally-used program created by the Washington, D.C.-based Teaching Strategies. It applied to some 140,000 kids ages 5 and under in the city’s free infant and toddler, 3-K, and prekindergarten classrooms, whether in home-based programs, community-run facilities, or public schools.

The move drew backlash from some educators and early childhood education experts who argued it burdened teachers with bureaucratic busywork and diminished their ability to tailor lessons to their students’ specific needs and backgrounds.

But in guidance released late this spring, city officials gave providers a new option: They can now apply to use a different curriculum. Applications must include parent and teacher input and select a curriculum from the city’s pre-approved list of eight curricula.

“Every early care and education program serves a unique community that they know best,” said Education Department spokesperson Dominique Ellison. The new approach “gives educators and programs leaders the flexibility to make informed choices, backed by data and quality assurance, rather than a one-size-fits-all mandate.”

Education Department officials didn’t say how many providers applied or were approved to switch curriculums. City officials also left in place what educators have described as the mandate’s most controversial element: Providers must still use a data-heavy assessment system called GOLD, which accompanies The Creative Curriculum, even if they switch curriculums. GOLD asks teachers to regularly evaluate students on dozens of objectives in areas like math, language, and social emotional development.

Still, loosening the early childhood mandate marks perhaps the most significant step so far under Mayor Zohran Mamdani to dial back curriculum mandates imposed under Adams.

“It is a big shift,” said Shael Polakow-Suranksy, president of Bank Street College of Education and a former deputy chancellor in the city Education Department. “And it’s very responsive to what the field has been asking for over the last few years.”

A sweeping change draws backlash

The early childhood mandate got less public attention than the city’s math and literacy overhauls for K-12 schools, but it was no less sweeping.

Before 2023, many programs used Units of Study, a curriculum developed by city teachers during former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s pre-K expansion. Others used more specialized approaches like Reggio Emilia or Montessori, educators said.

But by spring 2024, roughly 90% of early childhood programs had switched to The Creative Curriculum and its accompanying assessment system, former Deputy Chancellor for Early Childhood Education Kara Ahmed said at the time.

“I can take you to a school in Staten Island, and I can take you to a school in Brooklyn, or Queens on the same day, and all the early childhood kids are all working from the same playbook,” former Chancellor David Banks said in 2024, calling the shift “absolutely amazing.”

The Creative Curriculum has been around for decades, and is structured around broad topics such as balls and trees, with activities that allow kids to explore and investigate.

City officials argued that standardization would make it easier to monitor programs and guarantee quality across the city. The mandate also included training for teachers.

But People’s Early Childhood Education, an advocacy group of providers, Education Department staffers, and others, began organizing opposition to the mandate.

Some educators highlighted the contrast between The Creative Curriculum and Units of Study. The latter was translated into 11 languages and included New York City-specific lessons, such as a transportation unit covering subways and buses and a housing unit that highlighted apartments. The Creative Curriculum, meanwhile, is only available in English and Spanish, and educators said its units often felt generic.

“It doesn’t feel authentic,” said one longtime early childhood educator at a 2024 forum organized by Bank Street. “It just didn’t represent my kids.”

Educators noted that the pre-K Creative Curriculum repeated the same unit topics as the 3-K edition, leaving some kids disengaged.

Assessment system sparks ongoing concerns

Some educators who have used the curriculum for years said it became more regimented and less engaging after a private equity firm purchased Teaching Strategies.

The city Education Department has paid Teaching Strategies nearly $33 million since summer 2023, according to Checkbook NYC.

Particularly concerning for many teachers was the GOLD assessment system designed to accompany the curriculum. GOLD requires teachers to evaluate each child across dozens of different metrics three times a year and include evidence, such as observational notes, photos, or work samples, for each score. That could amount to over 1,000 entries every three months for a single class of 18, pre-K teacher Helen Frazier wrote for Chalkbeat in 2023. The system then automatically generates lesson plans and small-group activities based on those assessment results, several educators said.

“It was the antithesis of everything that is so positive about education,” said Alice Mulligan, the director of Our Saviours Lutheran Preschool in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Mulligan, a longtime contractor with the city Education Department, said she refused to comply with the city’s mandate, even after officials told her that her contract could be terminated.

An Education Department spokesperson said the agency is maintaining the requirement to use GOLD, regardless of which curriculum a program chooses, to keep a standardized way of measuring students’ progress across the city.

The list of other pre-approved curriculum options includes Units of Study, as well as Explorations, Let’s Play, and Connections, all created by the Education Department for younger kids, according to a document obtained by Chalkbeat. HighScope and Tools of the Mind, two other nationally-used curriculums, are also options, along with more specialized programs for kids learning English and kids with disabilities.

Montessori schools, which were previously required to use the Creative Curriculum, can also apply to switch back to the Montessori curriculum.

The curriculum mandate change moves the early childhood system in a different direction than K-12 schools, where Chancellor Kamar Samuels not only has kept existing literacy and math curriculum mandates in elementary and high schools, but has expanded them to new grades.

While a small number of high-performing elementary and high schools have received waivers from the literacy and math curriculum mandates, there’s no formal process for schools to apply or clear criteria by which the waivers are awarded.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani names 13 school board members, cementing control of NYC schools

2026-07-28T18:58:17+00:00

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed 13 people to the city’s school board Tuesday, cementing his control over the panel that votes on major policy changes, contracts, and decisions to merge or close schools.

The appointees to the Panel for Educational Policy bring a range of professional experience, including an environmental justice advocate and a budget official at the MTA. Others have more traditional education policy backgrounds, including a former early childhood policy official who worked under former Mayor Bill de Blasio. Several are current or former public school parents.

Mamdani also reappointed three members who served under former Mayor Eric Adams. The terms of Adams’ appointees ended last month. (See a full list of Mamdani’s appointees below.)

“Public schools belong to New Yorkers, and the families, students and educators who make them what they are deserve a real voice in the decisions that shape them,” Mamdani said in a statement. “The Panel for Educational Policy has a vital responsibility to help guide our school system with transparency and accountability.”

Under state law, the mayor has the power to appoint 13 of the board’s 24 members and pick the chair from a list provided by state lawmakers. The current chair’s term does not expire until September. Parent leaders select five members, and each of the five borough presidents appoints one.

That structure gives Mamdani direct authority over the school system, a power he campaigned on giving up to make the system more democratic, though he never sketched out a clear alternative. He abandoned that position shortly before taking office and successfully lobbied state lawmakers for a two-year extension of mayoral control in the most recent state budget.

Under Mamdani, the panel will likely consider a range of hot-button issues, and advocates are already gearing up to influence the new board.

A group pushing for a moratorium on artificial intelligence in the city’s public schools plans to rally outside Wednesday’s panel meeting, the first that will feature Mamdani’s new appointees. The board has previously been skeptical of AI, and the city is developing new guidance on how the technology can be used in classrooms. The city delayed releasing the guidance due to overwhelming pushback, but officials said they planned to release it before this fall.

The panel will also have to grapple with how to approach declining enrollment in the nation’s largest school system. Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has indicated the city may need to ramp up school mergers and closures, but such proposals often spark fierce backlash, with parents, students, and educators packing board meetings in protest.

Historically, mayoral appointees tend to vote in line with the mayor and his schools chancellor. Mamdani, however, has vowed to listen to community input. It remains to be seen if that posture will give his appointees more room to vote independently of City Hall’s wishes. The mayor can no longer remove his own board members simply for voting against his proposals under a 2022 tweak in state law.

Adams sometimes struggled to control the board, which more frequently bucked City Hall’s proposals than panels under previous mayors. Toward the end of his term, Adams allowed three mayoral appointees on the board to sit vacant, effectively giving up his majority.

Under recent changes to the board’s structure, mayoral appointees serve one-year terms that expire at the end of June. That makes Mamdani the first mayor required to work with board members appointed under his predecessor for his first six months in office. Although Mamdani could have filled two mayoral vacancies that Adams left open, he mostly allowed them to sit empty in recent months. He appointed one member, Brooklyn College professor Maddy Fox, in time for the June board meeting.

Greg Faulkner, the panel’s current chair who was appointed by Adams, said he was impressed with the new slate of board members.

“I’m excited by this new group — the diversity and experience is really great," he said.

Here are the members Mamdani appointed, according to a press release issued Tuesday afternoon. The three members Mamdani reappointed are Alan Ong, Marjorie Dienstag, and Amy Fair.

Karla Cordero

Cordero is chief of staff at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, which fights for climate justice in low-income areas of West Harlem and upper Manhattan. She previously worked in government and helped launch an emergency food program during the COVID pandemic that delivered more than 18 million meals to New Yorkers.

Tariq Khan

Khan has spent nearly three decades at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where he now works in budget and finance. The Queens resident has also been active as a parent leader in his local school communities.

Mehrain Mahdi

Mahdi, a parent in Manhattan’s District 2, served on her school’s leadership team, where she launched an after-school Spanish program. She also founded Little Leaping Leaders, a mentorship program for young girls.

Alan Ong

Ong, a longtime civic leader in Queens, has served as a parent-teacher association president and as president of District 26’s Community Education Council. He previously was an Adams’ appointee on the PEP.

Amy Fair

Fair has worked in higher education administration for more than 25 years and is the director of strategic initiatives and special projects at NYU Steinhardt. She has also served on the community education council in Bronx District 11 “and in several community leadership roles supporting students, families and schools,” according to her official bio.

Courtney Rajwani

Rajwani, the parent of two public school children, is a managing consultant at the Lewin Group, a healthcare consulting firm. Under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, she was an executive director for policy development and support in the city Education Department’s early childhood division.

Crystal Vera-Montalvo

Vera-Montalvo is the director of community educational engagement at the College of Staten Island. She oversees a slew of programs, including English as a second language, continuing education, GED, as well as other initiatives geared toward older adults and people with disabilities. She is the parent of a current New York City public school student.

Marjorie Dienstag

Dienstag’s three children have attended both public and private schools, including one who currently attends a District 75 school, which serves children with more complex disabilities. She led a grassroots push to build a West Village middle school that includes a program for District 75 students.

Lucas Koehler

Koehler previously worked as a seventh-grade math teacher in the Bronx and is now the chief financial officer at the Foundation for City College. His bio credits him with playing a “key role in expanding New York City’s early childhood education system.” He also previously worked in the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget.

Primo Lasana

Before becoming chief impact officer at the Forum for Youth Investment, a nonprofit focused on youth development, Lasana was the executive director of Reading Partners and director of new site development at iMentor. He’s also been active on his Brooklyn community board.

Kristin Jefferson

Jefferson is a senior education consultant at Teaching Matters, a nonprofit that works with schools to improve reading and math instruction through training and coaching. She also founded KJ-Ed Solutions LLC, an education consulting firm. She previously was the academic director and network multilingual learner coordinator at Explore Charter Schools and director of recruitment for the Education Department’s Office of New Schools. 

Maddy Fox

Fox is a Brooklyn College professor who studies children and youth as well as sociology and is a faculty member at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is a “union member and participatory action researcher whose work focuses on partnering with young people and communities to shape public policy,” according to her official bio. Fox has two children in the city’s public schools.

Raysa Rodriguez

Rodriguez is the executive director of the Citizens’ Committee for Children, an advocacy and research organization. She previously worked at other nonprofits, including the United Way of New York City. During the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, she was a senior adviser on children’s issues for the deputy mayor for health and human services. She was born and raised in the Bronx and is a former kindergarten teacher.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani taps World Cup fever to get NYC teens designing climate-friendly stadiums and soccer apps

2026-07-28T10:00:00+00:00

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani is trying to channel World Cup excitement into real-world careers: Teens across the five boroughs are designing stadiums of the future and soccer fields through a six-week competition run by New York City’s youth summer jobs program.

And while the city’s schools are still grappling with artificial intelligence, this summer jobs initiative is embracing the technology.

As part of the Summer Youth Employment Program, hundreds of 14- and 15-year-olds are participating in the New York City Sports and Technology Innovation Challenge, where they are using AI and other technologies to expand access to soccer while exploring careers in sport-related industries.

The teens are dreaming up digital platforms to connect young people to sport opportunities across the five boroughs, planning climate-resilient public spaces for athletics that feel more inclusive to New Yorkers from various backgrounds, and designing environmentally-friendly stadiums that can transport 50,000 fans efficiently and sustainably. They are working with officials from the New York City Football Club and faculty from New York University’s School of Professional Studies on their projects.

“The World Cup is inspiring our young people, not just to perfect their stepover but to imagine the next great sports stadium, design soccer fields that combat climate change, build new platforms to connect their friends to matches, and much more,” Mamdani said in a statement.

The program, he added, “will help create the next generation of architects, engineers, and scientists.”

The finalists will present their submissions on Aug. 13 to New York City FC for the initiative, which is expected to become an annual challenge, city officials said.

A record year for NYC’s youth jobs program

The city’s Summer Youth Employment Program, or SYEP — the nation’s largest program of its kind — has continuously evolved over its 63-year history, finding new partners like New York City FC, whose nonprofit foundation, City in the Community, funded and designed the design challenge. The Department of Youth and Community Development, which oversees the jobs program, offered roughly 100,000 paid jobs and career exploration opportunities to the city’s 14- to 24-year olds this year and received more than 200,000 applications, a record, agency officials said.

Older students in SYEP earn the city’s minimum wage of $17 an hour at one of the program’s various work sites, ranging from tech and human services to finance and culture. The city’s 14- and 15- year-olds earn a $700 stipend doing project-based learning where they build work-related foundational skills, such as team-building, public speaking, and resume-building, said Youth and Community Development Commissioner Sandra Escamilla-Davies.

She was especially proud of the new partnership with New York City FC, saying it grew out of the interests of young people and also builds on the World Cup momentum to get young people interested in learning about opportunities that go beyond being the next star goalie or defender.

“We really knew that hosting a World Cup is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and it brought such vibrancy, such community throughout New York City. But we didn’t want that to be just the only legacy,” Escamilla-Davies said. “We wanted to think about how we use soccer, which so many New Yorkers love, and sports, which young people love, to really inspire young people to see themselves as the next generation of innovators, of engineers, of designers, of entrepreneurs.”

Escamilla-Davies also said that to prepare young people for future careers, incorporating AI was critical.

“We have an ecosystem that needs to accelerate learning, accelerate opportunities, and I don’t know that it’s humanly possible for us to do that without technology,” she said.

Students solve real-world problems with AI

Mohammed Usman, a 15-year-old who lives in Ozone Park, Queens, and attends Brooklyn Tech, decided to tackle the lack of available places to play soccer, looking at how to repurpose existing land and better understand when fields are available.

“Many of the fields that we do have are usually booked by teams or other people who want to play, and it’s hard to get a field,” Mohammed said. “So I was thinking of making an app that would allow you to know when a field is open and to be able to play with people your age.”

He’s been using AI to refine his proposal, for example, by encouraging him to add more information on his app about whether fields have lights or how to pair similarly aged students together.

He already can see how the problem-solving skills he’s learning could help him with his future career goal in engineering.

“What an engineer does is find a problem and then develop a solution for it, and that’s really similar to what we’re doing in the program: finding problems in our communities and then solving them related to soccer,” Mohammed said.

Escamilla-Davies sees SYEP as an important opportunity for young people to explore a range of careers beyond being a doctor or lawyer, and a way to get them connected to mentors and industry professionals, especially for those who don’t have family and social networks they can tap to help.

“For me, it’s the first step of equity,” said Escamilla-Davies, who is hoping to continue building more industry partnerships to expand SYEP.

The program says participation has improved school attendance and reduced students’ odds of getting tangled up in the criminal justice system. SYEP participants’ chances of being arrested fell 17% and 23% for felony arrests, according to a 2021 study.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Council approves $10k perk for public school paraprofessionals

2026-07-16T21:26:51+00:00

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The City Council voted unanimously to approve a one-time $10,000 payment to most of the public school paraprofessionals on Thursday, an effort to boost retention and recruitment for the badly-needed – but low-paying – jobs with students.

But Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who could try to stop the bill, said it is in “direct violation” of state labor law.

The bill was sponsored by nearly every member of the Council, and passed 49 to 0, with two members absent.

$244 million price tag

“This is a mandate from the entire city of New York. This is a mandate because we heard the numbers — $32,000 starting salary, in the most expensive city in the world,” Councilmember Carmen de la Rosa, the bill’s lead sponsor, said at a press conference earlier in the day.

“We know that we are in the throes of an affordability crisis, the way we can quell some of the issues of poverty is by putting money directly into people’s pockets,” De La Rosa said. “And this is what this bill does.”

The “Respect” check, as it’s called, would give public school paraprofessionals $10,000 in four installments, starting on Jan. 1, 2027, and going through Aug. 1 of the same year. Substitute paraprofessionals would have their money pro-rated based on how many days they worked.

The cost to the city would be around $244 million for payments to an estimated 26,000 paraprofessionals. The starting pay for paras is around $34,000, and rises to a top rate of more than $56,000 within 15 years, according to the United Federation of Teachers.

Labor law conflict?

Mamdani — who, as a candidate, supported an earlier version of the bill — expressed concerns as mayor over any payment made outside collective bargaining while also praising the work of paraprofessionals.

“I have been clear that questions of compensation are best resolved through the collective bargaining process that respects workers and their unions,” he said in a statement after the vote. “However, the Council’s passage of this legislation is in direct violation of the Taylor Law. Our administration is reviewing the final language carefully and working to determine the appropriate next steps.”

The mayor could veto the bill, but given the strong support in the Council they could then vote to override his veto.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said Thursday that the bill was written in a way to not run afoul of the state labor law. The bill, he said, is a last-ditch effort to help his workers.

“We would prefer to do this through collective bargaining, but you need a willing partner on the other side,” Mulgrew said.

Katie Honan covers New York City Hall for The City Reporter and is co-host of the FAQ NYC podcast.

NYC expands high-demand special education programs into preschool for the first time

2026-07-14T17:22:12+00:00

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New York City officials are expanding a slew of the city’s highest-demand special education programs into preschool classrooms for the first time, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Tuesday.

The expansion this fall is meant to help address the city’s longstanding failure to provide classroom seats to every preschooler with a disability — a legal requirement — even as officials created universal preschool for typically developing 3- and 4-year-olds. Mamdani framed the effort as part of his broader push for universal childcare.

To help close the gap, Mamdani said Tuesday that the city will expand five popular programs that already serve K-12 students with autism and other disabilities as part of a $67.5 million investment included in the city budget. The expansion will add 250 total seats to the Nest, Horizon, AIMS, Path, and ACES programs in 26 schools across 14 of the city’s 32 local districts.

“Universal has to mean exactly that — it has to mean universal,” Mamdani said at a press conference at P.S. 5 Ellen Lurie in Inwood. “Having a child with a disability or a special need should not make families the exception to that rule.”

Eric Adams, Mamdani’s predecessor, promised to provide a seat to every preschool student with a disability. His administration made some progress by opening hundreds more seats. But some students still sat at home without a placement, which can be detrimental to children with disabilities early in their development. A Mamdani spokesperson did not say whether the latest expansion is enough to guarantee a seat for every child next school year.

Mamdani emphasized that the expansion will enable children to attend programs closer to where they live in classrooms that often include typically developing peers. Children have long been forced to travel outside of their neighborhoods to access appropriate special education programs. The city is also hoping to keep more students in the public school system rather than paying for private services when families can’t find appropriate placements.

City officials said many of those programs produce strong academic outcomes for students with disabilities, who tend to post much lower test scores and graduation rates than their typically developing peers.

About 97% of Nest and Horizon students, which serve children with autism, ultimately graduate high school, officials said. Students who attend are more likely to be proficient in reading and math than peers in other programs, officials have previously said. They also tend to have higher attendance rates. At the K-12 level, thousands more students could benefit from those programs than there are available seats, even as city officials have incrementally expanded them.

The announcement represents one of the few education initiatives Mamdani has advanced since taking office, and advocates praised the investment.

“This funding is urgently needed as the city works to ensure that all preschoolers with disabilities get the evaluations, services, and programs that they need,” said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children, an organization that helps families navigate the special education system.

City officials also pledged to strengthen other support for preschool students with disabilities who often go without the services they’re entitled to even after securing a classroom seat. Only 63% of preschool students with disabilities received all of their mandated related services, including speech and occupational therapy, Education Department officials said at a March budget hearing.

The $67.5 million plan includes hiring hundreds of additional staffers, including teachers, psychologists, social workers, and therapists. Officials said the hires will help reduce wait times for special education evaluations. The Education Department is also expanding a program that places special education teachers in general education preschool classrooms, allowing more students with disabilities to access instruction alongside their typically developing peers.

Here are the 26 schools that will receive new special education programs, including which program they will operate. Education Department officials did not immediately identify specific programs for seven of the schools.

District 2: P.S. 042 Benjamin Altman, Nest
District 5: P.S. 133 Fred R. Moore, Horizon
District 6: P.S. 005 Ellen Lurie, Horizon
District 7: Academy of Exploratory Arts, Nest
District 9: P.S. 028 Mount Hope, Horizon; P.S. 058, AIMS; P.S. 070 Max Schoenfeld, Path; P.S. 063X Author’s Academy, and Lucero Elementary School
District 10: P.S. 310 Marble Hill, AIMS; PS 023 The New Children’s School, Horizon; Rose Hill Pre-K Center
District 11: P.S. 068 Bronx, Horizon; P.S. 111 Seton Falls, AIMS; P.S. 121 Throop
District 12: P.S. 006 West Farms, Horizon; Samara Community School, Nest
District 14: P.S. 147 Isaac Remsen
District 15: P.S. 015 Patrick Daly, ACES; P.S. 024, Horizon; P.S. 958, AIMS
District 20: D20 Pre-K Center
District 21: P.S. 212 Lady Deborah Moody
District 30: P.S. 152 Gwendoline N. Alleyne School, Horizon; P.S. 171 Peter G. Van Alst, AIMS
District 31: P.S. 054 Charles W. Leng, AIMS

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

What’s Mamdani’s agenda for K-12 education in NYC? 6 months in, it’s hard to say.

2026-07-07T21:43:20+00:00

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In his first six months in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has issued a steady stream of announcements and policy initiatives in the three areas that powered his affordability-focused campaign: childcare for kids 5 and younger, transportation, and housing.

But when it comes to K-12 public education — the largest operation under Mamdani’s control by both budget and headcount — the story has been quite different.

Out of the hundreds of press releases Mamdani sent out since his term began, just 11 relate to K-12 education, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. Only one announced a new policy affecting what happens inside classrooms serving more than 800,000 elementary- to high school-age students. And even the new policy — expanding a reading and math curriculum overhaul launched under his predecessor Eric Adams — largely continued work already underway.

Other press releases related to winter storms, street safety outside schools, and the opening of new schools that started under a previous administration.

Mayoral press releases are an incomplete measure of Mamdani’s record and agenda on K-12 education, and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has introduced several initiatives of his own. But some longtime education watchers — including Mamdani supporters — said the dearth of attention to K-12 schools and absence of concrete policy proposals one-eighth of the way through Mamdani’s first term raises questions about how he will manage a core function of the city’s government.

“He’s the first mayor that I’ve seen … to have so little apparent interest in our public schools from K-12,” said Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters and a longtime education advocate. She argued that Mamdani could use his “progressive values to really make a difference in our schools,” adding that overseeing public schools “is a very critical part of his responsibilities.”

In many ways, the lack of focus on K-12 schools during Mamdani’s first months in office is not a surprise. Education didn’t figure prominently into his mayoral campaign, which focused on his key priorities and largely avoided political fights that could distract from those efforts. Some observers suggested that an aggressive push to make the K-12 system more equitable — a political minefield for progressive politicians — may feel too risky when Mamdani is still shoring up support for his core agenda.

Keeping up his “laser focus” on expanding free childcare — a broadly popular policy — could pay political dividends by providing economic relief for families while also better preparing children for K-12 schools, said Shael Polakow-Suransky, president of Bank Street College of Education and a former deputy chancellor under Michael Bloomberg.

“That is where the political capital on education will need to be spent over the next few years, if they’re going to deliver on that promise and actually get the educational benefits,” he said.

Polakow-Suransky and others familiar with the Mamdani administration’s education plans said the quiet start on K-12 policy may be a deliberate effort by Mamdani and Samuels to gather input before making potentially disruptive changes.

But other observers noted that while Mamdani still has time to make his mark on city schools, his current approach risks further entrenching a status quo marked by deep problems and inequities.

“The absence of any identifiable priority is a worry,” said David Bloomfield, a professor emeritus of education leadership, law, and policy at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center.

The longterm benefits of an improved K-12 school system take years to materialize, Bloomfield noted, unlike the more immediate benefits of Mamdani’s policy priorities.

“He seems to feel that what’s in place is good enough,” Bloomfield said.

Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for Mamdani, disputed the idea that he has focused less on K-12 education in his early months than predecessors.

“Change isn’t measured by the number of press releases we send out. It’s measured by whether people’s lives are better because they were invited to shape the policies that affect them,” she said. The administration is preparing to “share our broader vision for public schools” by holding listening sessions and gathering community feedback, she added.

What has Mamdani done so far, and how does it compare to past mayors?

Mamdani offered few sweeping education promises on the campaign trail, but did stake out several positions that set him apart from his competitors, including ending mayoral control of city schools and removing kindergarten entry to the city’s gifted and talented program.

Neither has come to pass.

Mamdani reversed his position on mayoral control shortly before taking office. He also backed away from a campaign promise to quickly comply with the state’s class size law, instead asking for an extension to save money this fiscal year.

He has not advanced proposals to change the gifted and talented program or offer prospective new teachers tuition assistance, as he pledged during the campaign. He has made some efforts to reduce the Education Department’s astronomical contracts budget, but those efforts have been complicated by scrutiny over allegations that Samuels violated contracting rules in a previous role. He also continued a pandemic-era policy launched under Bill de Blasio and continued by Adams to spare schools with declining enrollment from budget cuts.

Most longtime education observers said Mamdani has focused noticeably less on K-12 education than his immediate predecessors, Adams, de Blasio, and Bloomberg — though several noted that those mayors’ education agendas didn’t fully come into focus during their first six months in office.

Adams issued 21 press releases related to K-12 education during his first six months, including announcements expanding the gifted and talented program, introducing dyslexia screening, and rehiring district superintendents, a Chalkbeat analysis found. His most recognizable education policy, NYC Reads, was announced more than a year into his tenure.

Bloomberg made controversial and sweeping reforms of the K-12 school system a centerpiece of his agenda. De Blasio, like Mamdani, initially emphasized childcare, but nine months into his tenure launched a major effort to flood struggling schools with additional resources.

Matt Gonzales, a longtime school integration advocate who served on Mamdani’s education transition team, said preserving programs for vulnerable students in the recent budget agreement between Mamdani and the City Council was a significant early policy achievement. He also argued that introducing new policies in the middle of a school year could be disruptive.

“I want all the big pronouncements and priorities laid out ASAP,” he said. But “there’s a real need to stabilize the system … and then move a vision for education in this new school year.”

What does Mamdani’s quiet start on K-12 education mean for schools?

While the Mamdani administration hasn’t offered a detailed public agenda for K-12 schools, officials have negotiated the budget and an extension of the state’s class size law deadline, said Aaron Pallas, a professor of sociology and education at Columbia University Teachers College. (The Education Department issued a press release with a quote from Mamdani detailing the new class size plan).

He added that making meaningful change in a system as sprawling as New York City is difficult and that “on the ground level, a lot can continue in a positive way without high-level policy pronouncements.”

But if outcomes such as test scores and graduation rates slip, Mamdani may face “pressure to do more,” he said.

Some advocates hope Mamdani will focus on increasing racial and socioeconomic integration, and merging underenrolled schools — two longtime priorities for Samuels. Others want him to stake out a firm position against artificial intelligence in schools.

Whatever the agenda looks like, some supporters hope Mamdani will bring the same public attention campaign he’s launched for childcare — including a jingle contest judged by Cardi B — to K-12 education.

“I’m hopeful that we see more of that kind of skill around education, especially as they really get to take the reins of things this school year,” Gonzales said. “That’s going to really need the mayor’s messaging and savviness.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC budget gives every public school kindergartner $1,000 for college, restores education programs

2026-06-30T19:04:37+00:00

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New York City public school kindergartners will automatically receive $1,000 for college expenses, up from $100, under a budget deal announced Tuesday between Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the City Council.

The budget also restores a handful of education programs that Mamdani did not include in his preliminary proposal and were at risk of cuts, including a mental health initiative that operates clinics in schools and a program for students with disabilities who have sensory issues that interfere with their learning.

The $125.8 billion budget agreement marks the end of Mandani’s first budget cycle since taking office. Though he initially warned of a multi-billion shortfall, the mayor indicated that the deal with the City Council “balanced the budget without slashing the services that New Yorkers rely on.”

“Above all else, this budget offers a roadmap for the years to come,” Mamdani said shortly after shaking Council Speaker Julie Menin’s hand.

The mayor steered clear of some potentially controversial cuts. Earlier this month, city officials indicated that they will spend $290 million next year to keep school budgets steady even if their enrollment drops, a pandemic-era “hold harmless” policy that many school funding experts argue should be phased out. Former Mayor Eric Adams tried to wind that program down, but faced enormous backlash and reversed course.

Still, Mamdani scaled back other education initiatives. He initially planned to spend more than half a billion dollars to comply with a state mandate to shrink class sizes. After convincing the state legislature to extend the deadline to reach full compliance, Mamdani pared back class size spending considerably.

Here’s what you should know about the budget deal.

A tenfold boost for college savings accounts

All kindergartners in New York City public schools will automatically receive college savings accounts with $1,000, money that is invested in a tax-advantaged 529 account and is expected to grow before students tap it for higher education expenses. (Most charter schools have opted into the program, too.)

The NYC Kids Rise program, which launched about a decade ago, previously doled about $100 per student. Making the program more generous was a top priority for Menin who framed it as “one of the most effective ways we can truly address income inequality” and ultimately boost students’ future wages.

The money can be used for vocational schools, community college, or four-year programs. Menin said the $64 million initiative is the largest universal college savings program in the nation. Families, businesses, and other organizations can contribute as well.

City Council’s initial proposal called for depositing $3,000 into accounts for low-income families, but that did not make it into the final budget deal.

A slew of programs spared from the chopping block

Similar to prior mayors, Mamdani did not include funding for several existing education programs until he faced pressure to do so from advocates and City Council members. Those programs, restored in next year’s budget, include:

Mental Health Continuum ($5 million) Offers mental health support at 50 schools, largely in the South Bronx and Brooklyn as well as several school-based clinics.
Restorative justice ($6 million) Supports schools to adopt less punitive approaches to student misbehavior, such as peer mediation and circle discussions.
Sensory Exploration, Education & Discovery ($8.4 million) Provides extra help for students with disabilities who have sensory issues that interfere with their learning.
Outreach to immigrant families ($4 million) Helps fund efforts to communicate with families in their home languages, including translation services and in local ethnic media outlets.
Student Success Centers ($3.3 million) Trains youth leaders to help high school students navigate the college admissions process.

The Coalition for Equitable Education Funding, a constellation of more than 120 advocacy organizations, praised the funding restorations.

“These programs are currently benefiting thousands of students and families, and we thank the Mamdani Administration and the City Council for ensuring these critical programs will continue for another year,” the group wrote, which reported the dollar amounts that were restored. (A City Hall spokesperson did not immediately confirm them.)

Fate of popular school data contract remains unclear

Mamdani vowed to slash wasteful spending in outside Education Department contracts, but his budget proposal included cuts to just one: A portal that stitches together data from various city databases. Many educators say it is a useful tool that saves countless hours that would otherwise be spent combing through creaky databases by hand.

City officials did not immediately respond to questions about whether the $8.9 million contract with the nonprofit New Visions for Public Schools would be restored in the final budget deal. A slew of educators, advocates, and lawmakers have called in recent weeks for the city to reverse the decision to cut the contract.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani promised to cut wasteful education contracts. Critics say he picked the wrong one.

2026-06-26T21:06:01+00:00

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After promising to eliminate wasteful Education Department contracts, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has so far publicly identified just one item in the agency’s $12 billion contract budget.

It’s an $8.9 million data portal developed by the nonprofit New Visions for Public Schools that merges reams of student data, including attendance and test scores, into a tidy dashboard.

The proposal is generating backlash from the City Council, even as local lawmakers have pushed to rein in contract spending. Many educators are also furious, and nearly every public school in the city uses the portal. Additionally, the data portal serves as a case management system for a program that pairs homeless students with “caring adults” — an initiative Mamdani wants to expand.

“There are very few things that the teachers and I say that we have to have,” said Sarah Scrogin, principal at East Bronx Academy for the Future. “It doesn’t make sense to take it away.”

City officials have not offered a detailed rationale for cutting the data portal, which allows staff to quickly identify trends in student test scores, flag students who are off track for graduation or frequently absent, and input qualitative notes so school teams can coordinate support.

Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said at a City Council hearing this month that his agency proposed eliminating the New Visions data contract because similar information is available in other systems. But even Samuels acknowledged the tool is useful to schools and it would be “clunky” to pull data without it.

“I could see why it was viewed as potentially duplicative, but in terms of actually how the system works, I understand the value of the portal,” Samuels said.

An Education Department spokesperson said the city hopes to “extend core functions” of the tool next school year but did not say whether the contract would be extended. The city’s final budget is due July 1.

The proposal has raised questions from local lawmakers about how city officials are vetting contracts for elimination as Mamdani seeks to reduce spending. City Council member Rita Joseph raised concerns about how the cut could affect the program for homeless students, called Every Child and Family is Known.

“How does the city plan on expanding Every Child and Family is Known … while simultaneously cutting the platform it depends on to do the work?” Joseph asked during a recent hearing. A group of state lawmakers have urged the city not to cut funding for the portal.

Scrogin, the Bronx principal, said the tool has helped guide decisions about how to support vulnerable students, noting that her school participates in Every Child and Family is Known.

Three years ago, she began providing students in temporary housing with laundry cards and detergent after noticing that school staff were repeatedly citing lack of access to clean clothes as a barrier to school attendance.

“I don’t have time to read handwritten logs about why students couldn’t come to school,” Scrogin said. The New Visions portal, which digitally aggregated the notes, made the pattern clear.

She has also used the tool to identify students who need additional math tutoring based on their Regents scores and math credits.

For their part, New Visions officials have pushed back against the argument that the portal is duplicative because schools already have access to the same data elsewhere.

“The challenge that administrators, teachers, counselors face across the system is not that the data exists somewhere, but that the data exists in too many different places,” New Visions President Mark Dunetz told the City Council.

He argued the department’s existing tools function as one-way reporting systems rather than collaborative planning tools. Without the portal, educators would have to manually download spreadsheets and compare data across multiple systems instead of accessing it in a single dashboard.

Dunetz said no current Education Department tool connects data from the department, other city agencies such as the Department of Homeless Services, the City University of New York, and a range of community organizations.

He added the contract is a good deal for the city because New Visions raises roughly $5 million annually in philanthropic funding for the portal on top of the city’s investment.

“A private for-profit vendor would probably charge at minimum $25 million for this level of personalized software development,” he said.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Hochul delays plan to tighten childcare voucher rules, averting shockwaves for thousands of NYC families

2026-06-25T21:38:35+00:00

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Gov. Kathy Hochul is delaying a plan that would have caused major disruptions to tens of thousands of New York City families who receive childcare vouchers.

Under New York regulations, parents who receive the vouchers through a popular state-funded program are only supposed to get the benefit for hours when they’re working or in school. Historically, however, that rule has not been enforced for New York City families. In recent months, officials from the state’s Office of Children and Family Services warned city officials that they would need to begin complying with the regulations — sparking panic from officials, providers, and advocates. They warned the change could send shockwaves through the system, leaving families without care and causing providers to shut down.

On Thursday, Hochul announced that the state is giving the city two more years to comply with the regulations governing the Child Care Assistance Program vouchers, which pays an average $300 a week to cover kids’ childcare expenses.

“This waiver will help ensure that families who are currently receiving support in New York City don’t have their coverage reduced and providers don’t suffer costly disruptions while we work towards full implementation of the program,” Hochul said in a statement.

In New York City more than 100,000 kids currently receive vouchers and another 26,000 are on the waitlist.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has worked with Hochul to make the expansion of free childcare in New York City a major political priority, praised the postponement.

“For a parent picking up an extra shift to make ends meet, or a parent whose work schedule changes week to week, access to flexible child care is truly essential,” Mamdani said in a statement.

Over the past few years, the voucher program has become a critical piece of the city’s childcare landscape.

After Hochul raised the value of the voucher in 2024 and expanded the income eligibility requirements to allow more people to participate, the program exploded in popularity in the five boroughs and hasn’t been able to keep up with the demand, even as funding keeps growing.

Most other counties across the state follow the policy limiting vouchers to work and school hours, known as “coupling,” by submitting data to a state attendance system, a Hochul spokesperson said. But New York City does not use that system, the spokesperson said.

Some advocates, lawmakers, and city officials say the regulations are impractical and disruptive, making it difficult for parents who are working part-time to find consistent care and for childcare operators to count on consistent enrollment and revenue.

“How can a childcare center that has a hundred kids have a different policy of what hours every … kid is coming in?” said Brooklyn Council member Lincoln Restler at a hearing last month. “You can’t hire teachers that way. We will see enormous, enormous disruption to our childcare system.”

Officials from the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, which oversees the voucher program in the city, said they have been lobbying state officials to change the regulations.

It’s unclear how many families in the city would be affected by stricter enforcement of the coupling regulations.

A Hochul spokesperson said the state is asking the city to submit more data in the coming years to give a clearer picture, and said the state is rolling out new technology to improve enforcement of the regulations.

Advocates for kids in other parts of the state are taking notice of the carveout for New York City.

Dede Hill, the vice president of policy at the Schuyler Center, a statewide child advocacy organization, said now that the state officials have found a way to grant New York City a reprieve from enforcement of the coupling regulations without changing state law, her organization will push the state to extend the same benefit to other parts of the state.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

NYC’s $1.9 billion dilemma: How long can schools be ‘held harmless’ for enrollment losses?

2026-06-22T22:45:12+00:00

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New York City is spending nearly $290 million next year to prevent budget cuts at schools that have lost or are projected to lose enrollment, according to new Education Department data.

It’s more than double what the city spent prior to the beginning of the 2025-26 school year on the policy known as “hold harmless.”

The sum reflects the increasing cost of continuing the policy that began during the COVID pandemic to provide financial stability to schools losing enrollment. Six years later, those enrollment losses show no signs of abating, and the cost of propping up budgets at shrinking schools has grown dramatically.

For this coming school year, 723 schools got some amount of hold harmless money. Fifty-five of those schools got over $1 million.

The total amount that the Education Department has spent on the policy since 2020 is nearly $1.9 billion.

Schools get their budgets in the spring for the coming academic year based on their projected enrollment. Then in the middle of the school year, money is either added or taken away from that initial allocation based on the number of students who actually showed up. But for most of the past six years, the city has been keeping initial budgets steady when schools’ projected student numbers drop and has not been clawing back money in the middle of the year for schools missing the mark with their student rosters.

Efforts to pare back the hold harmless policy have generated significant political opposition, as former Mayor Eric Adams found out when he proposed phasing out the support in 2022. But the longer officials keep the policy in place, the more expensive it becomes. It also further pulls the Education Department away from its original method of funding schools based primarily on enrollment numbers and student needs. That ongoing expense is particularly consequential as the city faces a yawning budget deficit.

“This is a snowball rolling down the hill, and it’s just getting bigger,” said Ana Champeny, the lead researcher for the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog. “Continuing this misguided policy is just not the right choice for the city, and it’s not the right choice for fiscal stability.”

Schools have come to rely on the money, and it has proved indispensable for many shrinking schools. Stopping the practice would also likely complicate the city’s efforts to comply with the state’s class size law, since it would force staff layoffs and increase class sizes at many schools

“That funding is incredibly important for us to reduce the adult-to-kid ratio,” said Kiri Soares, the principal of Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in downtown Brooklyn. It also has helped close the learning gaps that emerged during the pandemic.

Her school is slated to receive about $374,000 as a result of being held harmless for next year. The school’s enrollment has shrunk to 350 this year from nearly 500 in 2020.

Who’s getting hold harmless money and how much?

The city’s student population dropped by about 22,000 from the 2024-25 school year to the 2025-26 school year. Final enrollment projections for next school year predict another drop of more than 20,000 students, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of the data. (The enrollment projections don’t include students in prekindergarten programs, or District 75 schools for students with complex disabilities.)

As a result, the cost of the hold harmless policy has been rising. The money ensures that schools’ initial budgets for the coming school year are at least as high as their initial budgets for the current school year. Even schools that aren’t projected to lose enrollment next year might be getting hold harmless money. That’s because they lost students previously, and the city is using roster figures from a few years back for the calculation. (Schools whose projected enrollment went up, leading to higher budgets, still get to keep those gains, which tallied about $250 million.)

For some schools, hold harmless money has become a significant portion of their overall budget. I.S. 339 in the Bronx, which has shrunk from 315 students in 2020 to 150 this year, is slated to get nearly $2.5 million in hold harmless money next year. That accounts for roughly a third of the school’s overall budget of $7.8 million.

That’s why principals say that if the city does phase out the hold harmless spending, they should do it gradually.

“You can’t just pull what’s been given to us for half a decade from out from under us because it will completely destabilize schools,” said Soares.

But other principals have mixed feelings about the policy, noting that it inflates the per-pupil budget at shrinking schools higher than schools whose rosters are growing.

“It’s really demoralizing to work and work and work to retain enrollment and effectively to have your students be penalized by having less average money per pupil,” said one Manhattan principal who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“It doesn’t make any sense that we’re still being funded as if we’re in a pandemic,” the principal continued. “Enrollment is declining, and this is the situation we’re going to be in for the next 10 years.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Allegations against Kamar Samuels highlight widespread dysfunction in NYC’s school contract system

2026-06-18T20:51:26+00:00

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On the campaign trail, Mayor Zohran Mamdani pledged to reduce fraud and waste in Education Department contracts, which total nearly $13 billion in spending, about a tenth of the entire New York City budget.

Recent allegations that his chancellor, Kamar Samuels, violated key contracting rules are complicating those efforts and have put the mayor in a delicate position.

The allegations that Samuels skirted the competitive bidding process in his prior role have brought scrutiny from investigators, lawmakers, and the public, while also casting a brighter spotlight on a system that almost all observers say is deeply flawed, even if they disagree about how to fix it.

One member of the City Council, Queens Democrat Phil Wong, has called for Samuels to resign, arguing he is not the right leader to oversee contract reforms. So far, Mamdani has publicly stood by Samuels and has asked allies on the City Council to do the same, according to someone familiar with the outreach.

In interviews with more than a dozen educators, administrators, and elected officials deeply familiar with the Education Department’s procurement system, many of whom were granted anonymity to speak freely about the system, few expressed surprise that someone might go outside the rules. They described a broken contracting and procurement process that can make it difficult, or nearly impossible, to get services for children in a timely fashion.

“At no agency is [the procurement process] more painfully cumbersome, bureaucratic, and slow than in the DOE,” said Brooklyn Council member Lincoln Restler. “Frankly this situation underscores the urgent need for procurement reform.”

The allegations against Samuels, first reported by independent journalist Sue Edelman and The New York Post, stem from his recent tenure leading Manhattan’s District 3, which spans the Upper West Side and parts of Harlem.

The city Special Commissioner of Investigation, or SCI, found last year that Samuels’ former deputy superintendent, Mariela Graham, improperly split a larger contract with a vendor into smaller chunks to avoid a $25,000 competitive bidding threshold, a practice referred to as contract splitting. The vendor hired and placed language teachers in the district.

The investigation began after school officials reported that one of the teachers employed by the vendor was barred from working in city public schools because of past sexual misconduct.

Samuels wasn’t mentioned in SCI’s 2025 report, but City Council testimony from Sean Kreyling, the owner of the vendor, along with emails shared by the vendor with SCI and viewed by Chalkbeat, suggest Samuels approved a similar arrangement with the same company the year before.

Asked to confirm if Samuels is under investigation, SCI spokesperson Anna Correa said the agency is “aware of these new allegations, and will handle them accordingly.”

Several people familiar with the situation said that Samuels and Graham were scrambling to find language teachers to place at schools receiving large numbers of migrant students. Language and bilingual teachers are typically among the most difficult positions to fill for New York City schools.

Graham did not respond to a request for comment.

Samuels, who has declined to answer specific questions about the episode, has defended himself.

“While I regret this lapse in procedure,” he said in a statement, “the actions in question were undertaken in pursuit of educational opportunities for children — not for personal gain or to benefit anyone other than our schoolchildren.”

The $25,000 threshold: A safeguard or bottleneck?

Contracts make up a large and growing share of the city Education Department’s budget, increasing from about $3.2 billion in 2014 to roughly $13 billion, according to the City Council.

Mamdani took aim at the system as a mayoral candidate, pledging to “overhaul procurement infrastructure” across the Education Department and cut contracted spending by 10%.

The $25,000 threshold Samuels is accused of violating is a key safeguard meant to ensure that vendors getting large sums of taxpayer money have been thoroughly vetted and are offering the best prices.

To make a purchase above $25,000, a principal or other official is required to use a vendor that has a contract with the central procurement office.

But the process of getting a central contract can take up to a year, according to city officials. Some vendors don’t even attempt it and others give up, vendors and officials told Chalkbeat. Several principals said they sometimes can’t find the services they need from a contracted vendor, and those are often more expensive than non-contracted vendors.

Kreyling, the owner of the language teacher company involved in the District 3 allegations, said he began the process to get centrally approved and waited months before giving up.

“It’s a pretty arduous process … chaotic and disorganized,” Kreyling told Chalkbeat, noting that in other districts outside of New York City, he can get a fully signed contract within a month.

City Council Speaker Julie Menin, who is pushing for a more thorough audit of Education Department contracts, said during a hearing last week that she worries the practice of contract splitting may be more common than is known.

“This incident, of course, raises concern that there may be more widespread practice of contracts being broken up to avoid appropriate spending scrutiny,” she said.

A separate 2025 SCI report on the practice of contract splitting pointed to eight past investigations since 2023 that found school officials or vendors skirting the competitive bidding rules, including the one into Graham and Kreyling.

Last year, about $386 million of total contract spending came through purchases of less than $25,000, according to SCI.

Allegations highlight tension between scrutiny and efficiency

The reactions to the allegations against Samuels highlight a key tension Mamdani will face as he seeks to reform the procurement system: balancing the need for stricter oversight with making the process more efficient for schools.

Some lawmakers and advocates have argued that the allegations against Samuels show the need for tightened guardrails.

Lawmakers, including City Council Education Committee Chair Eric Dinowitz, a Bronx Democrat, have argued that if Graham and Samuels had gone through the vendor approval process, it would have prevented the teacher with the past misconduct charges from ending up in a classroom. SCI did not explicitly make that assertion in its report.

Emails between Kreyling and Education Department officials shared with Chalkbeat suggest that vendors with city approval must run their employees through Education Department background checks.

The SCI report noted, however, that principals are required to conduct background checks on any vendor employee who interacts with students — something that didn’t happen in the District 3 case.

Many principals and Education Department officials told Chalkbeat they view the allegations against Samuels as an example of an educator working within a broken system to try to quickly get services for kids.

“Hiring foreign language teachers is an incredibly difficult task,” said a high level Education Department official who requested anonymity. “It sounds like this district was trying desperately to provide services for their students.”

The situation points to the need to make the process speedier and less bureaucratic, school leaders said.

Some suggested raising the $25,000 cap, a threshold that hasn’t changed in years. Others said the process to approve a vendor needs to be faster and less complicated. That could also increase competition and lower prices.

Lindsey Oates, who started this week as the deputy chancellor for the Division of Finance, Administration, & Human Resources and will oversee procurement reform, said she will try to “strike the appropriate balance of appropriate oversight of taxpayer dollars, as well as streamlining our operations.”

Education Department officials have offered few details about how they’re approaching procurement reform. But officials say they’re hoping a reorganization to bring the finance and procurement teams under the same deputy chancellor will streamline the contracting process for schools while helping to strengthen accountability.

SCI made several recommendations in its 2025 report to crack down on contract splitting, including significantly ramping up training for principals and other officials making purchasing decisions, as well as increasing central staff in charge of monitoring non-contracted vendors.

Education Department officials said at last week’s council hearing that many of those recommendations would require financial resources the agency doesn’t have.

In the specific District 3 case, SCI found that Kreyling “conspired” with Graham on the contract splitting and recommended that the Education Department stop working with his companies. Kreyling told Chalkbeat he was following the lead of city officials and didn’t know he was violating any rules.

Investigators said Graham, Samuels’ deputy, displayed “astoundingly poor judgment” and recommended her termination. They referred the case to the Manhattan District Attorney. The District Attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Education Department general counsel Liz Vladeck told lawmakers that the SCI report contained no allegations of illegal activity. The department opted to suspend Graham for two weeks instead of firing her, she said. A source familiar with her current role said Graham was recently promoted to senior director of strategy for Samuels.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Knicks ticker-tape parade is on a school day — and conflicts with Regents exams. Some families are angry.

2026-06-15T00:05:13+00:00

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The New York Knicks’ victory this weekend over the San Antonio Spurs, cementing their first NBA championship since 1973, brought joy to fans across the five boroughs.

Shortly after their win, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the city will host a ticker-tape parade to honor the team. It will start at 10 a.m. at Battery Park and travel north along Broadway through the Canyon of Heroes before concluding at City Hall for a ceremony where the mayor will give the team the keys to the city.

The only problem: Some parents are mad that the parade is being held on the same day as science Regents exams. The biology and living environment exams are being administered in the morning. The “Earth and Space Sciences” and “Physical Setting/ Earth Science” exams are being administered in the afternoon.

One mom has already started a petition asking city and state officials, as well as the team’s owner, to move the day of the parade. (High school students who aren’t taking Regents exams that day don’t attend school.) And one student started a petition to cancel school altogether on Thursday.

“This scheduling conflict creates a profound issue of equity and fairness,” Michelle Weintraub, a mom of an eighth grader scheduled to take a Regents exam that day, wrote in her petition. “The students most affected are those who have worked tirelessly all year to pass these exams. Depriving them of the chance to celebrate their city’s historic milestone—while adults and non-testing students freely attend—is inherently inequitable.”

Sebastian Crosa, the student who started a petition, played up the feelings of unity the Knicks have brought to the city — and suggested the parade could be a teachable moment.

“The parade is an educational experience in itself, rich with lessons about sportsmanship, history, and the power of dreams coming true,” Cosa wrote in his petition. “By supporting this request, we will allow the next generation of Knicks fans to experience this extraordinary moment, creating lifelong memories and sparking inspiration for future accomplishments in their own lives.”

As mayor, Mamdani has embraced a sense of fun for the city’s school kids, “canceling” bed time so they could watch the Knicks in the championship games. And of course, many kids were grateful to him for bringing back traditional snow days. But to do that, he had to get a waiver from the state for the day off since students already were at the minimum required instructional days.

Getting a waiver again would likely be a tall order.

What do you think about the scheduling conflict? Let us know: ny.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC school budgets won’t face cuts next year (for now) despite falling enrollment

2026-06-07T20:14:13+00:00

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Despite shrinking enrollment, New York City schools will not see their initial budgets take a hit next school year.

New York City principals are soon expected to receive their budgets for the 2026-27 school year, and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels gave them a heads up that even if they’re projected to have fewer students, their budgets won’t drop.

Though school budgets are typically tied to student head count, the city began its “hold harmless” policy — propping up school budgets despite enrollment losses — during the height of the pandemic. The Education Department’s coffers were flush with billions in one-time federal relief funding, and officials were concerned about catching kids up after prolonged learning disruptions. So they kept budgets steady even as students left the nation’s largest school system.

Over the past six years, the city has spent $1.6 billion to stave off enrollment-related cuts, according to the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog group. Meanwhile, K-12 schools have lost nearly 10% of students during that time, dropping below 800,000 students this school year — and declines are expected to continue. The decision from Samuels pushes any eventual financial reckoning further down the road.

“Our hold harmless policy began during the pandemic to provide stability amid a crisis—and while we are no longer in a pandemic, stability and predictability remain critically important for our school communities,” Samuels wrote in a Sunday email to principals.

“To that end,” he continued, “we will be holding schools harmless for their SY26-27 initial budget allocations. This investment will provide stability and predictability for school communities as principals plan staffing, programming, and supports for the upcoming school year.”

Some school funding experts warn against allowing budgets to drift away from schools’ actual enrollment, which disproportionately benefits schools that have lost the most students. But some educators and parent leaders note that many schools have come to rely on the money and abruptly removing it could force them to scale back programs such as music and art and let go of teachers.

Plus, cuts are likely to invite backlash and are politically unpopular, especially as Mayor Zohran Mamdani vowed to prioritize funding for public schools on the campaign trail. When former Mayor Eric Adams initially began winding down the program, the blowback ballooned, with families making T-shirts declaring that Adams defunded their schools. Subsequently, Adams decided to keep propping up budgets.

Samuels’ email made no mention of what the city will do midyear, when it will be faced with another inflection point whether to hold schools harmless if their enrollment is lower than anticipated. Again, before the pandemic, the city would claw back money in the middle of the school year if a school’s roster failed to match projections.

But principals this year did not have to give back money despite nearly two-thirds of the city’s roughly 1,600 schools having fewer students than projected. The policy cost the city more than $250 million.

Samuels is expected to testify Monday before City Council on the budget.

“Going forward,” he told principals, “I am committed to engaging with you and your school communities about our school budgets—to ensure both long-term fiscal sustainability and comprehensive school support.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC families can now apply for 2-K. Here’s what you need to know.

2026-06-02T20:10:13+00:00

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Applications opened Tuesday for the inaugural year of New York City’s free childcare program for 2-year-olds.

Part of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s affordability campaign for free universal childcare, 2-K will for the first time in the city’s history offer free care for 2-year-olds regardless of their parents’ income. In 2024, parents of toddlers spent on average more than $23,000 for childcare at center-based programs, according to the city comptroller.

Families can apply on MySchools, the city Education Department’s online portal for school enrollment through June 26. Offers are expected Aug. 4.

The program kicks off in September with 2,000 seats clustered in several high-needs neighborhoods in every borough except Staten Island.

The program is set to expand to 12,000 seats next year, and Mamdani has pledged to bring it citywide by the end of his first term. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s funding commitment, however, only covers the first two years. The state is chipping in $73 million this year for 2-K and plans to spend $425 million next year.

Applications for 3-K and pre-K, which already closed, remained relatively flat compared to last year. But Mamdani is pulling out the stops to make sure families know about 2-K: He’s sponsoring a 2K for 2-K road race in Fort Tryon Park in northern Manhattan this weekend to encourage parents to sign up. And he’s enlisted Cardi B to help judge a citywide 2-K jingle competition.

“It is not enough for [the] government to pat itself on the back and say, ‘We have a good program,’” Mamdani said at a kickoff press conference in Queens Tuesday. “People should find out about it.”

Here’s what parents need to know:

Who’s eligible?

Any child born in 2024 is eligible to apply, but, in most cases, they must be 2 years old to begin the program — meaning if the program starts Sept. 10, then kids whose birthdays fall after that date will likely have to wait to enroll. That’s different from the city’s free 3-K and pre-K programs, which allow kids to enroll before they turn 3 and 4, respectively, as long as their birthday is by Dec. 31.

Families of kids who turn 2 later this year are still encouraged to apply now, but may receive a “pending offer” to start after their child’s birthday, according to the Education Department.

Applications are open to families anywhere in the five boroughs, but kids living in one of the five districts where the initial 2,000 seats are rolling out will get priority for seats.

Families currently using a childcare voucher or receiving another form of childcare assistance are still eligible to apply to 2-K.

Where are the new seats located?

The 2,000 seats opening in September are located in five school districts:

District 6 in Manhattan, covering Washington Heights, Inwood, and Hamilton Heights
Districts 18 and 23 in Brooklyn, covering Canarsie, Brownsville, Ocean Hill, as well as parts of East Flatbush and Prospect Lefferts Gardens
District 10 in the Bronx covering Fordham, Belmont, Norwood, Morris Heights, Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil, Van Cortlandt Village, and Kingsbridge
District 27 in Queens, covering Ozone and South Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Woodhavan, Howard Beach, and the Rockaways

The 2,000 seats are spread across a mix of 550 center- and family-based childcare providers who contract with the city.

What are the hours?

The default hours for 2-K will be 8 a.m.-6 p.m., 12 months a year. That marks a big shift from the model the city has used for 3-K and pre-K, where most seats are funded only from 8 a.m.-2:20 p.m. from September through June.

The extended day and year could save families thousands of additional dollars by erasing the costs of after-school and summer care.

Programs can still decide to offer a shorter schedule, officials have said.

Is 2-K open to students with disabilities?

Students with and without disabilities are welcome in 2-K programs, Education Department officials said.

Before the age of 3, toddlers and babies with disabilities can be identified for Early Intervention, which provides families with free services like speech and physical therapy that can take place in their preschools or at home. When students turn 3, their family can meet with a Committee on Preschool Special Education to get a recommendation for a specialized program.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NY lawmakers to give Mamdani 2-year extension to comply with NYC class size mandate

2026-06-01T21:09:51+00:00

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A widely anticipated last-minute deal will give New York City two additional years to comply with a state law to shrink classes, according to legislation introduced Monday.

And in a separate agreement between the United Federation of Teachers and the city’s Education Department announced Monday, educators will be eligible for a pay bump if their classes are above the caps, union officials said.

The 2022 state law had required the city to cap 80% of its classrooms by this fall at 20 to 25 students, depending on grade level. By the 2027-28 school year, all classes were expected to meet the mandate. Now, the city will instead have to bring 70% of its classes into compliance this school year with an additional 10% in each of the next three school years, giving the city until the 2029-30 school year to meet the mandate.

Those changes — which state, city, and union officials have been negotiating for months — are a significant part of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to balance the city’s budget. City officials banked on the delayed rollout of the law to save hundreds of millions of dollars to help close a multibillion dollar budget gap.

Mamdani’s campaign to convince state officials to give the city more time to comply represented a departure from his campaign pledge to swiftly implement the class size law, which he accused former Mayor Eric Adams of slow-walking. Mamdani voted for the law when he was a member of the state assembly.

“I am proud that our administration is implementing it in good faith,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Extending this timeline gives our schools the opportunity to reduce class sizes in a way that is sustainable and responsible.”

The city’s teachers union acknowledged Monday that the city is unlikely to reach the 70% compliance rate without relying on exemptions allowed under the law. (This school year, the city relied on thousands of exemptions to meet the 60% threshold required by law.)

“If giving this new administration two more years gets us a partner committed to building the necessary seats, then it is the fastest way to turn the law into reality,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement.

The union secured an “accountability incentive” that will put financial pressure on the city to avoid exemptions in the long run, union officials said. In cases where the city issues exemptions from the law because a building doesn’t have additional space to shrink classes or can’t hire enough staff, teachers will be eligible for additional pay.

Neither the Education Department nor the union provided a copy of the agreement. But in a email to UFT members, union officials said teachers could be eligible for up to $8,500 next school year and $9,500 the following year. The recipients of the pay bumps will be determined each November and “not every teacher whose class is out of compliance with the class size limits will receive the differential,” the email noted.

The deal is likely to renew equity concerns, as more affluent schools tend to be more crowded and stand to benefit the most from the class size law. Union officials said additional pay would be distributed to schools based on their economic need, though it was not immediately clear how that would work.

“We hope a differential will be an incentive to do the recruitment, hiring, and construction needed to fulfill the law,” Mulgrew said.

An Education Department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the incentives.

The legislation extending the deadlines to comply with the class size law was initially expected to be folded into the state budget, which was finalized last week nearly two months past the April 1 deadline, but negotiations dragged on. The legislative session ends Thursday.

Calls for transparency on city’s class size plan

Research suggests smaller class sizes tend to boost student learning and are broadly popular with families and educators. But the law would benefit relatively more affluent schools the most because they tend to be more crowded, multiple analyses have found, sparking concern from the state’s education commissioner.

City officials have argued that reaching 80% compliance this fall would have been difficult without a major influx of funding. They also expressed doubt about whether the city could recruit thousands of additional teachers.

In Mamdani’s February preliminary budget, he earmarked $547 million in new spending to lower class sizes, and officials had previously indicated they would need to hire 6,000 additional teachers. But anticipating a rollback to the class size law, Mamdani’s executive budget plan released this month included just $122 million to hire 1,000 teachers.

The mayor’s budget proposal also added $1.5 billion in capital funding, as many schools need additional space in their current buildings to shrink classes.

The Education Department has so far avoided more contentious measures to reduce classes that could avoid costs associated with building new classrooms, such as capping enrollment at popular campuses and sending students to schools with empty seats or rethinking school zones.

State Sen. John Liu, a Queens lawmaker who championed the class size law and sponsored the changes to it, said he was open to giving the city more time to comply with the law if the Education Department came up with a clear plan. On Monday, Liu said in a statement he was satisfied the city had “clear and accountable teacher recruitment and classroom construction plans.”

But neither Liu nor the city’s Education Department provided copies of those plans, and some advocates for smaller classes demanded transparency.

“Let’s see the city’s class size plan to confirm it’s not all smoke and mirrors,” Leonie Haimson, the executive director of the advocacy group Class Size Matters, said in a statement. “At the very least, the Department of Education should have to present it before the [city] council votes on the education budget and the capital plan.” The city’s budget must be finalized by the end of the month.

Asked about the class size legislation, Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters it will give the city “more breathing room to roll out the cost of it,” according to a transcript.

“This was a budget issue that the city asked the teachers for relief from,” she said.

This story has been updated with additional details about pay bumps that were sent to union members Monday afternoon.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Help us investigate: Where do you see waste in NYC’s $45 billion school budget?

2026-05-29T17:59:28+00:00

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In Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s quest to trim spending from New York City’s massive municipal budget, there’s no bigger target than the Education Department.

The department’s nearly $45 billion budget is the largest of any agency by far, making up roughly a third of the city’s entire budget.

The city schools budget has even become a national talking point for critics of Mamdani. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently said if he ran his company like New York City ran its schools, it would mean charging customers a $100 fee while taking six weeks to deliver a package.

Now, as Mamdani doubles down on his waste-trimming efforts with a new Commission on Government Efficiency, Chalkbeat wants to better understand what the Education Department’s massive budget looks like to the people working in and attending the system every day, and where you see the biggest potential savings.

The size and complexity of the budget is difficult to comprehend. It covers everything from staff and supplies at roughly 1,600 district schools as well as the educations of hundreds of thousands of students in charter and private schools and childcare centers. It spends billions on transportation, food, and maintenance.

So far, Mamdani’s biggest cost-cutting plan for the Education Department comes from hundreds of millions in expected savings from delayed implementation of the state’s class size law. He’s also pledged to trim spending on students with disabilities attending private schools. City officials are counting on $100 million in savings from “improved financial controls” and tens of millions more from consolidating or eliminating unnecessary contracts, according to budget documents.

Chalkbeat wants to hear from you, since where you see the biggest spending inefficiencies could look very different depending on your role in the system.

For parents and students, what are the programs and materials at your school that feel least useful? For teachers and school staff, are boxes of new textbooks or laptops gathering dust? For administrators, are there projects, materials or contracts whose costs seem too high? And if you’re involved in larger contracts or spending decisions, are there instances where the city is paying for duplicate services, or contracting out tasks it could do in-house for cheaper?

By getting a ground-level view of Education Department spending, Chalkbeat hopes to help create a clearer picture of where the city’s money goes, and we need your help in piecing that image together.

Please fill out the form below. If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

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Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani launches NYC elementary school math curriculum overhaul, following in Adams’ footsteps

2026-05-22T00:36:42+00:00

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New York City will soon require elementary schools in four local districts to use city-approved math curriculums, one of the first education initiatives under Mayor Zohran Mamdani outside of early childhood.

The announcement Thursday marks the first time elementary school math teachers will be required to shift their instruction as part of the city’s broader curriculum mandate. Schools in Manhattan District 5, Bronx Districts 11 and 12, and Queens District 25 will be required to make the shift by this fall.

Elementary schools across all of the city’s 32 local districts will eventually be required to use approved math curriculums, though officials did not lay out a timeline. Officials also revealed the latest wave of middle schools that will be required to use approved reading and math curriculums.

The new elementary school curriculum mandate will use versions of the same curriculums the city mandated in middle schools.

The $17.3 million effort represents an expansion of a major initiative to overhaul reading and math instruction that began under former Mayor Eric Adams and which Mamdani signaled he would continue on the campaign trail. The mayor has yet to unveil a more detailed education agenda.

School leaders have long been allowed to choose their own materials, leading to variation in instructional approaches from school to school. On some campuses, teachers write their own curriculums. City officials argue that created uneven quality in instruction and complicated efforts to train teachers at scale. Now, Education Department leaders contend they are ensuring schools are using materials that are rigorous.

Chancellor Kamar Samuels, who got his start as a middle school math teacher, has hinted for months that changes were on the horizon to the city’s curriculum overhauls, known as NYC Reads and NYC Solves.

“We absolutely need to get elementary school math teachers into the conversation,” Samuels told educators affiliated with the advocacy group Educators for Excellence, at a meeting in March where they pressed him on expanding the curriculum overhaul. “Undergirding our system is a lot of fear in math.”

The Education Department has previously pointed to standardized test scores as a reason to rethink the way schools teach reading and math. Roughly 57% of New York City public school students were considered proficient in math and 56% in reading in grades 3-8, according to last year’s state tests.

Curriculum overhauls have sparked debate

Some educators and parents have embraced the curriculum changes while others have pushed back, arguing that a one-size-fits-all approach can stifle innovative approaches to instruction that attract families to their schools.

There have also been complaints about the specific curriculums city officials have mandated and concern that there hasn’t been enough public input in selecting them. The city’s most widely used reading program, for instance, favors excerpts over whole books.

The city’s teachers union, which supported the reading curriculum mandate, has been more wary of the math changes and criticized the decision to make changes to elementary school math.

“The DOE has not solved the problems of NYC Solves,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement. “Changes that educators have called for from the beginning have not been made, and the holes in the curricula have not been filled.”

All middle schools are in the process of transitioning to approved reading and math curriculums, which officials previously said would happen by fall 2027. High schools are already required to use a common Algebra 1 curriculum called Illustrative Mathematics, which has garnered mixed reactions from teachers. Beginning this fall, elementary schools in District 5 will use i-Ready Mathematics Classroom; Districts 11 and 12 will use Illustrative Mathematics; and District 25 will use Amplify Desmos Mathematics.

The decision to approve i-Ready as the primary math curriculum across many elementary and middle schools may raise eyebrows. The private equity-backed education technology platform, widely used in New York City and across the country, has faced criticism from some families and educators amid a wider backlash over tech in schools.

Asked about potential concerns with selecting i-Ready, First Deputy Chancellor Danielle Giunta said that “has not [been] flagged as an implication to the core program and implementation, but should something arise, we will respond accordingly.”

Unlike the elementary school reading changes, which were made in part because hundreds of schools used curriculums that were discredited, Giunta said the math overhaul was prompted by successful rollout of common curriculum materials in other parts of the system. “There is so much energy from our superintendents, our principals,” she said.

Officials are also considering expanding the curriculum mandate to include high school English classes, Giunta said, though there is not yet a timeline for that. For now, city officials are focusing on beefing up targeted instruction for students who are behind in reading in four of the city’s 11 high school districts.

Questions resurface about parent engagement

Some parent leaders said they were unaware elementary school math curriculum changes were in the works, despite promises from Mamdani to incorporate parent and educator feedback in education policy decisions. One member of the community education council in Manhattan’s District 5, which includes Harlem, said they had not been consulted about the elementary school math curriculum changes. (The council member spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions.)

Jonathan Collins, another District 5 parent and member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, said he had also not heard community discussion about elementary school math overhaul.

“I think there are questions as to whether or not this engagement process really reached the street level,” Collins said. Still, he said is “cautiously optimistic” about the elementary school math changes.

Advocates who have pushed the city to require more schools to adopt common curriculum materials cheered the move to expand to elementary school math.

Elementary school math instruction is “fractured and fragmented across the system,” said Evan Stone, the CEO of Educators for Excellence. He added: “If we actually want to build coherence in a system, we need to be training teachers on a core set of curriculum materials.”

Thursday’s announcement also included expansions to reading and math mandates at the middle school level in a slew of districts, which have been incrementally rolling out over multiple years. Manhattan District 2 and Brooklyn District 18 will use the Wit & Wisdom reading curriculum.

Middle schools in the following districts will be required to use a city-approved math curriculum: Manhattan District 3; Bronx District 9; Brooklyn Districts 16, 21, 22, and 23; and Queens Districts 24, 27, 28, and 30. Officials did not respond to a question about which curriculums those districts will use.

Educators and families: Let us know what you think of the curriculum changes by emailing us at ny.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Albany budget deal gives Mamdani 2-year mayoral control extension, boosts funding for needy students

2026-05-20T20:04:12+00:00

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani will maintain control of the nation’s largest school system for the next two years under state legislation unveiled on Wednesday.

And the state will boost funding for homeless students, those in foster care, and English language learners, sending $143 million more to New York City’s public schools.

Those measures are part of the state budget, which is seven weeks late. The agreement, reached between Gov. Kathy Hochul and the leaders of the state Senate and Assembly, is expected to win approval from state lawmakers.

Here’s what we know so far about the budget deal.

Extending mayoral control, no strings attached

Mamdani will retain control of New York City’s public schools through June 2028, less than the four-year extension the mayor and Hochul pushed for. The governance system gives the mayor power to pick the majority of the school board, appoint the school system’s leader, and set the policy direction of the district.

The extension did not come with any tweaks to the city’s school board to shift the balance of power away from the mayor — a break from prior budget deals. Previously, state lawmakers added board members who represent parents and limited the mayor’s power to remove his own appointees, among other changes. (The mayor still appoints a majority of the board.)

Extending the status quo is notable because Mamdani campaigned on overhauling mayoral control to give families and educators more power, but he backtracked just before taking office and has since lobbied state lawmakers to keep the system in place.

Mayoral control is often treated as a bargaining chip in negotiations between the mayor and Albany, and the two-year extension means Mamdani will have to persuade state lawmakers to extend his power halfway through his first term. That will give lawmakers an opportunity to examine the mayor’s education agenda, which has yet to come into focus.

“We did not really hear anything on the campaign, and we’re still not hearing anything now” on the mayor’s K-12 education priorities, said NeQuan McLean, the president of the Community Education Council in Brooklyn District 16.

McLean said he hoped for changes to mayoral control, including giving local education councils more of a say in school mergers, closures, and decisions to open new campuses. “This has been one of the most disappointing sessions that I’ve seen,” he said.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the city teachers union and mayoral control critic, hopes the state makes changes to the system in the future.

“Over the next two years, we will continue to work with Mayor Mamdani and the members of the state legislature to try to find ways to bring more parent and educator voices into policy decisions,” he said in a statement.

More money for high-need students

Updates to how the state doles out public school funding will mean more money for districts that enroll children with higher needs. Officials are adding new weights to Foundation Aid, the state’s main school funding formula, that will increase funding based on the number of students who live in temporary housing and are in foster care. It is also boosting an existing weight for English learners.

That is expected to generate the $143 million in additional state funding for New York City public schools, where more than 154,000 children do not have permanent housing and about 1 in 6 are learning English as a new language.

Overall, the state is planning to send New York City nearly $11 billion through the Foundation Aid formula, an increase of 5% or nearly $538 million.

“We appreciate that the education budget includes long overdue updates to the State’s education funding formula, which has remained largely unchanged for almost two decades,” said Maria Odom, executive director of Advocates for Children of New York, which pushed for more funding for students with greater needs.

Still, the budget deal does not include another change advocates hoped for: an update in how state officials calculate costs in New York City, which has not been changed in decades. Tweaks in last year’s budget deal resulted in the city’s public schools receiving $314 million less from the state than it might have, though the city still received more funding overall.

Budget deal includes other education measures

State officials will soon start nudging school districts to adopt “best practices” in elementary school math instruction that will be determined by the state’s education commissioner. By September 2027, school districts will have to verify that their approaches to K-5 math instruction meet those practices and are part of an “aligned plan designed to improve student mathematics outcomes.”

New York City’s Education Department is already in the process of revamping middle school math instruction and has standardized its Algebra 1 high school curriculum, but has yet to make significant changes to elementary school math coursework.

State lawmakers also extended the deadline for a state mandate to transition to electric school buses.

Changes to class size law up in the air

State officials have been considering a delay to a major state mandate that requires New York City to cap class sizes to between 20 to 25 students depending on the grade level.

Mamdani has banked on the timeline change to help save hundreds of millions of dollars in the short term as the city faced a multi-billion dollar budget gap. State officials have yet to formally approve any changes to the class size law, which was passed in 2022 and must be fully phased in over the next two years.

“Negotiations continue and may result in legislation in the next couple of weeks,” state Sen. John Liu, an architect of the class size law, said in a Wednesday press release.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC preschool offers flat despite Mamdani push to expand enrollment

2026-05-19T19:24:25+00:00

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The number of New York City families receiving offers to public preschool programs remained flat this year, despite a major push from Mayor Zohran Mamdani to increase outreach and expand the program.

A total of 99,921 students received an offer for the city’s preschool programs serving 3- and 4-year-olds, Mamdani announced Tuesday, the same day offers were released. That’s 68 fewer than last year.

Early childhood education is a centerpiece of Mamdani’s agenda, and the mayor launched a campaign to persuade families to sign up for the city’s free preschool programs, yet the same percentage of eligible families applied to preschool programs compared with last year.

Mamdani acknowledged Tuesday that the administration struggled to boost applications, which he partly blamed on former Mayor Eric Adams leaving behind a “bare bones” outreach operation. He also cited decreased migration to the city, fear of using city services in immigrant communities, and confusion about the availability of seats.

Still, Mamdani pointed to some bright spots. About 70% of families received their top choice for 3-K, the city’s preschool programs for 3 year olds, up from 65% the year before. About 12% of families were placed in a program they didn’t list on their applications, down from 15% the prior year. And the average distance families will have to travel to reach their program is declining.

“For so many parents, it’s not going to be the ad that you see on a LinkNYC kiosk or in the back of a taxicab,” that will prompt families to apply, Mamdani said. Instead, he’s banking on word of mouth from families who get access to seats closer to home. “That’s how we’re going to start to win people in the years to come,” said the mayor, who was flanked by Gov. Kathy Hochul at a press conference outside a preschool in Jackson Heights, Queens.

The Education Department has struggled for years to meet surging demand in some neighborhoods while facing a glut of empty seats in others. On Monday, city officials announced plans to add 2,000 3-K seats this fall, about double the number previously announced, and have sought to bring several empty facilities online. Roughly 700 of those 2,000 seats were added after the application deadline, and caregivers can join waitlists for those seats using the city’s MySchools portal.

Mamdani won office by emphasizing the city’s high cost of living and his signature promise is a free child care program for 2 year olds, which will begin rolling out this September with 2,000 seats. The latest preschool numbers show that there may be limits to the demand for early childhood programs, especially as the city grapples with falling birth rates and high housing costs.

Hochul said she hopes the state’s investment in early childhood programs can help buck some of those trends.

“When we fully implement our vision for universal childcare across New York City and the state, we are now in a very competitive position to recruit individuals who otherwise might have said, ‘No, I can’t afford to live in New York,’” she said.

Rebecca Bailin, executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care, said she is already hearing from families who are thrilled to have offers to programs close to home. She’s hopeful Mamdani’s efforts to invest in early childhood programs will prompt more families to apply in future years.

“Anecodtally, this is night and day,” said Bailin, noting her advocacy group formed to resist preschool funding cuts under Adams. “We have an elected leader who has made this one of his top priorities.”

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani expected to secure 2-year mayoral control extension and class-size delay in state budget

2026-05-15T02:14:06+00:00

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to win a two-year extension of mayoral control from state lawmakers as well as a delay in implementing the class size mandate as part of Albany’s final budget, according to multiple media reports Thursday.

Mamdani had been lobbying alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul for a four-year extension of the city’s school governance model — despite declaring his opposition to mayoral control on the campaign trail. Just before his inauguration, he walked back his views on mayoral control, though he still pledged to make the system more democratic and responsive to families and educators.

Lawmakers have often made tweaks to mayoral control when they’ve extended it over the past two decades. It’s not clear yet if or how lawmakers might change the governance structure that empowers the mayor to unilaterally appoint the schools chancellor, select a majority of the city’s school board, and generally set the policy direction of the nation’s largest school district.

Mayoral control is set to sunset on June 30.

Hochul suggested last week at a press conference that a two-year extension was on the table. State Sen. John Liu, of Queens, seemed to confirm the likely deal on mayoral control, which was first reported in Politico.

“A two year extension of mayoral control is the right thing to do, to give this new mayor a chance to deliver results for our public schools, and to pass it as part of the state budget given that there will remain less than two weeks of the legislative session once the budget is finally passed,” Liu said in a statement.

Liu, an architect of the class size law, also has said he’s open to changes to the mandate since Mamdani took office.

“The Mamdani administration also deserves an extended timeframe for reducing class sizes given that despite inheriting a difficult circumstance, the mayor steadfastly committed to achieving full compliance and has presented a clear plan towards that end,” Liu said.

While running for mayor, Mamdani vowed to support the state’s law to reduce the city’s class sizes. Though Mamdani voiced his continued commitment to shrinking classes, he supported changing the timeline from requiring all classes meet the caps of 20 to 25 students, depending on the grade, from the 2027-28 school year to the 2030-31 school year.

Though the state’s budget is delayed, with its 12th extension signed on Thursday, Mamdani previewed his executive budget earlier this week and already anticipated the state will approve a delay implementing the class size law.

Mamdani’s executive budget proposal released this week also anticipates changes to state law, that have not yet been made official, to save money that would have otherwise been spent next school year on class size reductions. His latest budget proposal included $122 million to hire 1,000 educators. That was down from the preliminary budget he unveiled in February that called for $543 million. Officials previously said they would need to hire 6,000 educators to comply with the law.

At the same time, his budget added $1.5 billion in capital funding for the School Construction Authority to help the city comply with the class size mandate.

“Make no mistake: We are fully committed to fulfilling the state mandate in a meaningful way on a realistic timeline that New Yorkers can actually trust,” Mamdani said on Tuesday.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani scales back promise for swifter class size reductions, anticipating state to delay law

2026-05-12T23:53:34+00:00

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After issuing dire warnings about a multi-billion budget gap, Mayor Zohran Mamdani expects to save hundreds of millions from a pending deal to delay a state mandate to reduce New York City’s class sizes.

Mamdani’s preliminary budget in February included $543 million anticipating a hiring spree of about 6,000 teachers. On Tuesday, his executive budget proposal earmarked $122 million to hire 1,000 educators.

“We have asked Albany to extend the deadline to meet this mandate,” Mamdani said. “It will allow us to implement an achievable plan that better serves both our students and our teachers.”

The move marks a major reversal from his pledge on the campaign trail to swiftly reduce class sizes.

The mayor’s latest budget proposal includes other new details about his spending priorities for the nation’s largest school district. He vowed to address the ballooning costs to the Education Department of private special education services “head on.” And he also revealed plans to boost wages of some early childhood education workers.

Still, several education programs are on track to run out of funding this summer that were not included in the mayor’s budget.

Here are four key takeaways from the mayor’s budget proposal, which is subject to negotiations with the City Council. A final deal is expected by July 1.

Plugging the city’s budget deficit hinges on a delay to the class size law

Mamdani has long supported state’s class size law capping classrooms at 20 to 25 students depending on the grade level. Though he plans to slash his initial teacher hiring pot of money, he indicated on Tuesday that he is adding $1.5 billion in capital funding for the School Construction Authority to help the city comply with the class size mandate.

“Make no mistake: We are fully committed to fulfilling the state mandate in a meaningful way on a realistic timeline that New Yorkers can actually trust,” Mamdani said.

But meeting next school year’s goal — of having 80% of classrooms comply with the law — would be a major challenge, education officials previously warned. Many schools don’t have enough space to shrink classes and finding thousands of new teachers remains a hurdle. Officials have been reluctant to pursue other solutions such as restricting enrollment at crowded campuses.

State Sen. John Liu, an architect of the law, said he expects the legislature to tweak the policy as part of the state’s forthcoming budget. Instead of requiring that 80% of classrooms comply, the state would mandate 70%, with the expectation that all classrooms would meet the caps over the next two or three years.

Even that could pose a strain: This year, the city only surpassed its 60% target after issuing exemptions for thousands of classrooms.

“The intent is to see 100% compliance by the end of this mayor’s first term,” Liu told Chalkbeat on Tuesday, noting that he is confident those changes will come in the state budget, now more than a month overdue. “Mayor Mamdani has made clear he’s committed to 100% compliance.”

City officials say they’re getting serious about private special education costs

Mamdani said he would take on the growing cost in the Education Department’s budget of private services for students with disabilities, vowing to beef up public programs and save $149 million in the process.

The city’s Education Department now spends well over $1 billion — or roughly $1 out of every $40 in its budget — on private special education services.

A majority of that cost is private school tuition and support for families who contend the city can’t serve their children in a public school. Those families are overwhelmingly white, a recent Chalkbeat analysis found. Mamdani said the city is investing in more public programs to lure them back into the system. Budget documents show the city is spending $67 million next year in new funding for preschool special education, a chronic shortage area.

Another big chunk comes from families in private schools who never considered a public school but nonetheless have a right to tutoring, speech therapy, and other services financed by the city. The city is planning to spend $86 million to shore up its ability to provide those services directly rather than relying on private providers, budget documents show.

“We are investing in special education services across the five boroughs so that families can get the support they need inside the public school system,” the mayor said. “That means better outcomes for families, fewer unnecessary lawsuits, and long-term savings for our city.”

Previous administrations have made similar promises, and costs have continued to rise.

More money for early childhood education

Mamdani’s budget announcement includes more than $100 million in new early childhood spending. The city is committing $40 million to provide a roughly 2% across-the-board raise for workers at community organizations contracting with the city Education Department for programs like 3-K and prekindergarten.

Those organizations have been locked in the same contract without pay increases since 2021. Their contracts were set to expire this year, but officials announced a two-year extension. The $40 million will ensure workers see a modest pay bump while the new contracts are crafted.

The money will also provide larger pay increases for non-unionized workers to bring them up to par with staffers who are part of a labor union, said Nora Moran, the director of policy and advocacy at United Neighborhood Houses, an umbrella organization for early childhood providers.

“The Mayor has clearly listened to feedback from parents, educators, and advocates,” Moran said in a statement.

The budget also adds $67 million to fund preschool special education seats, an area where the city has historically fallen short. Another $2 million will fund a fledgling free childcare program for municipal workers.

Funding for other education programs is in limbo

The mayor’s latest proposal restored $31 million in funding for Learning to Work, a program that pays for internships, social workers, and guidance counselors for students at risk of dropping out. The program has routinely faced the possibility of budget cuts each year only for funding to be restored at the last minute. Now, City Hall is vowing to guarantee funding in future years.

But other programs remain on the chopping block.

Students and advocates rallied in March outside the Education Department's headquarters to save the Learning to Work program.

Mamdani’s budget does not include $12 million for a wraparound program for students with disabilities who have sensory issues that interfere with school performance. Nor does it include $6 million for restorative justice, a conflict resolution approach that prioritizes talking through problems rather than punitive discipline.

A $5 million mental health initiative that provides students with faster access to counseling and other support at about 50 high-need schools also remains in limbo, though it has been restored in prior years during negotiations with City Council.

“Students, families, educators, and providers want assurance that they can continue relying on these programs in future years,” the Coalition for Equitable Education Funding, which represents over 120 organizations, said in a statement.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Advocates call for $3 million fix for school transportation hurdles faced by students in foster care

2026-04-30T19:23:57+00:00

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It took years of advocacy to secure guaranteed school bus service for New York City students in foster care.

But now, advocates say it can take weeks or more to get that bus service up and running, leaving kids who are already among the most vulnerable in the city with few good options to get to school while they wait.

That’s why they’re calling on city officials to invest $3 million in this year’s budget to come up with a better system to transport kids in foster care while they await bus service.

“At this challenging time in their lives, students should be able to rely on continuous, consistent access to school as a critical source of stability,” the nonprofit Advocates for Children, along with 24 other groups who work with foster youth, wrote in a Tuesday letter to Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Students in foster care see some of the worst educational outcomes of any student group, with a graduation rate of just 41% last year, and 55% marked chronically absent.

Students in foster care have a legal right to transportation so that they can remain in their school if they move to another part of the city. But for years, the city Education Department used a combination of school bus service and MetroCards to meet that obligation, spurring protests from foster care agencies who said they couldn’t send students to school alone on public transit. A policy of reimbursing agencies for rideshare services posed a similar problem, since students often need chaperones.

The situation improved in recent years after the Education Department launched a dedicated office to oversee education for foster youth. That office helps ensure students are matched to a bus route as quickly as possible and troubleshoots problems.

Even with those improvements, advocates say it can take “weeks or even months” for bus service to start. In the meantime, students can use a rideshare service and request reimbursement. After 10 days, they become eligible for a rideshare program prepaid by the Education Department.

Both those options still require foster parents to accompany kids to school, “a task that is often impossible for foster parents with jobs or other children in the home who attend schools in different communities,” advocates said.

They’re instead proposing alternatives that would allow kids to get to school safely on their own for free. One idea is using vehicles owned by the Administration for Children’s Services, the city’s child welfare agency. Another is contracting with a car service that vets drivers — like Kid Car, which already operates in New York City, or HopSkipDrive, which works with Los Angeles public schools — so that kids don’t need to be accompanied by a chaperone. The city could also hire aides to travel with students, or launch a new transportation service, advocates suggested.

If all else fails, officials could reimburse travel costs for chaperones (whose expenses aren’t covered currently) and raise the cap on daily reimbursements, the letter suggests.

Education Department spokesperson Dominique Ellison pointed to the new office overseeing education for foster youth, and said the agency is trying to “continuously improve our processes.”

“We thank our advocate partners for their ongoing advocacy and attention to students in foster care and we look forward to reviewing their recommendations,” she added.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Mamdani needs home-based childcare providers for 2-K. Can he get them to sign up?

2026-04-28T20:16:00+00:00

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Melissa Reed is the type of childcare provider that Mayor Zohran Mamdani will rely on in his ambitious effort to offer free care to 2-year-olds.

Reed runs a daycare out of her home in Brownsville, Brooklyn — one of four high-needs neighborhoods Mamdani is prioritizing to participate in the inaugural year of “2-K,” set to launch in September with 2,000 seats.

Home-based providers like Reed were largely left out of the city’s free childcare programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, but Mamdani has pledged a more inclusive approach for 2-K. And the city can ill-afford to exclude family childcare providers from 2-K, since the youngest kids are more likely to be enrolled in home-based programs.

Reed has open seats and is interested in joining 2-K. She isn’t eligible, however, because of a little-known bureaucratic requirement that could hamper the city’s efforts to bring home-based providers on board.

How Mamdani’s administration navigates the challenge of recruiting providers like Reed could shape how effectively it stands up the ambitious 2-K program.

In order to contract with the city’s Education Department, home-based childcare operators must be part of a “Family Child Care Network” — a city-funded entity that serves as a middleman between the Education Department and home-based daycare operators. The networks, which are often run by larger childcare providers, handle payment disbursement and enrollment, monitor programs to ensure they meet safety and educational standards, and offer additional support like social workers and professional development.

Currently, only about 20% of the city’s roughly 6,500 home-based daycare operators are part of a network, according to a recent report from The New School.

Some providers want to join a network, but can’t find a spot because many are at capacity, several network operators said. Others, including Reed, are deeply skeptical of joining a network. They’re worried about incurring additional costs, giving up some of their independence, and operating under new restrictions that could make their programs less appealing to families.

“I don’t really have a lot of faith or trust in the networks,” Reed said.

The distrust among some providers is so profound that they’ve taken to calling themselves “never-networkers,” said Tammie Miller, the chapter leader at the United Federation of Teachers representing home-based providers.

While getting 2,000 seats online by the fall may be manageable, meeting Mamdani’s pledge to add 10,000 2-K seats next year and have seats for all of the city’s 2-year-olds by the end of his first term could become “practically impossible” without adjusting the network requirement, Miller said.

“It’s also leaving experienced providers on the sidelines who are more than capable of serving this population, who serve it already,” she said.

Networks help Education Department monitor an unwieldy system

Providers and experts said the concept of the network dates back decades, but took its current form in 2019 when the Education Department assumed control of all of the city’s contracted childcare programs for kids ages 0-5.

In programs like 3-K that rely on scores of individual private childcare providers to contract with the city, the Education Department doesn’t have the manpower to train, oversee, and support that many small programs itself, experts and former officials said. The networks allow the city Education Department to outsource that work.

Proponents of the system say it offers clear advantages for the city, for providers, and for families.

“If you’re in a network, you’re getting visits once a month from your coach, you get one visit a month from a health and safety monitor … somebody is coming to that home at least once a week,” said Emilie Gay, a veteran childcare provider and executive director of the Program Support Family Child Care Network, which oversees roughly 150 providers in Brooklyn and Queens.

“If I was a parent, I would want my child in a network program, because I know there are going to be other eyes on that program,” Gay added. (Non-network providers are also subject to inspections from the city Health Department and the state’s Office of Children and Family Services.)

Some providers said that in a good network, the added support and access to city-funded programs can be worth the added rules and responsibilities.

“Networks do help in the sense of … if I need anything, I can pick up the phone and they’re there to help me,” said Dianne Mejías, a home-based provider in South Jamaica, Queens, who is part of the Parent Support network and is hoping to get some of the initial 2,000 2-K seats this fall.

But for some providers, who have operated independently for years and already feel pushed to the brink, the idea of giving up some control over their program to an outside entity feels unthinkable.

“This has been 17 years of blood, sweat, and tears built into this, and now it feels like I have to give that up to join a 3-K or a 2-K program,” said Lashanda Fraser, a home-based daycare operator in Queens.

In addition to the added oversight, some providers say joining a network brings new expenses in a business where margins are already thin. On average, home-based childcare operators are paid just $6 an hour, the recent New School report found.

Providers said networks often require them to take out insurance policies, which can cost close to $20,000 a year with no additional financial support, and to close on days they’re in network-mandated training, causing them to potentially lose income.

Adding to some providers’ fears is a 2024 incident where, according to city officials, the Education Department issued payments to the Highbridge Advisory Council Family Services, a Bronx childcare network, but the network stopped paying providers and subsequently shut down, leaving some still fighting to get paid.

Lara Kyriakou, the policy director at All Our Kin, an organization that supports home-based providers, said there’s “a lot of variability” in providers’ experiences depending on the network.

Miller, from the teachers union, said she thinks there’s room for the city to be creative about tweaking the network system to make it more appealing for providers. She suggested tapping organizations like hers to run point on providing support. She said the city could also give providers a greater role in shaping networks so they function more like cooperatives, rather than top-down bureaucracies.

A spokesperson for the Education Department did not respond to questions about how the city is working with non-network providers, whether officials are considering any changes to the network model, or how many providers have joined networks recently.

Another looming issue: Will city contracts pay enough?

Joining a network isn’t the only question looming for home-based providers weighing whether they want to participate in the city’s 2-K program.

Some worry the program won’t pay enough to cover their basic costs.

Home-based operators have historically received far less funding through city contracts than larger centers doing the same work. The average extended-day contract for home-based providers last year paid roughly $17,000 per child, compared to more than $27,000 per child for the average center-based contract, according to city data compiled in the New School report.

Providers and network operators said they haven’t gotten a clear answer yet on how much the city will pay for 2-K contracts this year, though many welcomed the recent announcement that the default 2-K contract will run 10 hours a day, 12 months a year — rather than the shorter schedule of six hours and 20 minutes, September to June, that’s most common for 3-K and prekindergarten.

“The fact that the parents are able to get care and not have to pay for it, that’s amazing,” said Mejías, the Queens provider who has asked for 2-K seats this fall. “But how is that going to affect us?”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

NYC’s new 2-K program will offer free child care 10 hours a day, 260 days a year, Mamdani says

2026-04-09T18:40:55+00:00

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Most of the 2,000 initial seats available through Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new free child care program for 2-year-olds will run 10 hours a day, year-round, officials said Thursday.

The full-day and full-year coverage sets the 2-K program apart from the city’s 3-K and prekindergarten programs, which in most cases only cover the cost of child care for six hours and 20 minutes a day from September to June, following the K-12 school calendar.

That limited coverage forces many working families to pay out of pocket for child care in the afternoons and summer months, adding up to thousands of dollars a year.

“For too long, parents have been forced to choose between their livelihood and their children, or to drain their savings just to make it through the workday,” Mamdani said in a statement. “That ends now.”

The extended calendar means families will get 260 days a year of free child care, compared to 180 under the school year calendar.

The city is currently in the process of issuing contracts to private child care providers who will get city funding to offer the initial 2,000 2-K seats. Officials are rolling out the program in five school districts, covering areas in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx with high levels of need.

City officials are planning to open an additional 10,000 2-K seats in fall 2027, and hope to bring the program citywide by the end of Mamdani’s first mayoral term in 2030.

Applications for families open in June for children who turn 2 in 2026, and the program starts in September. But at some programs, because of health codes, children who turn 2 between the start of the program in September and the end of 2026 will have to wait until their second birthday to start.

Child care providers in the 2-K program will still have the option of offering a school year and school day calendar if that better suits their families’ needs, according to city officials, who didn’t provide an estimate on how many seats would run for limited hours.

In the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs, the vast majority of seats run for only school day and school year hours. A smaller number of seats run for extended hours, but are only open to families who qualify as low income. Those full day and full year seats have been filled at a far lower rate than the school day and school year seats, which are open to all children in the designated age group.

Officials said the cost of extended hours for the 2-K program is covered under Gov. Kathy Hochul’s commitment to fund the first two years of the rollout. They didn’t immediately say what the cost difference is between a 2-K seat that follows the school calendar and a full-year seat.

Advocates are pushing the city to make more 3-K and pre-K seats full day and full year.

“We’re closer than ever to the child care system New York families have asked for and deserve,” said Rebecca Bailin, executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care. “We’re not stopping until we get there.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

From paperwork maze to centralized tool: Mamdani launches new child care provider permitting site

2026-04-07T20:52:30+00:00

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Tuesday the launch of a new, centralized permitting tool for prospective child care providers.

Part of the administration’s broader push to expand access to care, the website replaces a “fragmented and outdated” application process that has long made it difficult for providers to open new child care centers, according to a press release.

The child care provider dashboard lets providers submit documents, centralize communication with the Health Department, schedule inspections, and track new center application status in real time. The dashboard requires a login account for each separate center application, though centers that have already been approved through the earlier licensing process will not have to register.

Previously, applicants were required to submit separate documents via snail mail or email to separate offices in the NYC Health Department, with no clear way to track progress, coordinate inspections, or receive status updates.

Developed with direct input from providers and tested by child care centers across the city before its launch, the dashboard now allows providers to turn in all of their paperwork in one spot. After submitting these applications, providers didn’t know if or when they would be approved, delaying the launch of new centers, said a spokesperson for the mayor’s office.

“Our child care providers are our first partners in the work to roll out universal child care — common-sense tools like this prioritize their needs, making our city’s child care system stronger for all,” Mamdani said in a statement.

Each center must be approved by the Department of Health through a series of licensing applications that ensure new centers are safe for children. While the health requirements that safeguard children have not changed, the site makes it easier for applicants to know what steps they need to take before opening.

Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin said removing these hurdles that delay center openings could help get more children into regulated care faster.

The website launch comes a week after the administration opened its NYC Child Care Hub for families, a search site that lets parents look up and compare more than 10,000 child care programs across the five boroughs. Together, the two new portals make up a dual strategy toward creating universal child care: helping families find care more easily while also trying to make it less burdensome for providers to enter the system.

Lisa Gelobter, the city’s chief technology officer and Office of Technology and Innovation commissioner, said the administration will continue to refine the platform based on ongoing provider feedback.

The portal launch comes as the city prepares to expand publicly funded seats, including an initial 2,000 2-K seats this fall and more than 1,000 new 3-K seats in high-demand neighborhoods. The city said the new portal aims to help grow 3-K capacity through partnerships with community- and home-based providers.

Lizzie Walsh is a Data Fellow at Chalkbeat New York. She reports on New York City education and produces data-driven stories across Chalkbeat’s national network. Contact her at ewalsh@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani campaigned on fulfilling NYC’s class size mandate. So why is he pushing for a delay?

2026-04-02T17:21:12+00:00

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On the campaign trail, Mayor Zohran Mamdani vowed to take a state mandate to slash class sizes seriously, saying it “will transform our students’ ability to learn.”

“The question of compliance has too often been a negotiation,” Mamdani said on the first day of school in September.

Now, the Mamdani administration is seeking to do just that: negotiate with lawmakers in Albany to give the city more time to comply.

Some of the class size law’s key backers, including its legislative sponsor, seem willing to play ball. State Sen. John Liu, who sponsored the class size law, said he is open to allowing the city to reach full compliance over the next four years instead of the legally required two.

A deal to extend the class size law may come as part of the state budget — and lawmakers could use it as leverage as they simultaneously debate whether to extend Mamdani’s control of the school system, which expires at the end of June. (The state budget, which was due Wednesday, is delayed, and it’s unclear exactly when it will be finalized.)

On the campaign trail, Mamdani said it was “critical” to deliver smaller classes across the system. Here’s why as mayor he’s now pushing for an extension on the class size law.

Next year’s class size reduction target may be all but impossible

Under the law, 80% of the city’s public school classrooms must not exceed 20-25 students (depending on the grade level) by this coming school year. All schools must meet the caps by the 2027-28 school year. That goal may be out of reach: Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels recently told City Council members it would be “very difficult” to hit 80% compliance by September.

The city was only able to hit this year’s 60% benchmark by exempting thousands of classes from the law, despite spending hundreds of millions hiring more teachers and helping schools reconfigure space.

Failing to meet the benchmarks has big consequences. The law includes a provision that calls for hundreds of millions in state funding cuts if the city does not comply. Even the law’s biggest supporters, however, likely want to avoid that outcome.

A delay gives Mamdani some (temporary) budget relief

Mamdani is looking for all the savings he can to close a $5.4 billion budget gap by the city’s July 1 budget deadline. The mayor is banking on a delay of the class size law to help balance the city’s budget, the New York Times reported last week. (A City Hall spokesperson did not respond to questions about the mayor’s push for a delay.)

But having more time to comply with the law might only bring a temporary reprieve. Liu has floated requiring the city to bring 70% of classrooms into compliance this coming September — instead of 80% — with an additional 10% in each of the three following school years.

The state lawmaker pushed back against any move by the Mamdani administration to use the delay to save money.

“Adjustments in the timeline are not meant to provide fiscal relief,” Liu told Chalkbeat, noting that any extension is contingent on the city submitting more detailed plans about how they plan to comply with the law. The Mamdani administration deserves more time to comply because the city is “behind the curve due to the inactions of the previous administration,” Liu added.

The city’s teachers union, a key backer of the class size mandate, said they want to see a clearer plan from the Education Department to build more classroom space before supporting changes to the law. “Only when a real plan and a clear timeline are in place — not the usual School Construction [Authority] smoke and mirrors — would we have the information necessary to consider whether any amendments are needed,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement.

The mayor’s preliminary budget includes $543 million in additional city funding to reduce class sizes next fiscal year and $943 million in each of the three fiscal years after that — spending that could be pushed back if the legislature changes the timeline for implementing class size reductions. (City officials have previously projected the cost of fully implementing the law could be up to $1.7 billion a year for additional teachers with billions more in school construction costs on top of that.)

In its response to Mamdani’s preliminary budget, City Council indicated the city should convince state lawmakers to pony up for funding to comply with the law, relieving the city of some costs. The state assembly proposed sending the city $600 million to shrink classes, but it’s unclear if that will be included in the final state budget deal.

But in the mayor’s response criticizing the City Council’s plan, he accused them of seeking a delay to the class size law as their sole request from Albany — an ask that does not appear in the council’s budget proposal. Some observers noted that it’s a bizarre critique coming from Mamdani.

“Isn’t [Mamdani] also asking the state for more time to lower class size?” Leonie Haimson, the executive director of the advocacy group Class Size Matters, wrote on X.

A Mamdani spokesperson did not respond to questions about his false characterization of the council’s budget response.

City may want more time to come up with a comprehensive plan to shrink classes

Some of the law’s backers have urged the city to come up with more aggressive plans to build new classrooms for crowded schools that don’t have room to comply with the law.

But there are other solutions the city could use in some cases that would be far less expensive and take advantage of empty seats elsewhere: capping enrollment on crowded campuses or rezonings.

Samuels has also signaled he wants to prioritize using the city’s existing buildings before turning to school construction, though moves to cap enrollment on popular campuses would likely face pushback from families.

“The time in theory gives [Mamdani] the opportunity to get creative about space utilization [and] enrollment,” said Jonathan Collins, a political science and education professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and a member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy.

A delay could also give the city more time to grapple with one of the law’s core equity challenges: It requires significant new spending at relatively more affluent schools, where class sizes tend to be bigger, while more high-poverty schools already meet the caps.

A recent report from the Urban Institute, a think tank, found that the city’s lowest-poverty schools have received more funding to reduce class sizes than the city’s highest-poverty schools.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani rolls out first-ever citywide directory for NYC child care options

2026-04-01T22:16:36+00:00

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New York City families now have a one-stop-shop to search all available child care options in the five boroughs, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Wednesday.

The NYC Child Care Hub is the city’s first-ever comprehensive directory. It includes detailed information on over 10,000 private, community, and city-run child care programs. Families can find health and safety inspection records, walking and transit directions, and cost and contact information for each center. It also offers tips on questions families should ask child care providers.

“Too often, parents in this city have been forced to rely on information they can only find from one set of friends or another, this Facebook group or that — they have been made to feel as if they have to jump through a certain number of hoops in order to know where their options even are,” said Mamdani at the announcement. “This will make it easier for parents to understand the options in front of them.”

The directory brings together information that had previously required separate searches: free preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds run by the city’s Education Department (and follow the school-year hours and calendar), home-based care that is overseen by the state’s Office of Children and Family Services, and center-based care licensed through the city’s Health Department.

The tool comes a month after Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the launch of 2,000 2-K seats opening this fall. It will be helpful to close the knowledge and access gap as the city gears up to announce the locations for its first wave of free 2-K seats, which will largely rely on the existing network of home-based providers, officials have said.

Through the tool’s lookup map, families can type in their address and filter by their child’s birth date and their preferred provider type.The platform also includes financial resources, with details on the Cash Assistance or Child Care in Lieu of Cash Assistance programs administered by the city’s Human Resources Administration.

One-on-one, personalized guidance is also available. Parents with additional questions about navigating child care applications or the directory can call the Hub helpline between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. at 1-888-469-5999 or fill out a contact form for phone or email support. Both the Hub and individualized support are available in multiple languages.

The site was developed in partnership with families and advocacy organizations to ensure it meets the needs of New York City families. The city will continue to update child care listings as new options become available, Mamdani said.

Last October, the United Federation of Teachers launched its own child care lookup site that allows families to search providers by ZIP code. The city’s tool, while similar, also offers an interactive questionnaire that helps families filter by specific needs such as child age, day of week and time needed, and preferred center type.

“We hear all the time from families who say they didn’t know they were qualified for 3-K or they didn’t know there was a center near them. Now parents will know that they have options,” said Kellen Calder, parent and organizer with New Yorkers United for Child Care, at the announcement.

Mamdani ordered hundreds of millions in cuts to NYC Education Dept. Officials trimmed $58 million so far.

2026-03-25T21:47:46+00:00

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As part of his vow to close a multi-billion dollar budget gap, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Wednesday an initial wave of spending cuts to New York City’s Education Department.

But the reductions represent a tiny fraction of what the mayor ordered the agency, along with others, to trim. Officials said they’re still combing through proposals to determine which cuts to approve.

The Education Department’s central offices are expected to rein in spending on supplies, professional development, and travel — adding up to $27.5 million this school year. Next school year, the city will “terminate underutilized contracts” and “implement spending caps” to save $30.3 million.

Overall, the Education Department is expected to find hundreds of millions in savings across this school year and next school year.

In an executive order issued earlier this year, Mamdani charged city agencies with appointing a chief savings officer to identify 1.5% in spending trims this fiscal year and 2.5% next fiscal year. Each savings officer was supposed to issue a public report March 20 laying out a plan for cuts. Spokespeople for Mamdani and the Education Department declined to release the agency’s plan, which was developed by Michael Cheatham, an acting deputy chancellor who oversees finance and is the department’s current savings officer.

A City Hall spokesperson said the Education Department would be expected to cut from the city’s contribution to the agency’s budget, which includes state, city, and federal funding. In total, that suggests the Education Department could be expected to cut over $800 million. Officials did not confirm an exact dollar amount figure the agency has been asked to cut.

“We’re only getting pieces of information,” said Ana Champeny, the vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog group. “They chose to release a very small subset of reductions that they say they’ve vetted so far.”

Education Department spokespeople declined to share which specific contracts are being cut, but said they reflect duplicative technology and software deals, consulting services that are no longer needed or can be offered internally, and certain administrative services.

City Hall announced more than $230 million in cuts across city agencies on Wednesday; officials said they are reviewing agency plans to cut $1.7 billion.

“Government must deliver for working people — and every dollar in our budget must work as hard as they do,” Mamdani said in a statement. “This is just the beginning of our work to improve service delivery and make city government the most efficient it can be.”

As the city’s largest agency, the Education Department is often a target for politicians who want to find efficiencies in city government. But finding cuts that don’t disrupt school programs is often easier said than done. Zeroing out funding for central staff and superintendent offices, for instance, would save about 1.2% of the agency’s budget.

“The mayor is clear that vital services need to be protected,” schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said during a City Council hearing earlier this week. “We are cognizant of not impacting schools.”

On the campaign trail, Mamdani vowed to deploy a DOGE-style program to root out waste in the city’s public schools and “overhaul procurement infrastructure across the DOE.”

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Will NYC school budgets take a hit next year? Education Department officials are mum.

2026-03-23T22:26:39+00:00

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During a City Council hearing about Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed budget for New York City’s public schools, one question came up again and again: Will school budgets take a hit next year?

It’s a question Education Department officials repeatedly sidestepped — but the answer may influence the fate of Mamdani’s first budget plan.

“There are not many individual issues that we will discuss at any of these hearings that impact our collective vote on the entire $127 billion dollar budget — that’s how important this is,” Brooklyn City Council member Lincoln Restler said during the budget hearing on Monday. “I really want to make sure we’re not in a situation where we’re seeing school budgets a day before the vote.”

As K-12 enrollment in the nation’s largest school system plunged nearly 10% over the past six years, dropping below 800,000, city officials spent $1.6 billion propping up budgets. That money staved off cuts that would typically have been automatic since school funding is typically tied to student headcount. But officials were reluctant to slash budgets while schools were scrambling to catch up students in the wake of the pandemic and the system had billions in one-time federal relief money at its disposal.

As the pandemic receded and federal funding dried up, however, it became difficult to change course. The Education Department kept school budgets relatively stable even as enrollment ticked down. This year, schools received over $388 million in various forms of relief to offset lower enrollment, the largest single-year sum since the pandemic hit.

Whether to keep school budgets steady and hold them “harmless” for enrollment declines is a politically tricky decision as the Mamdani administration has tasked city agencies to find savings to help fill a multi-billion dollar budget gap. When former Mayor Eric Adams initially began winding down the program, the blowback was so intense that City Council members later apologized for approving the city’s spending plan, and families made T-shirts declaring that Adams defunded their schools. Subsequently, Adams decided to keep propping up budgets.

Some school funding experts and budget watchdog groups say that it makes little sense to keep allowing school budgets to drift away from enrollment, disproportionately benefiting schools that have lost the most students. It’s a problem that was top of mind for multiple city lawmakers.

“Are we funding empty seats?” asked Queens City Council member Phil Wong. “And is there a long term plan to phase this out — or this is now a permanent policy?”

But educators and parent leaders have pointed out that many schools have come to rely on the money, and abruptly cutting it could force painful cuts to programs such as after-school, art, and music. Plus, cuts are likely to invite backlash, especially as Mamdani vowed to prioritize funding for public schools on the campaign trail.

At the City Council hearing on Monday, schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels stressed that “no decision has been made on hold harmless.”

“When we think about declining enrollment, we see the impact of that across our schools and specifically many of our schools who serve the most vulnerable populations,” Samuels added. The city should be “making sure those schools are sustainable and can withstand the impact of the declining enrollment.”

The “hold harmless” funding is a small share of the more than $16 billion the Education Department spent on K-12 schools and instruction this year. But on dozens of campuses, the money represents more than 10% of their initial allocations.

Officials said preliminary school budgets would be available later this spring, potentially leaving little time for lawmakers to negotiate the issue before the June 30 deadline to pass the city budget.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Dylan Lopez Contreras, first NYC student detained by ICE in Trump’s second term, released after 10 months

2026-03-18T17:18:28+00:00

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Dylan Lopez Contreras, the first New York City public school student detained by federal immigration officials during President Donald Trump’s second term, was released Tuesday night after spending 10 months in federal custody, according to his mother and his legal team.

Dylan, now 21, was a student at ELLIS Preparatory Academy, a Bronx school geared toward older, newly arrived immigrant students, and his arrest was one of the highest-profile early examples of an unprecedented tactical shift in immigration enforcement last year in which officers arrested immigrants in the hallways of federal court following their legal hearings. Chalkbeat first reported Dylan’s arrest.

Kristin Kepplinger, a spokesperson from the New York Legal Assistance Group, which had been representing Dylan in his immigration court case and federal habeas corpus lawsuit, said the reason for his release wasn’t yet clear, as they had yet to review his release documents.

His legal team was thankful to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration and to the office of U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer who’d been advocating for his release, Kepplinger added.

Dylan’s federal habeas corpus petition was denied. An immigration judge also denied his asylum claim, but his lawyers appealed.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to a request for comment on Dylan’s release.

A native of Venezuela, Dylan first entered the country in 2024 through a program under former President Joe Biden that allowed migrants to make appointments to cross the border and seek asylum.

Dylan’s arrest quickly earned local and national attention, prompting former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration to file an amicus brief seeking his release, along with rallies and calls from national elected officials. Last month, Dylan’s mother, Raiza Contreras, attended the State of the Union with Sen. Chuck Schumer.

““[I’m] emotional,” Raiza told Chalkbeat in a brief interview Wednesday in Spanish. “I’m grateful to God first and foremost and to all the people who were present in this case.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul said on X Wednesday that she mentioned Dylan’s name in a recent meeting with Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan.

Mamdani said the city was “overjoyed” by Dylan’s release.

“Throughout this injustice, Dylan has shown remarkable strength, resilience, and courage,” the mayor said in a statement.

Even as federal immigration enforcement swept up other city students — some of whom subsequently won quick releases — Dylan remained in custody in Western Pennsylvania for nearly a year. In a September interview with Chalkbeat from detention, he described the frustration and depression of having his life put on hold.

Norma Vega, the principal of ELLIS, where staffers rallied behind Dylan and helped coordinate legal and other forms of support for the family, said she believes the sustained public campaign for Dylan’s release paid off.

“It confirmed for me we did the right thing,” she said. “Keeping him in the public eye, he became the face of every immigrant youth across the country.”

She added: “It was about this kid who they [the federal government] inaccurately thought was alone … and how important it was for us to let them know he’s not alone.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Gwynne Hogan covers immigration and homelessness for THE CITY.

As NYC expands free child care, CUNY tries to grow its teacher pipeline

2026-03-17T16:27:58+00:00

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Rosalinda Rodriguez knows first hand what a difference free, high-quality child care can make for a New York City family.

Several years ago, Rodriguez, a 25-year-old single mom, enrolled her then-toddler-age son in a federally funded Early Head Start program on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Staffers there helped support her son with a speech disability and freed up Rodriguez to work part time.

Years later, her son is thriving in elementary school, and Rodriguez decided to pursue her long-time dream of attending college, enrolling at CUNY’s Borough of Manhattan Community College last fall to study early childhood education.

“It definitely feels like I got a second chance,” said Rodriguez, who hopes she can help families like hers. “There’s lots of low-income families that need child care, and kids need to get an education. [They] need someone who cares.”

Students like Rodriguez are at the heart of a new push from CUNY officials to bolster the city’s early childhood education workforce as Mayor Zohran Mamdani embarks on a historic expansion of free child care.

City officials haven’t said exactly how many new early childhood educators the expansion plans will require, but the need could be acute.

Mamdani, with funding from Gov. Kathy Hochul, has pledged to open 2,000 free child care seats for 2-year-olds this fall, and an additional 10,000 seats a year later, before growing the program to accommodate any city 2-year-old by its fourth year. He also expanded the city’s existing 3-K program by 1,000 seats in an effort to increase supply in oversubscribed neighborhoods.

Across CUNY’s 26 campuses, roughly 3,600 students are working toward a degree in early childhood education, university officials said. Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez recently asked all of the college presidents to review their early childhood education curriculum and ensure they’re pushing students out into the work force as quickly as possible.

“This is a moment where we need to meet the city’s demand for their work force,” Matos Rodríguez told Chalkbeat last week during a visit to a child development course at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

For aspiring early childhood educators who don’t want to pursue a full associate or bachelor’s degree, CUNY launched a free apprenticeship program last year to place them in assistant teacher roles. CUNY officials also hope that a separate state-funded program called Reconnect could prove particularly effective in bringing new early educators into the fold: It offers financial support for older students without a college degree to enroll in coursework in high-demand fields.

“You might have people out there who have experience working with kids and they have not been able to get their degree,” Matos Rodríguez said. “[Here’s] a chance to come do that, get an associate, it’s paid for, and be ready for when that credential becomes necessary.”

At a recent City Council hearing, Emmy Liss, Mamdani’s newly appointed director of the Mayor’s Office of Child Care, said “we will need to significantly expand the number of trained professionals working in child care” – jobs she acknowledged have been historically “underpaid and under-respected.”

Unlike teaching positions in K-12 schools, which uniformly require a bachelor’s degree and state certification, qualifications for city early childhood education jobs can vary.

Lead teachers for prekindergarten programs located in public schools need full teaching licenses. But for 2-K, which officials have said will be located in community-based centers or home-based settings, the qualifications are less stringent. Teachers in home-based programs must complete 30 hours of child development training, while center-based instructors must have, or be working toward, an associate degree in early childhood education, according to an Education Department spokesperson.

But even as university officials try to lure more students into early childhood education programs, they know that the meager wages awaiting many of them after graduation can make that task more complicated.

Early childhood educators made a median yearly wage of roughly $25,000 as of 2023, according to a report from former Comptroller Brad Lander — compared to nearly $100,000 for K-12 teachers. Mamdani has pledged to make increasing wages for educators a part of his child care expansion, but hasn’t laid out any specific plans or funding sources to make that happen.

“I think it’s pretty easy for people to find jobs,” said Phoebe Gilpin, a doctoral student at Hunter College and the instructor for Rodriguez’s course. “It’s hard for them to find living wage jobs.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani announces 15 mph ‘slow zones’ for more than 800 NYC schools

2026-03-16T15:06:23+00:00

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Hundreds of New York City schools will soon see reduced speed limits on their surrounding streets, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Monday.

The change marks an escalation in the city’s enforcement of Sammy’s Law, state legislation meant to curb dangerous driving.

The city will lower speeds to 15 mph outside more than 800 schools by the end of the year, with plans to expand the initiative to all eligible school locations citywide by the end of Mamdani’s first term, he said. Most of the schools in the initiative currently have speed limits of 20 mph. Another 500 campuses already have 15 mph limits, while many of the rest of the roughly 2,300 school locations across the city currently cap speeds at 25 mph.

Officials plan to bring the 15 mph limit to all eligible schools by the end of Mamdani’s first term, he said. A pedestrian struck by a car traveling 25 miles per hour is three times more likely to be seriously injured than if they’re hit by a car going 15, officials said.

A 2022 investigation by Streetsblog found that streets surrounding schools see a far higher rate of crashes and injuries than other city roadways during school dropoff and pickup times. The problem is especially pronounced outside schools with higher proportions of students of color, the analysis found.

The city is prioritizing schools for the slow zones based on traffic data and other street safety plans in the works, officials said.

Sammy’s Law — named for 12-year-old Sammy Cohen Eckstein, who died after being struck by a van when he chased a soccer ball into the street on Brooklyn’s Prospect Park West in 2013 — was signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2024. It gives the city Transportation Department authority to reduce speed limits on certain streets without the approval of the City Council, which controls the citywide default speed limit.

At each of the new school slow zones, officials will give local community boards 60 days to comment on the change before it takes effect.

Under former Mayor Eric Adams, the city moved to lower maximum speeds from 25 to 20 mph on 250 designated “neighborhood slow zones” across the city — generally smaller, residential streets.

The law also gives the city the authority to reduce speed limits around parks and senior centers. The reduced speed zones are expected to be marked with signs and can be fit with “traffic-calming” measures like speed bumps.

In neighborhoods where speeds were reduced to 20 miles per hour, vehicle crashes dropped by 14% and car-related injuries by 31%, according to the Transportation Department.

“Lower speeds save lives,” Mamdani said in a statement, “and we will use every tool at our disposal to protect our neighbors as they move about our city.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Mayoral control fight? Mamdani’s former Albany colleagues set stage for showdown on who runs NYC schools

2026-03-10T20:40:39+00:00

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s old colleagues in Albany aren’t going to let him maintain control of New York City schools without a fight.

Though the former state assemblyman campaigned on ending mayoral control as a way to give families and educators more of a say over the nation’s largest education system, Mamdani recently reversed course. Now, he faces an uphill battle with lawmakers in Albany to let him hold onto that power. Neither the Senate nor the Assembly proposed extending Mamdani’s control of city schools in separate budget proposals they released this week despite Gov. Kathy Hochul pitching a four-year extension of it in her budget proposal.

The state’s final budget is due April 1.

Albany gave New York City’s mayor control of the education system more than 20 years ago and has extended it ever since. The governance model — which is set to sunset on June 30 — allows the mayor to unilaterally appoint the schools chancellor, select a majority of the city’s school board, and generally set the district’s policy direction.

As Mamdani has moved full steam ahead on his plan to bring free child care to the city’s 2-year-olds and bolster the free program for 3-year-olds, he has come to appreciate having centralized control over the vast system.

“We would not have been able to launch 2-K or begin to fix the issues plaguing 3-K without mayoral control,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Mayoral control is key to delivering our affordability agenda, and I look forward to continuing to work with leaders in Albany to secure its extension.”

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who built the city’s massive prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds in 2014, said he would not have been able to launch that initiative without mayoral control.

“This is something that would really lead the nation” de Blasio told Chalkbeat about Mamdani’s child care push. “He’s not going to be able to do it, especially not quickly, if he doesn’t have sufficient capacity to run the system.”

Hochul had asked for a four-year extension in 2024 as well. Ultimately, state legislators approved a two-year extension with some changes to the school board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy. (The board grew to 24 appointees, with the addition of a chair nominated by Albany officials and selected by the mayor.)

Because the mayor appoints a majority of the members, the board has long been considered a rubber stamp for the chief executive. But the panel has increasingly displayed an independent streak, repeatedly bucking City Hall under former Mayor Eric Adams.

Another tweak from Albany lawmakers: Panel members serve one-year terms that run through June. That resulted in Mamdani inheriting Adams’ appointees, putting the new mayor in an awkward position of not fully controlling the school board for his first six months in office.

Adams, at the end of his term, ceded some of his control of the Panel for Educational Policy and left office with two mayoral vacancies. Mamdani has yet to fill those openings.

Still, there have been some new additions to the panel, including Jonathan Collins, an assistant professor of political science and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College. He was appointed by Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal.

“It’s an honor to be able to serve the kids of our city,” Collins wrote on LinkedIn on Tuesday, “and in this particular moment, I welcome the opportunity to model what true democratic school governance can look like.”

Advocates have continued to press the mayor to follow through on his promise to make the system more responsive to students, parents, and teachers.

State Sen. John Liu, who chairs the New York City Education Committee, said extending mayoral control would hinge on the city coming up with a plan to shrink class sizes to comply with state law. He also said he is speaking with Mamdani about possible changes to make the system more democratic.

“I’m in discussion with the mayor about what the plan is for class size reduction and what he envisions as a way to increase stakeholder input into how our schools are run,” said Liu, who did not offer more details.

When previously revealing his reversal on mayoral control, Mamdani pledged to incorporate community involvement, restructure parent meetings for community education councils to increase participation and awareness of these elected bodies, and improve the role of parent coordinators to be “meaningful” parent organizers instead of principals’ administrative coordinators.

Hundreds of parent coordinators wrote to Chalkbeat with their ideas for the mayor. They want better pay, more respect, a clearer job description — and they want to be included in decisions made about their jobs.

Albany signals support for Foundation Aid increase

Though lawmakers might not be on board for Mamdani’s plea for extending mayoral control, they do seem aligned with him on changing the formula that makes up the bulk of school budgets, funnelling more money to high-need schools.

The two-decades-old Foundation Aid formula was tweaked last year, but many advocates and politicians said the changes weren’t significant enough. Both houses called to add additional weights to the formula for homeless students,those in foster care, and children learning English as a new language.

High-need districts like New York City — which had about 154,000 students in temporary housing last year — stand to benefit if those weights are added. City schools last year received $314 million less than they would have under the original formula.

Compared to Hochul’s proposal to increase Foundation Aid across the state to $27.1 billion next fiscal year, the Assembly called for $27.8 billion, Speaker Carl Heastie said, while the Senate called for $27.4 billion.

Correction: March 10, 2026: This story initially said that Jonathan Collins was appointed to the Panel for Educational Policy by Mayor Zohran Mamdani. In fact, he was appointed by Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC to launch ‘2-K’: Here are the neighborhoods getting free child care for 2-year-olds this fall

2026-03-03T16:30:00+00:00

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Neighborhoods in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens will be the first to get free seats for 2-year-olds this fall, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday.

Hochul committed $73 million to fund about 2,000 seats for the program’s first year. The following year, the state is planning to contribute $425 million to grow the program to 12,000 seats across all five boroughs by fall of 2027, officials said.

The program — which the city is calling 2-K — is eventually expected to provide free child care for 2-year-olds to any New York City family who needs it, regardless of ZIP code, income, or immigration status.

“Raising a child takes a village – and it takes a city government willing to step up and tackle the child care crisis head-on,” Mamdani said in a statement.

The initial round of programs aims to serve families in high-need neighborhoods, with an eye toward inclusive access for children with disabilities and families in temporary housing, officials said.

Here’s what you need to know about the program’s first year.

What communities are expected to get seats in September 2026?

• School District 6: Washington Heights, Hamilton Heights, and Inwood

• School District 10: Fordham, Belmont, Norwood, Morris Heights, Van Cortlandt Village, and Kingsbridge

• School Districts 18 and 23: Canarsie, Remsen Village, Brownsville, and Ocean Hill

• School District 27: Ozone Park, South Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Howard Beach, Woodhaven, and Rockaways

City officials said they will release further information on the specific providers in the weeks ahead.

The city used a host of criteria to select these first four communities areas, officials said, including economic need, projected child care demand, existing access gaps, provider capacity, and readiness to scale up seats.

The programs will rely heavily on the existing child care infrastructure, particularly with home-based providers. The city has no plans at this time to open programs in schools, officials said during an unrelated City Council oversight hearing on Monday focused on a series of bills related to early childhood education.

“As we think about the spaces that are most developmentally appropriate, healthy, safe for our youngest children, we know that that is most often our child care centers and our family child care providers,” Emmy Liss, head of the Office of Child Care at the New York City Mayor’s Office, told council members.

Will all children who turn 2 in the calendar year be eligible?

Yes, but with a caveat, Liss explained.

Children may need to be 2-years-old at the time they start the program, depending on the setting, because of health codes. That means those children with fall birthdays may not be able to start right away.

So while seats will open in September 2026, the city expects to have rolling admissions throughout the fall to accommodate toddlers turning 2 from Sept. 10 (which is the anticipated first day of school) through Dec. 31. (The city’s preschool programs enroll children who turn 3 or 4 in a given calendar year.)

Will it be a “full day?”

It’s not yet clear whether all programs will offer a “full day” similar to public schools, which is 6 hours and 20 minutes. It may depend on feedback from providers and parents.

“We want to understand the capacity that our providers have. We also want to understand family interests, which we know varies by community, from community to community,” Liss said. “We do anticipate many providers and families will want a full day, but we have left open the option.”

What will the child/teacher ratio look like?

The answer isn’t straightforward, officials said.

Like the city’s programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, all programs will have at least two teachers in the room. But the number of children depends on the settings since some home-based providers serve mixed ages, from infants to older kids. For a group that’s exclusively for 2-year-olds, there would be two teachers for every 12 students. (For infants, the capacity is around eight. For 3-year-olds, there’s a maximum of 15 children, for 4-year-olds, it’s 18.)

What about children with disabilities or who might need extra support?

City officials pledged to take into account toddlers who might have particular needs, and said they plan to have coaches as well as “inclusion specialists” to help train staff.

The 2-K programs will also work closely with the Education Department’s Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning as well as the bureau of early intervention at the Health Department to “further tailor their coaching for staff,” Simone Hawkins, deputy chancellor of the Division of Early Childhood Education, told council members on Monday.

How will the city address child care workers’ low salaries?

As New York City grapples with salary disparities between prekindergarten teachers at its city-run programs versus those that operate in community based organizations with city funding, the issue of salaries for child care workers in the 2-K program remains a big concern.

Kellan Calder, an organizer with New Yorkers United for Child Care, praised the city’s approach in focusing on high-need neighborhoods, but told council members, “we want to make sure it’s done right, and that starts with paying providers fairly.”

Liss said the city is aware of the issue, noting that workers across the sector earn a wide range of salaries, but doesn’t yet have the answer.

“Broadly, child care workers in the city earn less than 96% of other professions, and that’s something we need to address,” Liss said.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Better pay, more respect, clearer job description: Here’s what parent coordinators want Mamdani to know.

2026-03-02T21:00:11+00:00

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to change the role of parent coordinators in the city’s schools — making each one “a meaningful organizer of parents, rather than an administrative coordinator reporting to a principal.”

Chalkbeat asked parent coordinators how they see their roles and what they want the mayor to know.

We heard from nearly 360 current parent coordinators, a number that represents nearly 20% of the positions in the city.

You can read a sampling of what they had to say below, but one message was clear: Parent coordinators want to be heard and included in the decisions made about them. And they have lots of ideas for making schools and communities stronger.

Their most important job, they said, is serving as a bridge between parents and schools. Several wrote that their work is especially important for newly arrived families, who may be afraid to engage with government agencies, and for families of students with disabilities.

“When parents trust the school and feel confident reaching out, students benefit academically, socially, and emotionally,” wrote Melissa De Los Santos, a parent coordinator in Brooklyn.

Many parent coordinators said that because the city does not clearly define their roles, they end up taking care of a myriad of loose ends at their schools. They are de-facto tech support, attendance monitors, public health messengers, and counselors for parents and kids.

When asked if they were adequately paid, the response was an emphatic and overwhelming “absolutely not” — often in all caps. In the words of Mariela Chevry, a parent coordinator in Manhattan, “Love doesn’t pay the bills.”

The city created the role of parent coordinator in 2003, a year after the state legislature implemented mayoral control, transferring authority over New York City school budgets, curriculums, and closures from elected community school boards to the mayor.

Then-chancellor Joel Klein told the first-ever cohort of parent coordinators that their jobs were proof that the city was committed to parental involvement.

Now, with Mamdani calling to extend mayoral control under his own tenure, his administration is pointing to parent coordinators as essential players once again.

“We need to build the capacity of our parent coordinators,” said schools chancellor Kamar Samuels at a Feb. 10 City Council hearing on mayoral control. “We need to invest more in our parent coordinators and their training.”

Here are parent coordinators’ top suggestions for the Mamdani administration.

1) Clarify the job description and consider alternative supervision structures

Parent coordinators are often pulled between their responsibility to parents and their accountability to principals, who have significant control over their workloads, salaries, and time off. One of their primary jobs is to help parents bring concerns and complaints to school staff, which can get tricky when administrators and parents disagree. Because their contracts are vague, parent coordinators say their time often gets eaten by administrative tasks outside of the scope of their jobs.

“If I had [to] describe my role it would be closest to a school aid, handling all tasks I’m asked to do even though they don’t relate to my title directly ... Both the contract and role and responsibilities documentation are very vague.” — Dilyon Stanislaus

“We are expected to listen to the concerns of every parent we come across as well as providing resources, creating activities, bring up parent engagement numbers, have answers to all questions, be the face of the school, advocate for parents, all while being asked to do the work of others just because we are support staff and because our contract doesn’t specifically say what we are allowed to say no to.” — Jennifer Colon

“Clear protections, expectations, and respect for the role would allow parent coordinators to focus on what we do best — supporting families, advocating for students, and helping schools function effectively.” — Madelin Lopez

“We are the backbone of the relationship between DOE/admin/faculty and families ... a tenuous relationship for sure. We are treated like customer service representatives when in fact we are community stewards.” — Fernando Maneca

2) Improve pay and benefits, making time off comparable to other full-time school staff

Salaries for new hires start at $44,000 a year, going up to just under $74,000 for those who have already worked for the city for two years. Unlike most school staff, parent coordinators work year-round, with no summers off. They often need to be available early mornings, evenings, and weekends.

“We need decent pay that adjusts to [the] cost of living.” — Sergio Borrero

“Higher pay and summers off. We are overworked and undervalued.” — Jackie Cartagena

“Not only are we not paid well … it feels like we are a dumping ground. If this group can’t do it, doesn’t want to do it, just have the [parent coordinator] figure it out … Since we are on the appreciation topic, we have teacher appreciation day, we have principal and AP appreciation day. PC appreciation day? We don’t have that. Give us our flowers, we work hard and schools would fall apart without us." — Mariela Chevry

3) Elevate respect and include parent coordinators in decisions about their schools and districts

Parent coordinators want to be treated like professionals. Many want formal training and opportunities to move forward in their careers. Despite being the school staff most in touch with parents’ concerns, they are often excluded from decision-making about their schools and districts.

The parent coordinator position has historically been treated as an underdog role in schools, and many principals already fail to show the respect the position deserves." — Vanessa Murray

“Parent coordinators are more than the bridge that connects parents to the admin and school. We are a lifeline to many in our school community ... We need to be seen and heard and deserve so much more respect.” — Illiana Rosario-Urban

“I would love for the mayor to sit down with parent coordinators from the different districts so he can hear directly from us — both our passion for the work and the challenges we face.” — Lynette Bradshaw

“Parent Coordinators should be afforded clearer pathways for advancement and professional development. This could include access to at least two paid classes per semester, greater schedule flexibility, and guaranteed summers off. There is little justification for requiring Parent Coordinators to work throughout the summer performing duties unrelated to family engagement, often … without meaningful choice or autonomy.” — Madelin Lopez

Deputy Managing Editor Caroline Bauman contributed reporting and analysis.

Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.

Racist comment at NYC parent meeting ignites fury as Black leaders call for accountability

2026-02-25T01:13:38+00:00

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After an Upper West Side parent’s racist comments were caught on a hot mic at a public meeting, Black parent leaders and elected officials say they want to see accountability for her actions and a broader reckoning from the nation’s largest school system.

A student from the Community Action School was testifying in person against a plan to close the middle school at a Feb. 10 local education council meeting when Allyson Friedman, a parent at another local public school, began speaking on Zoom.

“They’re too dumb to know they’re in a bad school,” said Friedman, who is a professor at Hunter College.

She then appeared to misattribute and misquote Black historian Carter G. Woodson. “Apparently Martin Luther King said it: If you train a Black person well enough, they’ll know to use the back. You don’t have to tell them anymore,” Friedman said.

District 3 Interim Acting Superintendent Reginald Higgins cited Woodson earlier in the meeting as part of his reflections on Black History Month. In the 1933 book, “The Mis-Education of the Negro,” Woodson described how racism in schools can perpetuate inequities. “If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door,” Woodson wrote.

Friedman’s comments exploded into public view after a recording was posted online and drew rebukes from an array of elected officials and parent leaders. Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday called the remarks “reprehensible” and “indicative of the exact kind of language that makes students feel as if they don’t belong in our public school system.” A City Hall spokesperson said officials are discussing the incident with CUNY, which oversees Hunter College.

Several Black parent leaders held a press conference Tuesday to condemn Friedman and call on education officials to take action to address inequities in the system. They urged the city’s Education Department to better promote its Black Studies curriculum, deploy the materials more widely, and offer more support for parent leaders grappling with anti-Black racism.

“We are still fighting to be seen as human,” said Tanesha Grant, the executive director of Parents Supporting Parents NY, which organized the press conference. “Our children are still fighting to be seen as human and we will not allow or tolerate anti-Blackness in our school communities.”

Several parents and elected officials said Friedman, a professor in the biological sciences department at Hunter College, should be fired. A Hunter spokesperson said the school is reviewing whether Friedman’s comments violate their policies.

Friedman said in an email that she inadvertently unmuted herself on Zoom and did not intend to share her comments publicly. “As a parent, I was trying to explain the concept of systemic racism by referencing a historical example,” she wrote. “My remarks were not directed at the student speaker, and they do not reflect my beliefs or values. Regardless of context, my words were wrong and caused real harm.”

Comments come at a tricky time for new chancellor

The episode comes at a delicate moment for schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels, who was most recently superintendent of District 3. He built a reputation for listening to parent feedback and for his focus on integrating schools in one of the nation’s most segregated systems.

Samuels helped launch the process of closing three middle school programs in the district, including Community Action School, partly due to anemic enrollment. District officials are considering moving The Center School, where Friedman is a parent, to a new building more than a mile away.

The Center School, which is majority white, would share a building with P.S. 191, which is largely Black and Latino and would lose its middle school grades. Separately, the Community Action School, which predominantly enrolls students of color from low-income families, would be closed entirely.

Those proposals have all generated considerable pushback, and Friedman’s comments reopened longstanding questions about equity and access in a stratified school district.

Parent leaders at the Center School distanced themselves from the incident. “We want to be absolutely clear: this parent’s statement does not represent the values of the Center School community,” the school’s PTA wrote in a statement posted to its website. “Yet their words remind us that racism is not distant – it exists in our broader community, and it is our collective responsibility to confront it.”

For his part, Samuels vowed to support students who were affected. “I know that district quite intimately, and we will be really leaning in and working with the school communities to make sure that we repair any harm that was done to our students,” Samuels told reporters Tuesday.

Education Department spokesperson Dominique Ellison did not elaborate on what actions the city plans to take but noted that Friedman is not a department employee or parent council member.

Community Action School parent Nicki Holtzman said the school has done an “incredible job” responding to the incident. “To my understanding, the kids were not told, and they’ve been protected,” she said. (The student who Friedman interrupted may not have heard the comment because they were testifying in person and Friedman was on Zoom.) Still, Holtzman worries the episode will distract from the school community’s push to keep its doors open.

Several parent leaders indicated Tuesday that their frustration is much broader than Friedman’s comments. They pointed to repeated instances of systemic racism and anti-Black attitudes, including from other parent leaders.

“I’ve watched people employ every archaic, toxic, stereotypical red herring they can to try to slow us down and to try to justify why it is okay to underserve a Black child,” said Erika Kendall, the Community Education Council president in Brooklyn’s District 17. “But also why it is okay to ignore and dismiss the concerns of a Black parent.”

NeQuan McLean, the president of the Community Education Council in Bedford-Stuyvesant, proposed one idea for giving parent leaders considerably more power. He said local councils should have the power to sign off on mergers and closures, which usually affect schools that are struggling with enrollment and tend to have a higher proportion of Black and Latino children.

On the campaign trail, Mamdani vowed to end mayoral control of schools — which gives City Hall much of the power over those decisions — but later backtracked.

The councils “are community school boards that have been stripped of their power, and we need that power back,” McLean said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Empty desks, unplowed paths: Nearly 40% of NYC students absent from school after record snow

2026-02-25T00:18:10+00:00

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Large numbers of students and staff missing class, widespread transit delays, unplowed sidewalks: This is what it looked like on Tuesday when New York City public schools reopened for in-person learning after more than two feet of snow blanketed parts of the five boroughs.

Just 63% of students showed up to school, according to preliminary attendance numbers schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels shared at a Tuesday press conference. Roughly 12,000 of the city’s nearly 80,000 educators — or about 15% — were also absent, though 5,000 substitute teachers were called in to fill in for absent teachers, Samuels said.

Many parents tried to pressure the city to make Tuesday a remote day, with more than 172,000 people signing a petition in less than 24 hours. But the day after the massive storm, which set records in parts of Staten Island and the Bronx, schools resumed in person because they were not prepared to pivot to remote instruction immediately after mid-winter break, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at the press conference, citing concerns about device access.

“It was not possible to ensure that enough students had the devices they needed to effectively participate in remote learning,” Mamdani said.

Moreover, Mamdani said, schools were open because they provide meals and child care, and a remote day would leave some families in need.

Roughly 8,000 Department of Education staff worked over the weekend to clear entrances and prepare buildings for reopening, he added.

Despite those efforts, nearly half the sidewalk outside Bay Terrace P.S. 169 was unplowed during early-morning drop-off, Bayside, Queens parent Shawna Williams said.

Her principal sent an email to parents Tuesday morning warning of significant staff absences and possible changes in class schedules. The school canceled art and physical education, some students had substitute teachers, and certain pick-up and drop-off times were adjusted.

Williams, a parent and member of the District 25 Community Education Council, said some families questioned whether reopening was safe.

“I wasn’t surprised about schools being in-person,” Williams said. “But I wonder if it was worth the effort when so many staff and students seem to be absent.”

Roughly 32 staff members were out from her southeast Brooklyn school, said Kim Basile, a physical education teacher. She typically drives to work, but her Staten Island home’s driveway was snowed in. She then encountered severe delays trying to take the express bus instead.

She never made it to school.

Mamdani confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that the city deployed about 200 extra sanitation staff to Staten Island to help clear roads and resume regular service for buses. Regular service should resume in the borough on Wednesday, he said.

Parents to Improve School Transportation, a school bus advocacy group, said a remote day could have reduced lateness and absences for students who rely on yellow buses. But Mamdani downplayed busing issues.

As of about 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the city received only about 78 complaints about not being able to access school buses, and of 8,000 routes only 15 reported delays, the mayor said.

Roughly 150,000 children rely on yellow buses for their commutes. By the end of the school day, there were 37 reports of school bus vendor delays, according to public data.

Mamdani said more than 2,600 sanitation workers plowed every street at least once and cleared over 7,300 crosswalks and 3,366 bus stops after the storm began. Still, “due to blowing snow after the storm, many will need to be redressed,” he said.

New York City transit authority buses were operating with delays on Tuesday, and regular service was expected to resume Wednesday morning.

New York City schools had a traditional snow day on Monday rather than a remote day of learning after the mayor requested a waiver from the state’s 180-instructional day requirement. The city had already counted four professional development days toward that 180-day requirement.

Lizzie Walsh is a Data Fellow at Chalkbeat New York, reporting NYC local news and data-driven stories across Chalkbeat’s bureaus. Contact her atewalsh@chalkbeat.org.

NYC public schools will reopen for in-person classes on Tuesday after major blizzard, Mamdani says

2026-02-23T19:12:04+00:00

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New York City’s public schools will reopen on Tuesday after a major blizzard dumped over 20 inches of snow on parts of the city, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Monday afternoon.

“I hope our students enjoy their snow day today and stay warm and safe throughout, but I do have some tough news to share: School will be in person tomorrow,” Mamdani said. “You can still pelt me with snowballs when you see me.”

School officials said thousands of Education Department staff have been working around the clock to ensure schools are ready to reopen on Tuesday.

“We will make sure we’re down to asphalt and concrete sidewalks at every school,” said Kevin Moran, the acting deputy chancellor for operations.

It remains to be seen how treacherous travel conditions will be as nearly 900,000 public school students return to class. About 150,000 students rely on yellow buses, which often falter in normal weather. Officials said they are plowing and salting the streets, and school buses are expected to run as usual.

Monday marked the first traditional snow day in years when students and educators were not required to participate in remote instruction. Since the pandemic, schools have switched to virtual learning during extreme weather because the city has added holidays and has no wiggle room to cancel class while meeting a state requirement to offer 180 school days.

New York State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa offered waivers to districts that canceled classes on Monday. New York City was on break the prior week, complicating efforts to send devices home to students. New York City is now on track to have only 175 days of school. (The city counted four days of teacher training this year to meet the 180-day threshold.)

Many parents and educators cheered the traditional snow day, which gave students time to have fun in the snow. Some research backs up the idea that a small number of snow days are unlikely to harm student learning. Plus, attendance during virtual learning is often spotty, making it difficult for teachers to cover new material.

Still, snow days often pose challenges for working families who must scramble to find child care and may depend on schools to provide meals and other services.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC gets ‘old school’ snow day as blizzard targets city, Mamdani says

2026-02-22T18:01:52+00:00

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New York City schools will get a traditional snow day on Monday as the area braces for 18-24 inches of snow and blizzard-like conditions, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Sunday.

In a surprising move, the school system will not pivot to remote learning as it did last month. The state granted it a waiver to have an old-school snow day, Mamdani said.

“We believe that there are a unique set of extenuating circumstances,” the mayor said about the request for the waiver.

The city is enacting a travel ban from 9 p.m. Sunday to noon on Monday as part of declaring a state of emergency, Mamdani said.

New York City had stopped having traditional snow days in 2020, deciding that schools could instead offer remote learning to help meet the mandated 180 instructional days as more holidays have been added to the calendar.

And as holidays have crowded the calendar, the city has relied on state regulations that allow certain professional development days to count toward the total number of instructional days. This year, the city is counting four such days as instruction, leaving students in class for just 176 days this year. But the city was able to get the OK for one more day off without having to pay a fiscal penalty, the mayor said.

It’s the second major storm in less than a month. But Sunday’s storm — expected to be the most serious in a decade — threw some wrenches, making it more complicated for schools to make sure students were prepared with devices at home.

The storm’s late-breaking nature meant that school leaders didn’t get communications from the Education Department until Friday night. Officials told principals they would get overtime pay to open up their buildings over the weekend to distribute devices to students in need. But since schools had been out all week on midwinter recess, some families and educators were out of town, making it harder to spring into action.

“Timing is everything,” schools chancellor Kamar Samuels said on Sunday. “Students and staff have been out of buildings for the last week, and many are still out of town and out of the country. Given this, along with the severe nature of this weather event, we do not believe providing remote instruction tomorrow would be effective.”

Samuels said his high school junior approved of the move for a traditional snow day.

Snow days, whether traditional or remote learning, can be hard, however, on some families who need child care or for students who rely on schools for hot meals.

“Having a traditional snow day is the right decision,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers.

In a message to union members, he wrote that the UFT joined the city’s call for a waiver on the 180-school day policy. “New York State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa granted the waiver for several reasons including the fact that a travel ban will be in effect in the city, and that students and staff are unlikely to have the equipment they need for a day of remote learning,” Mulgrew wrote.

While the Education Department acknowledged “minor hiccups” during January’s remote day, there didn’t appear to be widespread issues. That day, however, may have benefited from the fact that a big chunk of students were already scheduled to be off: Only about 500,000 of the city’s nearly 900,000 students were required to report to virtual classrooms since high schools and schools serving grades 6-12 had a staff development day.

City officials said they had been working with IT vendors to conduct load testing to ensure systems are fully ready for remote learning and that they recently completed load testing for up to 1.2 million logins. The city had faced a technical meltdown from two years ago when snow forced schools to go remote and many students and teachers were unable to log on, despite efforts to practice in advance.

Instead of grappling with potential tech issues, Mamdani had a message for students about the snow day: “To kids across New York City, you have a very serious mission, if you choose to accept it.”

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Upper East Side gets 132 pre-K and 3-K seats after delayed opening

2026-02-19T23:34:04+00:00

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More than seven months after being completed, a city-run early childhood center will finally open in the fall on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, adding 72 new prekindergarten seats and 60 3-K seats to the area, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Thursday.

It’s the first standalone, city-run early childhood center in the 10065 ZIP code and will double the number of child care spots for 4-year-olds and quadruple availability for 3-year-olds in the immediate area.

“While this building was completed last summer, its classrooms have continued to sit empty for months. Today, we are righting that wrong,” said Mamdani during a press conference at the 403 East 65th St. building.

The city first announced plans for the building in 2022. Officials did not explain Thursday why the completed building has sat empty.

More than 50,000 applications for the city’s free preschool and 3-K programs have streamed in since January, roughly half of the applications received in total the year prior. Applications are not accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Who the new seats will serve

Families with children turning ages 3 or 4 this calendar year who live in Manhattan’s District 2 will have priority for the new seats, officials said. Families who have already applied for 3‑K or pre‑K can log back into their online applications and, if located in the area, add the new center to their ranked preferences.

The application deadline is Feb. 27.

The 10065 ZIP code’s number of early child care facilities is roughly on par with the city average, according to public data. There are currently two public schools in the district that offer pre-K and one early education center offering both 3-K and pre-K seats.

While the Mayor’s 2-Care program will focus first on families in neighborhoods with the highest need, this center will serve a decidedly more affluent demographic area — and one that has waited for this center to open for four years.

The affluent neighborhood has a median household income of $155,000, about 1.5 times the city average; 77% of the neighborhood’s 30,808 residents are white, and 44% have a master’s degree or higher, according to American Community Survey 5-year estimates.

UES opening marks broader child care expansion

City Council Speaker Julie Menin said that the council has been working to expand city-run child care centers since the passage of a seven-bill package in 2022, which included a new provider directory, established a pilot grant for child care programs, and mandated reporting on child care access gaps.

Though the legislation laid structural groundwork for child care expansion, Menin acknowledged that much of the package’s intended outcomes “did not happen.” She said the opening of the 65th Street center will make early child care access a reality for east side families.

“I can’t tell you the number of parents who have said, ‘If we do not get affordable child care, we’re going to leave the city,’” said Menin on Thursday. “This is really a sign of what we need to do citywide to open up more child care facilities to make sure that every single parent that needs a slot for 3-K and pre-K has it.”

Six new bills aim to bolster child care

City Council members this week introduced six new local laws designed to help buoy Mamdani’s signature child care promises.

So far, Gov. Kathy Hochul promised state funding for the first two years to help the city launch its free 2-Care program, beginning with seats in high-need neighborhoods.

The new City Council legislative package aims to bolster the infrastructure to make that happen and to shore up the existing pre-K and 3-K programs. It includes mandating outreach and quarterly reporting by the Education Department on pre-K and 3-K availability and providing financial incentives to property owners who convert vacant lots into child care facilities.

The council’s subcommittee on early childhood education is expected to discuss the bills at a March 2 oversight hearing.

Correction: Feb. 19, 2026: This story initially said that families living between 60th to 69th streets would have priority for the new center. Priority will be given to all families in Manhattan’s District 2.

Lizzie Walsh is a Data Fellow at Chalkbeat New York, reporting NYC local news and data-driven stories across Chalkbeat’s bureaus. Contact her at ewalsh@chalkbeat.org.

Deputy chancellor for family engagement is stepping down. Will a broader reshuffle follow?

2026-02-18T21:48:16+00:00

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As New York City school insiders eagerly await to see how the new chancellor reshuffles top brass, the Education Department has its first high-profile departure.

Cristina Meléndez, the deputy chancellor of family, community, and student empowerment, is leaving her post on Feb. 27, she wrote in an email to parent leaders on Wednesday, thanking them for their work.

“The most important thing you can do is stay engaged in your schools and keep building your child’s confidence day by day, conversation by conversation, and moment by moment,” she wrote. “That steady belief you offer your child becomes their strength.”

She did not say where she planned to head next. Education Department officials did not respond to questions about her replacement or whether the departure is related to a broader cabinet shakeup.

“We look forward to sharing more soon,” Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said in a statement commending Meléndez for her service.

Meléndez assumed her role as deputy chancellor more than a year ago, after serving as the executive director of the Education Department’s Office of Family and Community Empowerment, known as FACE, which among other things, oversees the Community Education Council elections.

The elections have had notoriously low turnout, with roughly 18,000 households, or just 2% of eligible families, casting ballots in 2025. A 2023 Chalkbeat investigation highlighted numerous concerns in how FACE conducted the election process, uncovering how the office was gripped internally by turmoil and factions, potentially affecting the election process. A New York City comptroller report called on the Education Department to implement a series of changes in the voting process, but the participation rate remained unchanged.

“It’s indefensible what happened with the election,” said Robert Murtfeld, a former Community Education Council member in Manhattan’s District 1, who runs an advocacy committee at The Neighborhood School.

Given Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to include families in governance of the nation’s largest school system, Murtfeld suggested there’s an opportunity to find someone who can engage not only the estimated 1.6 million current parents in the system but also include millions more alumni.

“It needs to be someone who is inspiring,” he said. “It can’t be a bureaucratic robot.”

Meléndez took over at FACE in January 2022 after serving as a lead on the education transition team for former Mayor Eric Adams.

A former bilingual education teacher in the Bronx and assistant principal, Meléndez earned a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania in educational leadership. While there, she wrote a thesis entitled “Dominican parenting across generations” and examined difficulties the city had engaging Black and Latino parents.

Before that, Meléndez served as a district supervisor for the city’s controversial renewal initiative aimed to turn around failing schools, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani prioritizes class size mandate and Summer Rising in preliminary budget

2026-02-17T22:30:43+00:00

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s preliminary budget plans to ramp up spending to comply with the state class size mandate and will continue to fund the city’s free summer program that combines academics and enrichment.

Several other education programs were not included. They include a program that focuses on restorative justice — a conflict resolution approach that prioritizes talking through problems rather than punitive discipline — and one that provides intensive mental health support at dozens of Bronx and Brooklyn schools.

The mayor’s preliminary $127 billion budget, released Tuesday, represents his opening salvo in negotiations with City Council over city spending next fiscal year, which begins July 1. It also offers a window into his education priorities.

Mamdani told reporters the city is “firmly within a budget crisis” and pressured Gov. Kathy Hochul to support his proposal to raise taxes on corporations and people making more than $1 million a year.

The city is facing a $5.4 billion gap over the next two fiscal years, an ever-changing figure the mayor indicated was closer to $12 billion earlier this month. Mamdani said without additional revenue, city officials would hike property taxes to plug the gap. He also called on city agencies to find savings of 1.5% this year and 2.5% next fiscal year.

“For those who have watched budget after budget, it is tempting to assume that we are engaging in the same dance as our predecessors,” Mamdani said, blaming former Mayor Eric Adams for leaving behind a big budget gap. “Let me assure you, nothing about this is typical.”

Over the weekend, Mamdani and Hochul announced the state would kick in $1.5 billion more dollars into the city budget over the next two years for operating costs, including about $300 million for youth programming. (Officials have not said what programs that funding will support.)

Here are three takeaways from the mayor’s preliminary budget.

More funding to shrink class sizes

The city is facing a state requirement to cap class sizes at 20 students in elementary school to 25 in high school. Eighty percent of classes must fall below those caps next school year, with all classes expected to meet them by the 2027-28 school year.

Mamdani’s budget includes nearly $543 million in new city spending next school year to reduce class sizes and estimates jumping to nearly $943 million in each of the three fiscal years after that.

An Education Department spokesperson did not immediately say how that money will be spent, though officials have recently said they will need an additional 6,000 teachers at a cost of more than $600 million to meet the mandate.

The Education Department has already struggled to meet the law’s requirements and has issued thousands of exemptions from it. Meeting the mandate will only get more challenging, officials have warned, as the city faces difficult tradeoffs at crowded schools, which must cap the number of students who can attend, find new space, or receive an exemption from the law.

Stabilized funding for summer school and preschool special education

During the pandemic, city officials launched a popular summer program that combines enrichment and academics using one-time federal relief money. Ever since, the Summer Rising program has been funded in one-year increments. The city had not guaranteed funding for this summer.

Mamdani’s preliminary budget includes $106 million for this summer’s program and includes money to keep it going in the three fiscal years after that.

Officials also renewed $70 million in funding for preschool special education services, evaluations, and staff — though, despite that funding, many students still do not receive all of the help to which they’re entitled.

Advocates cheered the mayor for including the funding. But Maria Odom, executive director of the nonprofit Advocates for Children, stressed that “as the City moves forward with its plans for universal child care, it must ensure that young children with disabilities are not left waiting for the support they need and have a right to receive.”

The mayor’s proposed budget also includes nearly $50 million a year to open new classes in District 75, which supports students with more complex disabilities.

Some education programs left out

Several education programs that are at least partially funded with dollars that are set to run out in June were not included in the mayor’s budget, in addition to the $6 million for restorative justice and $5 million for mental health support.

Officials did not include funding for Learning to Work, a $31 million effort that pays for internships, social workers, and guidance counselors for students at risk of dropping out. Also left out: a $12 million wraparound program for students with disabilities who have sensory issues that interfere with school performance.

It will be up to local lawmakers and the mayor to determine if those items are restored, as they have been in previous years.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC spent $1.6 billion shielding schools from enrollment losses. Will Mamdani keep it up?

2026-02-13T22:59:35+00:00

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At the height of the pandemic, as enrollment in New York City’s public schools took a nosedive, officials kept school budgets steady.

City officials, who were flush with billions in one-time federal relief funding, didn’t want to take away resources from schools where students had experienced prolonged learning interruptions, even though budgets typically are tied to headcount.

But as the pandemic receded and federal funds dried up, officials continued to plow hundreds of millions of dollars into school budgets to protect them from cuts as enrollment losses deepened. This school year, the city is spending over $388 million to prop schools up — the largest annual sum since the pandemic hit.

Overall, officials have spent $1.6 billion to stave off enrollment-related cuts over the past six years, according to the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog group. Enrollment in the city’s public schools has dropped more than 8% during that time, to 884,000, and is projected to continue sliding.

Now, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani prepares to release his first budget proposal next week — and warns of a $7 billion gap — City Hall must decide whether to continue the so-called “hold harmless” policy. Some budget experts believe the mayor should wind it down, arguing that allowing school budgets to become increasingly detached from enrollment introduces inequities. Some schools may receive significantly more money per student because of enrollment losses rather than student need.

The issue is politically tricky for Mamdani, who vowed to prioritize funding for public education during the campaign. Some parent leaders worry that rolling back the policy would force some schools to cut key staff and programs. When former Mayor Eric Adams proposed bringing school spending in line with enrollment, he faced enormous backlash — prompting city officials to keep propping up school budgets throughout his term.

“Nobody gets points for taking money away,” said Amy Ellen Schwartz, a public policy professor at the University of Delaware who has studied the city’s policy of keeping budgets steady.

Roughly 450 of the city’s more than 1,500 schools received $127 million this year to help keep their budgets from dipping due to enrollment declines year over year. On top of that, city officials offered $262 million worth of mid-year budget relief to more than 1,000 schools because they welcomed fewer students than the city initially projected.

Schwartz said there were good reasons to keep school budgets steady during the pandemic. Schools may have otherwise been forced to cut teachers as their budgets shrank, making it more difficult to meet students’ mounting academic and social needs. But Schwartz said the city must begin to reckon with managing a smaller school system.

“I see no rationale for maintaining resources allocated to serve a population that isn’t there anymore,” she said.

Parent leaders raise concerns about cuts to school programs

Education Department officials have warned that the money may not last forever. Principals should “carefully program these resources while being mindful of long-term program sustainability,” officials said in a June budget memo. Yet on dozens of campuses, the funding represents more than 10% of the budgets they receive before the start of the school year, city data show.

Ana Champeny, the vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, said the city should consider phasing the money out over multiple years. “The shock to some school budgets would be pretty severe” if the funding was yanked all at once. “Enrollment is decreasing and we need to think about what is the right way to manage the school system.”

School officials across the country are grappling with similar questions about how to reconcile enrollment declines in their budgeting decisions, said Jonathan Travers, the president of ERS, a nonprofit organization that advises district leaders.

The policy dilemma only gets more difficult to resolve the longer the hold harmless policy persists, he noted.

“The greater the divergence between a school’s funding and its enrollment, the more disruptive an eventual reconciliation is going to be,” Travers said.

Some parent leaders urged city officials to avoid making abrupt changes without educating school communities about the budget process or taking stock of how schools are using the money.

NeQuan McLean, the community education council president in Brooklyn’s District 16, said most schools in his district are struggling with low enrollment and use the money to help pay for essential programs, like music, art, and after-school. He worries that cuts could force campuses to slash those offerings, potentially making it even more difficult to attract families.

“We’re barely managing with what we have,” said McLean, whose district covers Bedford-Stuyvesant. “I just hope they don’t pull this money without real community engagement.”

He added that the city should consider rethinking the funding system more broadly to ensure schools can fund a range of staff and services regardless of how many students are enrolled.

Losing the hold harmless money could make those campuses more likely to be merged or closed, a strategy Chancellor Kamar Samuels has said may be necessary for campuses that struggle to afford basic programs.

Spokespeople for Mamdani and Samuels did not respond to questions about whether they intend to keep the hold harmless policy.

How Mamdani manages the public school system’s budget remains an open question. Experts expect his preliminary budget, due on Tuesday, to offer clues.

On the campaign trail, Mamdani singled out the Education Department as one area he hoped to find efficiencies and vowed to overhaul its procurement process.

The mayor has ordered each city agency to appoint a “chief savings officer” with an eye toward assessing programs and identifying wasteful spending. An Education Department spokesperson confirmed they have selected someone for the role. They declined to say who it is.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

As Mamdani expands child care, lessons from a Brooklyn early childhood center

2026-02-11T00:27:30+00:00

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When Maria Santana first started dropping off her son Anthony at FirstStepNYC, an early education center in Brownsville, Brooklyn, he would cry for hours, refusing to eat or nap until she picked him up.

Santana, who was working as a home health aid, told the center’s director that she thought she’d need to pull Anthony out. The director, Catharina Oerlemans, had a better solution: She asked Santana to come work for FirstStepNYC as a food handler.

FirstStepNYC was originally built in 2013 as a demonstration: What could early education look like if the city drew on the resources and expertise of the school system, the supports provided by a social service agency, and the principles of Head Start, to create a program that works with entire families — starting from before children are born and continuing until they go to kindergarten?

As New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani seeks to expand the city’s fractured, unwieldy, and financially stressed assortment of subsidized early childhood programs, FirstStepNYC’s founder thinks his administration should look to the program as a model again.

Mamdani has promised to create 2,000 new “2-Care” seats for 2-year-olds in the fall, with a plan to grow the program to 8,000 seats next year and make it universal in four years.

It’s a project that will involve major financial, logistical, and workforce challenges, especially as current early education teachers maintain that they are dramatically underpaid. And even if successful, it won’t solve the problems of a system that is fragmented and often reaches families too late, said Laura Ensler, a longtime coach and consultant who worked with the administration of then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg to create FirstStepNYC.

“Education begins prenatally,” Ensler said. An early education plan that begins with older kids is “like starting to build the house on the fourth floor.”

Using Head Start funding, FirstStepNYC sends home visitors to spend time with pregnant parents each week. They provide education on prenatal care and early childhood development, but also work with parents on their own goals for education and employment.

If parents are interested in working in a school, the program supports them to get the training they need and, if possible, hires them.

Anthony is now 14, but Santana is still at FirstStepNYC, not only preparing meals for the kids but managing Excel reports, running the front desk, and assisting the family support team — all skills she learned on the job.

She’s far from the only one. There’s Ms. Cheryl, who began as a client of the home visiting program and now works as an assistant teacher. There’s Ms. Destiny, whose daughter was in the infant room when she started working as a classroom floater. And there’s Ms. Maritza, Ms. Lakiesha, and Ms. Julissa, the office manager.

“You have to have a two-generational approach,” Ensler said. “It’s a family affair.”

Tackling teacher turnover

FirstStepNYC’s particular set-up allows the program to evade some of the financial stress and teacher turnover that plagues many early education programs. It also offers an example of what educators can do when they are not strapped for funds.

The center — which is run by SCO Family of Services — is housed in a public school building, so it doesn’t have to use funds from its early education contracts to pay for services like janitors, security, and food. Instead, the program uses that money to pay for positions like family support staff and a dedicated disability coordinator.

The result is more support for teachers, as well as opportunities for staff members to move into different jobs, reducing the isolation and career stagnancy that often leads to burnout in the field.

In turn, reduced teacher turnover creates stability and a sense of safety for kids, Oerlemans said. That’s important for all young children, but especially for kids who regularly experience upheaval in other parts of their lives.

“No matter how many shelters you go to, or how many foster care families you are a part of, knowing there’s a place that you’re always loved, a place that you’ll be fed something, a place that’s warm, that’s the most important thing,” Oerlemans said. “That really solid attachment allows children to know that they’re in a safe space. And when they know that they’re safe, they will learn.”

Teaching toddlers, feeling supported

On a very cold Friday morning in February, attendance was low — both because of a recent snowstorm and because FirstStepNYC had scheduled a half day to accommodate a professional development session on potty training.

In the “large movement” room, a group of 1-year-olds played with rubber balls and flopped on foam mats. In a 2-year-old classroom, teachers wiped noses and checked diapers while kids built a collective project with Magna-Tiles. Classrooms were adjoined by bathrooms with tiny sinks and toilets. The wall outside a prekindergarten classroom showed pictures of kids experimenting with flashlights — part of a unit on light and shadows.

In a hallway, Annie Mayor, FirstStepNYC’s assistant director of Early Head Start, had time to peek in at her son, who’s a student in a 2-year-old classroom.

Mayor always assumed she’d work as a traditional K-12 teacher, she said. “When you go to school, you never think about toddlers. No one goes to get a master’s and thinks, ‘I’m gonna change diapers.’”

But when she came to FirstStepNYC, she found that she loved the work, and she appreciated that there was support and opportunities to grow. Mayor started as an assistant teacher, then became a toddler teacher, and then the schools disability coordinator before moving into her current role.

“We have family support, an assistant director, an education director. We get coaching, we’ve been able to get a lot of support to complete our career goals,” Mayor said. “In other centers, there really is just you and your classroom.”

When teachers and staff are supported and less stressed, Mayor added, it allows for a sense of peace and calm for everyone.

Farther down the hall, five pre-K students sat on their classroom rug, listening to a guided meditation.

“Feel your breaths,” the guide said. “Feel that this is what’s keeping you alive. Feel how amazing it is to just … breathe.”

Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.

Plans to close Manhattan middle schools test Mamdani’s parent engagement pledge

2026-02-06T22:53:24+00:00

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Before Kamar Samuels took the helm of the nation’s largest school system, he set in motion plans to shutter three small middle school programs and relocate another coveted school in the Manhattan district he supervised.

Now, those nascent plans in District 3 — which includes the Upper West Side, Morningside Heights, and parts of Harlem — are generating pushback from families who are hoping to persuade Samuels and other top officials to reconsider.

How the Education Department reacts will represent the first stress test of a major campaign promise from Mayor Zohran Mamdani to give communities a greater voice in decisions that affect their schools. It is also a high-stakes moment for Samuels, who indicated he might ramp up mergers and other significant changes, moves that often spark strong reactions.

Education officials argue the plans, which have been discussed with parent leaders but not yet released publicly, would help address broad systemic issues, including the growing number of tiny campuses that are difficult to sustain and the need to reshuffle school space to comply with the state’s class size mandate.

To families, the moves represent grave threats to beloved community institutions, including a campus that is known for welcoming students with disabilities and another with an emphasis on social emotional learning.

“I’m hopeful about the messages that the mayor and chancellor put forward,” said Olivia Greer, a parent who has children at two schools that would be significantly altered by the proposals. But she worries about what will be lost if the current plans go through.

District 3 plans represent broader issues facing the school system

Enrollment in the city’s public schools has been declining for years, with losses accelerating during the pandemic. That’s resulted in a growing number of schools that officials say are too small to sustain.

At the Joan of Arc campus on West 93rd Street, two of the building’s three middle schools welcomed fewer than 200 students this year.

Schools below that threshold may lead district officials to “question the sustainability of offerings for students,” Mariela Graham, the deputy superintendent in District 3, told families at a community meeting this week. Schools are funded on a per-student basis and could struggle to afford basic programs without healthy rosters.

The city is looking to close the campus’ two smallest middle schools: the Community Action School and the middle school grades of the Manhattan School for Children. Officials hope to phase out the programs over three years, according to district officials and families briefed on the plans. The building’s third middle school, Lafayette Academy, had already merged with a school on a different campus in 2023, despite parent opposition.

District officials also are planning to relocate the Center School, a popular grades 5-8 program, from its West 84th Street home shared with P.S. 9. The elementary school needs more space to comply with the state’s class size law. With pressure to shrink all classes by 2028, these kinds of moves could become increasingly common.

The city would relocate the Center School a mile and half south into a building occupied by P.S./I.S. 191, which would then lose its middle school grades, which enrolled 151 students last year.

Samuels has pulled off controversial school moves, but parents are deeply concerned

During his time as a local superintendent in Brooklyn and Manhattan, Samuels built a reputation for successfully completing mergers and relocations, even as some of them proved contentious.

These four proposals will likely face additional scrutiny, as Samuels set them in motion as the District 3 superintendent before Mamdani elevated him to lead the system. Families have launched petitions against the plans and are packing community meetings to voice their opposition.

“We’re not taking this sitting down,” said Tiffany Rodriguez-Noel, a parent at P.S./I.S. 191. She said the school took on many asylum-seeking families and contends the Education Department has not properly supported the program.

Parents at the Center School have also raised strong objections to the move. They contend their school’s flourishing theater program would struggle because their new campus does not have a proper space for it and that the move would require other programmatic changes. The Manhattan School for Children, which enrolled 130 students this fall in the middle school grades, has developed a reputation for including students with disabilities in classes alongside their general education peers. Families worry it would be difficult to find similarly welcoming communities elsewhere.

Meanwhile, at the Community Action School, dozens of parents and educators pleaded with district leaders not to close the school during a virtual community meeting this week. They stressed that the school’s small size has advantages, and it boasts strong social emotional support and restorative justice programs. Plus, enrollment shot up to 171 students this fall up from 131 last year.

When District 3 officials suggested the school’s below average reading and math scores also factored into the closure proposal, families were quick to counter that the vast majority of students come from low-income families and many arrive behind grade level.

Nicki Holtzman, a Bronx parent of a sixth grader who was bullied at his previous school, said the family sought out the program after an extensive search for a campus with the right support. “All of the teachers are highly engaged,” she said. “My child went from having no self-esteem academically to making honor roll twice.”

The closure plan, she added, “feels like a punch to the stomach — it feels rushed.”

District officials told families during the town hall they began deliberations about the district’s changes more than a year ago and included parent leaders and other representatives from each school.

But that argument did not sit well with some who said details about the plans were largely kept to a district-led working group and only trickled out to wider school communities in the last couple months. In some cases, parents heard rumors of the plans just before the December middle school admissions deadline, causing confusion and last-minute application overhauls to avoid listing schools that could soon close.

Andrew Sullivan, the principal of the Community Action School, noted during the town hall meeting that working group meetings took place during the day, making it difficult for parents to attend. (Mamdani has said he wants to rethink when meetings with parent leaders are held so “working parents can actually attend them.”)

Greer, a parent with children at the Center School and Manhattan School for Children, acknowledged that district officials have incorporated some feedback, such as phasing out middle school programs over three years rather than shutting them down outright.

“It’s not that there has been no listening and incorporation of feedback,” she said. But “my sense is that there has been a plan in place from the beginning and a view about what the preferred outcome is.”

Reginald Higgins, the acting superintendent in District 3, acknowledged in the town hall meeting that families felt the process was opaque and frustrating and suggested the process left room for improvement. He stressed that the proposals were formed before he was appointed and vowed to hear school communities out.

“I want to ensure that whatever we do moving forward, that that is a different experience for all of us,” he said.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein noted that District 3 has held several meetings with families, parent leaders, and elected officials since December and said the superintendent plans to “schedule additional engagements.”

“Creating space for community voice is critical to this administration,” she wrote.

Fight over school closures comes at an awkward time for Mamdani

How Higgins manages the process could offer an early window into the new administration’s approach to community engagement, and it comes at a politically delicate moment for Mamdani.

On the campaign trail, the mayor vowed to cede his substantial power over the school system to give families and educators more voice. But he recently abandoned that proposal and is now pushing lawmakers to extend mayoral control of the school system, which expires this summer and is dictated by state law.

Mamdani pledged his version of mayoral control will give communities more of a say without giving up his power. That could be an awkward sell while scores of parents from District 3 are protesting decisions to close their middle schools.

Making matters more complicated, Mamdani has not been able to appoint the majority of the members of the Panel for Educational Policy, the board that makes the final decision on school closures and relocations and has historically voted in line with City Hall’s wishes. The terms of the current members, including appointees of former Mayor Eric Adams, don’t end until June. But if the Education Department moves forward with the plans in District 3, they would likely come up for a vote by the panel in April.

Board members are already paying close attention, with several attending community meetings in District 3 to learn more about the plans.

Panel chair Greg Faulker said he expects the board to carefully weigh the Education Department’s proposals, offering no guarantee of their fate. “The DOE has to work harder because they have to convince us,” Faulkner said. “I don’t think the days of ramming things through really exist anymore.”

On the campaign trail, Mamdani’s critique of mayoral control invoked the image of parents protesting plans to upend their children’s schools in hourslong meetings, only for the panel to vote in line with City Hall’s wishes.

In the coming months, the mayor that families might be protesting is Mamdani.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Safety, academic rigor, integration: Kamar Samuels embarks on 5-borough tour to discuss priorities

2026-02-05T22:16:39+00:00

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Before becoming the chancellor of the nation’s largest school system last month, Kamar Samuels was a superintendent, first in Brooklyn and then in Manhattan, where he developed a reputation for his listening skills.

Now Samuels plans to embark on a five-borough tour to hear from students, parents, and educators on how to better include them in the decision-making process, especially when it comes to his main priorities: safety, academic rigor, and integration. Other Education Department staffers will be on hand to answer questions about special education, enrollment, language access, and more, officials said.

Each borough will host two sessions, one on a Tuesday and one on a Saturday. After the 10 sessions wrap up, the Education Department plans to release a report based on the feedback gathered during the events’ roundtable discussions as well as a “long-term roadmap” for the city’s school, officials said. It’s something of a rite of passage for new chancellors, who have previously embarked on similar listening tours and issued reports about what they heard.

“These conversations are about fundamentally changing how we make decisions by ensuring that those closest to our students have a real seat at the table,” Samuels said in a statement.

Several controversial topics will likely come up, including Samuels’ record of merging schools as a way to tackle low enrollment and integrate students from different backgrounds. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has indicated his support for bolstering diversity in New York City schools, which is one of the nation’s most segregated school systems.

Samuel’s approach to gifted and talented programs is also sure to attract heated debate. When he was in charge of Brooklyn’s District 13, he helped several schools move away from gifted programs, responding to a groundswell of support from families who were concerned about the relative lack of Black and Latino students in such classrooms, and he instead encouraged schools to create International Baccalaureate programs, bringing academic enrichment to entire schools rather than just a subset of classes.

Mamdani has also expressed wanting to rethink the city’s gifted programs, particularly the practice of admitting students into the programs in kindergarten. Most programs across the nation start when kids are older, and in recent years, New York City has opened new programs starting in third grade.

Several parents and educators who have worked with Samuels are quick to point out that the chancellor is unlikely to simply take something away without providing other compelling options. In Manhattan’s District 3, which he most recently oversaw, Samuels tried to tackle enrollment declines in Harlem — where a large percentage of families go to charters — through mergers along with bringing new programs.

Michelle Lee, who sits on the parent council for Manhattan’s District 3 and formerly served as PTA president at Anderson, a gifted and talented K-8 school that draws students from across the city, said parents were leery when Samuels took the helm of their district.

But when Samuels held a town hall for the school to discuss bringing back screens for the middle school, families were “pleasantly surprised” that he wanted to engage with them.

“I think he sees the validity of why there is a segment of the student population that needs to have accelerated learning, and he understands that,” Lee said. “He does believe in providing opportunities for children and different types of learners.”

But she also had some suggestions about ending gifted for kindergartners in favor of starting in third grade: Few parents would want to pull their children from their elementary school for a program lasting third to fifth grade, she said. They would, however, potentially consider a third through eighth grade program, allowing them to skip the middle school application process.

It remains to be seen whether Samuels’ can translate his listening approach from a more local level to the system writ large and how he’ll be able to synthesize feedback from families with competing needs from 1,600 schools across the city.

Meghan Dunn, District 13’s superintendent who had been Samuels’ deputy superintendent when they started pursuing the International Baccalaureate, said the idea grew out of conversations with families.

Dunn said Samuels was intentional about cultivating relationships with families — in his capacity as a fellow parent of children in the school system and as a superintendent. “He called it,” Dunn said, “the playground superintendent.”

Here’s the schedule for the chancellor’s listening tour, dubbed, “Our Schools. Our Future: Conversations with the Chancellor:”

Queens, March 17, 6:30-8:00 p.m.

Queens Innovation Center, 53-16 Northern Boulevard

Brooklyn, March 24, 6:30-8:00 p.m.

John Dewey High School, 2471 Stillwell Ave.

Bronx, March 28, 10:30 a.m. to noon

Roosevelt Educational Campus, 500 East Fordham Road

Staten Island, April 11, 10:30 a.m. to noon

Curtis High School, 105 Hamilton Ave.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC 3-K and pre-K applications: 50,000 families apply in 2 weeks

2026-01-30T22:56:12+00:00

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New York City received more than 50,000 applications for its free preschool programs in just two weeks, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on Friday.

That number is about half of the total applications the city received last year for its 3-K and prekindergarten programs — some 94,840. But families of 3- and 4-year-olds still have nearly a month to apply, and many families often wait until the end of the application window since applications are not accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Applications remain open through Feb. 27.

“Every child deserves access to free, high quality childcare – and we’re making sure families across the city know that now is the time to enroll in 3-k and pre-K,” Mamdani said in a statement.

Mamdani seems to be taking a page from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s playbook, when the former mayor launched the city’s massive free pre-K program a decade ago and made outreach a major focal point. De Blasio’s administration mounted a door-to-door campaign to get the word out, particularly in low-income neighborhoods where families were less familiar with the city’s new offerings, and staffers called families of 4-year-olds across the city to encourage them to apply.

Former Mayor Eric Adams, however, did not focus as much on outreach, complained City Council members, who fought for more funding to improve getting the word out about the programs to families. Last year, about 1 in every 5 seats for the city’s free child care programs for children ages 4 and under, or more than 27,000 of roughly 136,000 seats, went unfilled, according to city data.

The new mayor has a vested interest in making sure application numbers are healthy: Not only did he vow to strengthen the city’s 3-K program and ensure that it’s truly universal, showing the demand for the city’s existing programs will help shore up support for his 2-Care program for the city’s 2-year-olds.

In her recent executive budget proposal, Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged to spend $73 million to help New York City roll out its 2-Care program and committed to invest $500 million over two years in the program. The city is aiming to create 2,000 new child care seats for 2-year-olds in high-need areas of the city in the fall, then grow to 8,000 seats the following year, and reach all of the city’s 2-year-olds by the end of Mamdani’s first term.

On Friday, Mamdani visited a home-based child care provider in Manhattan’s Chinatown as a way to show his commitment to the providers who operate out of home and often offer care that is culturally and linguistically responsive to families in their communities.

The administration will likely have to rely heavily on home-based providers to scale up its 2-Care program, which will pose many logistical hurdles. That workforce is still reeling from losing kids to 3-K and pre-K programs and the COVID pandemic. More recently, the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts have affected the immigrant-heavy workforce, advocates and providers have said.

Emmy Liss, a former de Blasio administration staffer who is heading the mayor’s Office of Child Care, acknowledged that not all home-based providers fared well in the rollout of the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs.

“We want to work closely in partnership with them in this next phase of work, because we cannot do this work without them,” Liss previously told Chalkbeat.

Families can apply to 3-K and pre-K online through myschools.nyc or by calling 718-935-2009. City officials said any family that applies by the deadline will receive an offer.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

The downside of ending snow days

2026-01-29T15:45:00+00:00

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In New York City, and some other parts of the country, snow days are turning into a relic of the past. As snow buried New York over the weekend, the country’s largest school system shifted to remote learning on Monday rather than calling off school altogether.

Kate Gutwillig, a fifth grade teacher at P.S. 134 in Manhattan, said about 70% of her students showed up for virtual instruction. It proved challenging to quickly pivot to remote learning.

“You can’t teach these kids all these social norms on Zoom today,” she said. About half the students who logged in to her virtual classroom kept their cameras off. Gutwillig noted it has been years since the pandemic, when students were consistently on Zoom for school.

She largely did not cover new material since attendance was lower than usual. Instead, Gutwillig made time for her students to read independently, then delivered brief review lessons on how to write a conclusion to a literary essay and how to find the area of a rectangle with fractions. All things considered, she said, the day went well.

Research suggests that Gutwillig’s decision not to cover new topics was a wise one. A major 2014 study found that a small number of snow days did not have any noticeable effect on test scores. On the other hand, keeping schools open on snowy days when attendance was low did seem to harm learning.

This research points to the limits of replacing snow days with virtual instruction. At worst, doing so could backfire if teachers spend time covering new material when student engagement is low, as was the case in New York City. At best, it might be an opportunity for teachers to review prior topics, but not move forward with regular instruction.

The New York City Department of Education gave schools discretion over how to approach remote instruction, including introducing new content or focusing on review, according to teachers and principals. A spokesperson for the district said that teachers “thoughtfully adjusted content to meet the needs of their students in a remote environment.”

To study the effects of snow days, Joshua Goodman, now a professor at Boston University, examined a rich set of data on weather, attendance, and test scores in Massachusetts from 2003 to 2010.

Goodman compared test scores in years where there was more or less snow. A year with lots of heavy snow (days with more than 10 inches) had no effect. Yet math scores were lower in years with more days of moderate (4-10 inches) snow.

These counterintuitive results can be explained by how schools responded to different levels of snow. Heavy snow meant more snow days. Moderate snow meant more days when schools stayed open but attendance was sharply down, particularly among low-income students.

In other words, snow days did not seem to set students back much; missing regular school days due to snowy conditions did.

The takeaway is not that schools can close indefinitely without consequence, and Goodman did find some small negative effects of closures for high-poverty schools. But the study suggests that a few snow days won’t be terribly harmful because teachers figure out ways to adapt.

Yet when schools are open and a big chunk of students are missing, teachers are in a tough spot. Some may continue teaching new material, and then try to help students who missed the original lesson catch up. This creates a dual challenge, though: The makeup work isn’t quite as effective, and teachers’ time and energy is diverted from moving everyone else forward.

“Snow days, maybe surprisingly, are less disruptive than other forms of lost instructional time,” said Goodman. “Coordinating everyone being absent at once is actually easier to deal with than the messiness of other kinds of lost instructional time.”

Other studies have broadly backed up these findings. Individual student absences affect achievement more than schoolwide calendar changes. Some research has found that students also learn less when their peers are frequently absent, perhaps because that makes whole-class teaching less effective. (This could help explain some of America’s current achievement challenges at a moment when student absences have spiked.)

Although there doesn’t appear to be much or any research on the relatively new phenomenon of virtual snow days, the pandemic showed that remote learning was challenging for many students.

In New York City, parents, teachers, and students also reported technical glitches and disengagement on Monday. About 1 in 5 students didn’t sign on for virtual instruction at all. (Attendance was similarly low on Tuesday when schools reopened.) Manhattan mom Tiffany Rodriguez-Noel elected not to log her kindergarten twins on for remote learning due to their hyperactivity and speech delays.

“I wish they could just let a snow day be a snow day,” Rodriguez-Noel said. But she noted the experience was relatively smooth for her sixth grade son and she understands the desire to avoid missing an entire day of instruction.

With engagement and attendance sporadic, the research suggests that teachers shouldn’t feel bad about focusing on review during virtual learning days. This also offers guidance to state policymakers as they consider what should count toward instructional-day minimums. Virtual school days may be an opportunity to help a subset of students review old material, but they’re unlikely to move instruction forward in many cases.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Zohran Mamdani must work with Eric Adams’ school board, at least for now

2026-01-27T23:37:47+00:00

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A day before taking office, Zohran Mamdani said he wanted to retain sweeping power over New York City’s public schools, abandoning a major promise while campaigning for mayor.

But Mamdani will have to wait at least six months before he gains one of the biggest powers under mayoral control: appointing the majority of the school board. That body, known as the Panel for Educational Policy, votes on major Education Department contracts, changes to agency regulations, and school mergers and closures.

Of the panel’s 24 members, 13 are mayoral appointees. Under tweaks to state law shortly after Mayor Eric Adams took office, panel members serve one-year terms that run through June — meaning for the next six months, Mamdani is mostly stuck with his predecessor’s appointees. He’s the first mayor since the city transitioned to mayoral control in 2002 who cannot immediately appoint the majority of the board.

That sets up an unusual dynamic, as Mamdani must navigate a school board that he does not control. Meanwhile, he’s continuing to get pressure to give up major elements of mayoral control. A group of 43 advocacy organizations called on state lawmakers Tuesday to phase out the mayor’s majority on the board after two years while a commission rethinks the governance system.

“In some ways it’s a good test in terms of what it would look like to have a more independent board,” said Greg Faulkner, the current board chair who was selected by Adams from a list created by state lawmakers and is serving on a term that runs until September. “We want to work cooperatively.”

Experts and Education Department insiders largely agree that the board is unlikely to be a major obstacle to Mamdani until he can choose a full slate of appointees. Adams left behind two vacant mayoral seats, which Mamdani can fill anytime. (Aside from the mayoral appointees, five members are selected by parent leaders and each of the five borough presidents appoint a board member to represent them.)

“There’s a lot of goodwill towards the mayor that could tamp down efforts of the panel to go rogue,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College who has studied the city’s public schools. “I’m not expecting there to be a lot of conflict around the mayor’s priorities,” he added, “not least because we don’t have much of a sense of the mayor’s priorities.”

Still, the board has sometimes thrown curveballs at new mayors. Just a few months after Adams took office, the board voted down the city’s school funding formula, creating pressure for the administration to make tweaks later on.

In recent months, the board repeatedly bucked City Hall, voting down millions worth of AI contracts, refusing to approve long-term extensions of school bus contracts, and raising concerns about administrative spending. Kiddom, a company that offers a digital platform for teachers to access curriculum materials and had been previously voted down, is back on the board’s agenda for a vote on Wednesday evening — the first panel meeting under Mamdani.

Kamar Samuels, Mamdani’s schools chancellor, has signaled interest in merging schools to address the growing number of small campuses and to promote integration. Those proposals, which often generate pushback from families and educators, are subject to board approval — though observers said it’s unlikely the new administration will propose many of them right away.

Still, one contentious plan to relocate an Upper West Side campus while eliminating the middle school grades of another Manhattan school is already in the works. Samuels helped launch conversations about that plan in his previous role as the superintendent of District 3, though it has not been formally proposed for a vote.

Mayoral control debate isn’t going anywhere

Questions about how the nation’s largest school system should be governed will be front and center in the coming months.

Mamdani must negotiate with state lawmakers over extending mayoral control, which is set to expire at the end of June. Gov. Kathy Hochul gave Mamdani’s effort a boost last week by proposing a four-year extension of the power.

The new mayor is also under scrutiny from advocates and progressive groups, dozens of whom are pressuring him to make good on his promise to make the system more responsive to students, parents, and teachers. Their Tuesday letter urged Mamdani to create a commission to help think through how to make the school system more democratic.

“Mayor Mamdani must partner with communities to build a governance model with meaningful checks and balances and far greater community leadership,” the letter states.

City Hall did not reply to questions about whether Mamdani is open to changes to the school’s board’s structure or when he plans to fill the remaining vacancies on the board. A Mamdani spokesperson, Jenna Lyle emphasized that the mayor is committed to “clear accountability and genuine community empowerment.”

“Building thoughtful and productive relationships with current and future Panel for Educational Policy members will be a priority,” she added.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

No meltdown, just ‘hiccups’: How NYC schools handled a remote snow day

2026-01-26T22:48:58+00:00

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As Bronx social studies teacher Seth Gilman sipped his coffee and prepared to log on for a day of virtual teaching, he was met with an error message.

At first, he worried it would be a repeat of a disastrous pivot to remote learning during a 2024 snowstorm.

“Oh no, not again,” he thought to himself. But within about 20 minutes, his school had resolved the issue and he logged in to Google Classroom, the platform schools use to share schedules and Zoom links.

“Once we got the classroom up and running, it was fine,” Gilman said.

Unlike two years ago when they pivoted to remote, New York City schools did not see a systemwide meltdown, but pockets of families and educators from across the city shared instances of glitches and snafus. Many of the issues seemed to be resolved quickly. School buildings will reopen for regular instruction on Tuesday, city officials announced Monday afternoon.

The switch to remote learning on Monday in the wake of a major snowstorm represented an early logistical challenge for the nation’s largest school system under Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his schools chief, Kamar Samuels, who took office earlier this month.

About 395,000 students and their families were able to log in for virtual learning, according to preliminary figures city officials provided Monday afternoon. Officials estimated that 79% of students logged on for at least some virtual learning.

About 500,000 of the city’s nearly 900,000 students were required to report to virtual classrooms. High school students and those attending 6-12 schools had a previously scheduled day off for staff training.

“Things have gone very well this morning — it was a smooth start to the day,” Samuels told reporters during a Monday morning press conference.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein later acknowledged there were “minor hiccups” as families logged on but emphasized the agency’s technical support line fielded a similar number of complaints as a typical school day.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the 200,000-member United Federation of Teachers, gave the mayor an ‘A’ for his handling of the snow storm. “The one glitch seemed to be Google. They had the same notice as our students, parents, and teachers, so they need to do better.”

As the storm approached, Mamdani seemed to entertain the idea of a traditional snow day, though he later admitted there is no room in the school calendar to do that without running afoul of the state’s mandated number of instructional days.

Schools snapped into gear, distributing devices to students, offering reminders about how to log on to virtual classrooms, and sending home paper worksheets in case families ran into tech problems. Some schools tried to recreate a regular day on Zoom while others emphasized independent work or review lessons.

Attendance was lower than usual in many classrooms, according to teachers and families as well as Education Department figures. Some schools built time into the schedule for students to enjoy the snow.

Gilman, who works at the High School for Teaching and the Professions, said he was impressed with how many students showed up to virtual classes. Still, he stuck to a more “discussion-based lesson” in part to avoid leaving students behind who were absent. (Though most high schools were not in session, Gilman’s school runs on a different calendar through a program that grants exceptions to the teachers union contract.)

Tech problems and tiny victories with remote learning

The Education Department may not have melted down, but some parents did.

Chris Ninman, who has a third grader at P.S. 889 in Brooklyn, tried to help his son log into Google Classroom, but said the server was down. Then he wasn’t able to sign into Zoom from his son’s school-issued Chromebook. Things worked better when he switched from the Chromebook to Ninman’s own computer.

Once he was successfully logged in, Ninman thought his son’s teachers did a good job with remote learning. There was a live, 40-minute reading instruction, with other synchronous lessons scheduled throughout the day.

“I’d rather they just called it a snow day,” Ninman said. “But if you’re going to do school, do it right.”

Liz Groeschen, a mom who took her two sons to Prospect Park Monday morning, said that getting into her second grader’s morning Zoom meeting was just the first challenge. She had to page through multiple websites that were nested in each other.

Groeschen read aloud to a reporter from this morning’s chat in her classroom parent group:

“So you search for FUN HUB inside Google Classroom?” one parent wrote. “No,” another parent replied. “We had to log in through the browser, not the app, and then search for FUN HUB in the search bar.”

“Did you disable the popup blockers?” a third parent asked.

“P.E. is a slide show? The 21st century is crap.”

Tiffany Rodriguez-Noel's sixth grader, who attends P.S. 191 in Manhattan, works on a laptop.

Tiffany Rodriguez-Noel, a Manhattan mother with four children in city public schools, said her sixth-grade son struggled to log into his new school-issued Chromebook for remote instruction. He wound up propping his phone up on a laptop with his PlayStation 5 screen tantalizingly close by.

Despite grumbles from her sixth grader about having to wake up early and log on for school, Rodriguez-Noel said her son’s homeroom teacher at P.S. 191 made it easy, sending out a clear schedule with links. The school also sent home hard copies of assignments, saving him from typing into his phone.

“It’s actually pretty smooth,” Rodriguez-Noel said.

She decided not to log her kindergarten twins on for remote instruction, though, because they are hyperactive and have speech delays, and she felt they wouldn’t get much out of it. Her high school child spent the day working on college applications.

Her sixth-grade son’s school planned a half day of instruction, giving the family time to have fun outside. “I’m taking him to Central Park to sled down this rock we’ve been waiting to do since 2021,” she said.

Some families yearn for traditional snow day

Brooklyn dad Steven Mahoney, refused to log on for his 10-year-old son who is non-verbal and attends a school in District 75, which serves children with significant disabilities.

“The regression that I witnessed in my child during the remote/hybrid learning was heartbreaking,” Mahoney said of virtual instruction during the pandemic.

Since he and his wife had to work on Monday, their son’s sitter took him to a nearby park and then got hot chocolate.

Sledding at Brooklyn's Prospect Park on Monday.

Brooke Young, a Brooklyn mom, said her son’s 3-K teachers told parents their kids didn’t need to log on, and instead they gave families suggestions of snowy day activities. Many of the suggestions, however, like dyeing snow different colors, seemed too labor intensive, she noted.

Young helped her daughter log on from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. for her first grade class and then again from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., while she herself logged onto work meetings. After that, they went to Prospect Park for sledding, with a plan to return to Zoom for an end-of-day meeting for her first grader, who attends P.S. 321.

If her kids were older and had “real attention spans” for Zoom meetings, remote learning could have been more productive, said Young, who struggled to balance her own job with having to mute and unmute her daughter on Zoom. She would have preferred just putting on an educational PBS show.

Ultimately, Young was grateful to spend time with her kids outside.

“I remember the joy myself of having a snow day,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools pivot to remote learning Monday during snowstorm, Mamdani says

2026-01-25T15:34:11+00:00

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New York City public schools are going remote on Monday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani confirmed on Sunday as the snowfall was predicted to reach 6-10 inches.

All school programs are canceled, including after school and adult education, the mayor said. Charter schools and private schools make their own decisions about whether to close buildings and pivot to remote learning. Students in high schools and schools serving grades 6-12 were already scheduled to be off for professional development.

“As snowfall begins to blanket our city and conditions become hazardous, closing school buildings is a necessary step to keep New Yorkers safe,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Over the past week, my administration has prepared for this moment – ensuring devices are in hand, families are informed and educators are ready to welcome students online.”

The transition to remote learning for roughly 500,000 of the city’s 884,000 students represents the first major operational challenge for the Education Department under the new administration.

The mayor and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels briefed the city on Friday, letting families know that school buildings would either remain open or classes would pivot to remote learning, but that a traditional snow day was off the table because the city needs to meet a certain number of instructional days under state law.

But Samuels also said that schools could be flexible in how they approached the day.

“No one is asking kids to be on a device for six hours and 20 minutes,” Samuels said on Friday. “Some learning will be synchronous. Some will be asynchronous. You can still have your hot chocolate; you can still go out and enjoy the snow.”

Many schools asked their families and staffers to practice logging into remote learning platforms over the weekend to avoid glitches on Monday. Education Department officials also encouraged school leaders to stagger school start times for each grade level by 15-minute increments “to ensure a smooth login experience,” according to a letter to principals obtained by Chalkbeat.

When in-person classes were canceled because of snow two years ago, a technical meltdown prevented many students and teachers from logging on despite efforts to practice in advance. The Education Department subsequently conducted another drill but it was optional, and many students seemed to have opted out.

Samuels said the city “stress tested” the system for remote learning, most recently in December.

“We’ve increased the capacity to make sure that we can house as many students as possible on that day,” Samuels said. “So we now have the capacity of having a million students logging at the same time within 60 seconds.”

City officials advised families needing technical support to visit selfservice.schools.nyc or contact their school directly.

Tell us how Monday goes for you and your child or students: ny.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Exclusive: NYC schools chancellor Kamar Samuels on mergers, integration, and screened schools

2026-01-08T23:32:01+00:00

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On Kamar Samuels’ fourth school day as chancellor, he brought Mayor Zohran Mamdani to a Brooklyn school he views as a blueprint for tackling two major problems: segregation and sagging enrollment.

Samuels played a leading role merging two different school communities into Arts & Letters 305 United five years ago. The move combined P.S. 305, an underenrolled majority Black campus in Bedford-Stuyvesant, with Arts & Letters, a highly coveted more affluent school in Fort Greene serving one of the district’s largest shares of white students.

“I see a model and an example for the rest of the city,” Samuels told a group of parent leaders, educators, and elected officials, vowing not to “ugly cry” during Thursday’s visit. “It’s beyond what I had dreamt about.”

Deploying school mergers with an eye toward integration has been a hallmark of Samuels’ leadership. He used the strategy from his time overseeing schools in Brooklyn’s District 13 and brought it to his next role as superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3.

In an exclusive interview with Chalkbeat, Mamdani said he selected Samuels because of his deep knowledge of the city’s public schools and his track record taking on thorny problems.

“I told him that we needed a leader who was fluent in the system,” Mamdani said. “In him, I have seen someone who has been able to tackle the challenges that we have become used to as well as deliver the results that we haven’t always seen.”

Before the opening bell, Mamdani greeted dozens of families who circled him in the schoolyard. Some parents snapped selfies while students rushed into the scrum to shake the mayor’s hand. “Have a great day at school,” Mamdani scribbled in fifth grader Rafi’s notebook before offering his autograph. “Yo, I’m crashing out,” a student shouted after recognizing the new mayor.

After Samuels toured the school, Chalkbeat caught up with the schools chief to ask how he hopes to address school segregation, boost results for students who are struggling academically in the wake of the pandemic, and whether he agrees with the mayor’s assessment that charter schools siphon resources from district schools.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You moved here when you were 15 from Jamaica. I’m curious what your schooling was like both in Jamaica and when you moved here.

I started out in school in Jamaica — in a school that was one of the first schools that integrated physically disabled students with able-bodied students.

It was an experiment that they were doing in Jamaica. There was a lot of stigma associated with physically disabled students. And my parents signed up. They believed in having an inclusive environment. It was called The Hope Valley Experimental School.

And then after that, in Jamaica, you can take a test, or you could, at the time in fifth grade, it was called the common entrance test. And then you could go to what we call high school, which essentially is from seventh grade to 12th.

I went to this high school, Jamaica College, and then I ended up graduating high school in Jamaica when I was 15 and I moved here. It was too late to apply to college, and my mom was like, ‘You’re too young to do any of that.’ So for the first semester, she sent me to Evander Childs High School in the Bronx. I was there for probably a semester after which we applied to the CUNY system. Bronx Community College was close to me. So I went there for a little bit, and then I transferred to Baruch College. I graduated college when I was 20.

My mom said, ‘You are good at math, you should go do accounting.’ So I did accounting. I absolutely hated it. I hated it so much. I said to myself, ‘If I try to get a job in sports, just to be an accountant in sports.’ I worked for the National Basketball Association for a little bit, and I said, ‘If I can’t love accounting doing this, I’m never gonna love it.’

I had tutored students with disabilities at Bronx Community College, and I really liked the connection [we had]. And so I’m going home on the train one day, and I saw [a sign] that said, ‘Do you remember your first grade teacher’s name? Who will remember yours?’ It was the New York City Teaching Fellows Program. I went home, applied the same day, and I was in the classroom probably three months or four months later.

One of the biggest challenges facing the education department right now is declining enrollment and the growing number of really small schools. You obviously have some experience as a superintendent pursuing school mergers, so I’m wondering how you’re starting to think about that systemwide. Is there a threshold below which you think a school is too small to be sustainable?

What decides for me whether a school is too small is the resources that it’s able to garner for kids. And there are schools across the city that aren’t able to have the best enrichment programs. An eighth grader might not be exposed to Algebra because they don’t have the resources. That is something we have to take a look at across the city, especially when we think about our class size mandates.

And I don’t think of class size as a mandate. I think of class size as an opportunity to meet the needs of every student in the classroom. We have to use the fact that we’re in this cycle of lower enrollment as an opportunity to think about how we utilize different spaces.

You’ve also talked about wanting to prioritize school integration. What kinds of integration efforts might you be interested in pursuing?

I really believe that a school that’s socioeconomically integrated — especially as we think about our city and the diversity that it brings culturally — is a school that I want my own children, who are in the public school system, to be a part of.

I remember my first parent-teacher conference when I realized I had the cab driver’s kids, the police detective’s kids, the home health aide’s kids. It hit me that all these people want the best for their kids, and it was my job to really make sure that their kids were seen and heard. And I think that’s the part of school integration that people often miss: We want to make sure that we have high expectations for all kids, and we want to make sure that they feel affirmed in school.

A larger share of New York City middle and high schools screen students for admission than almost any other school system in the country. Will you be looking at ways to reduce screening?

There are fewer screened schools today than they were prior to the pandemic — and the way that we’re doing screens today is different. Instead of focusing on test scores, like we used to do, we’re now focused on academic report card grades. If we’re going to do screens, [course grades are] more aligned to what I would want to support.

When we look at [District 3] where I was a superintendent, we didn’t bring screens back wholesale, except for our citywide [gifted] program under the Anderson School. It was because that was a community-driven process that I listened to folks. Not everybody was in favor of it, but certainly there was a majority of parents in favor of that, and we moved in that direction.

We’re going to continue to listen to parents. If there are places where people don’t necessarily want to do that, then we’ll listen.

New York City’s lowest performing students have been struggling to recover from the pandemic. Do you have ideas about how specifically the system should better support those students? What about schools serving mostly students below grade level?

We have invested incredibly in New York City Reads. And a part of New York City Reads is this idea of MTSS [multi-tiered system of supports], which I know is confusing for folks. What is that? It’s essentially a structure that makes sure every child gets what they need when it’s implemented well, and that during the school day. So during the school day we’ve been clearer than ever on what interventions mean, when we do them, how we create time to do them.

We’ve done so much work around that during the school day. Some schools do great work with high dosage tutoring and we’re going to have to continue that. The one thing I do think gets in the way of all of this is chronic absenteeism.

And so since the pandemic, no matter your demographics, what we’ve noticed is that you’re likely to come into school fewer days than before. And folks need to understand that if we’re not in school your child is going to miss work. I’m doing a lot of thinking about different ways to address chronic absenteeism.

During the campaign, Mayor Mamdani indicated that charter schools siphon resources away from traditional public schools, shouldn’t have space in city buildings, and also should be audited. Do you agree with that position?

Kamar Samuels believes in a great school, no matter what kind of school it is. I know there are some charter schools that do really, really good work. I think charter schools will continue to do that work, and I know that they can do that work within the cap that they have.

And I do believe that there are charter schools, like some district schools, that may not be doing as well as we want them to do, and I think those schools should be held accountable.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Hochul plans to fund first 2 years of universal child care for NYC 2-year-olds

2026-01-08T19:50:16+00:00

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New York State will fund the first two years of a free child care program for 2-year-olds in New York City, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Thursday.

The program, known as 2-Care, was central to Mamdani’s campaign promise of creating universal child care for families in the five boroughs. However, many were skeptical that the mayor would succeed in convincing state officials to invest in a major child care expansion.

The state is taking the “unprecedented step” of committing to two years of funding “to show you that we’re in this for the long haul,” Hochul said, appearing alongside Mamdani at a YMCA in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Statewide, Hochul is proposing to invest $4.5 billion this year for child care initiatives. Her office did not immediately say how much of that will go to New York City programs. The Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Albany, estimates that 2-Care will cost about $1 billion per year.

Hochul made the announcement ahead of next week’s State of the State address, where she will outline her priorities for the budget, which must be approved by April 1. In addition to the 2-Care funding, the governor plans to invest $470 million to support universal prekindergarten across the state, making seats available for every 4-year-old by 2028. The state will also increase funding for child care vouchers by 40%, helping “hundreds of thousands of families keep their costs low and keep their heads above water,” Hochul said.

Neither the mayor nor the governor took questions, and neither addressed a major looming threat: Thursday’s announcement comes under the shadow of a massive federal funding freeze that threatens billions of dollars in New York’s child care funding. On Wednesday, the governor said that approximately $3 billion in child care funding is at risk.

2-Care too fast?

Many advocates, including the influential grassroots group New Yorkers United for Childcare, have pushed to see 2-Care grow as quickly as possible. However, some early child care education providers are wary of an expansion that happens too quickly or without enough attention to the effect on small child care providers.

When the city expanded its pre-K and 3-K programs under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, it inadvertently destabilized the smaller programs that make up a crucial sector of the child care ecosystem. As 3- and 4-year olds moved to classrooms in public schools, many family child care programs — which look after younger kids in home-based settings — and small, mom-and-pop day care centers were forced to close their doors.

Child care centers lost qualified teachers to school-based programs, which pay more and offer better benefits. Additionally, the new programs largely left behind kids with disabilities, who require specialized teachers and cost more to serve.

Mamdani said that the city’s new child care expansion “will include children with disabilities and children who live in homeless shelters,” but he did not offer details on how those kids’ needs will be met.

Meanwhile, destabilizing inequities still exist, said Lauren Melodia, director of economic and fiscal policy at the Center for NYC Affairs at The New School. According to a New School survey last year, family child care providers earned just over half as much per child as providers in child care centers in fiscal year 2025. That’s “despite the fact that they’re offering the same service,” Melodia said.

If the city wants 2-Care to be successful, it will have to include family child care providers and people who work with young kids in the planning, said Helen Frazier, a longtime early childhood educator and member of the advocacy group People’s Early Childhood Coalition.

Toddlers need caring environments that meet their needs, including flexible schedules and easy access to bathrooms and outdoor space, Frazier said. “We hope that Mamdani will start to focus more on what could be great for children, as well as what could be great for parents.”

At Thursday’s event, Mamdani addressed some of those concerns. “We will deliver 2-Care by working in partnership with child care providers, especially home-based providers who have been doing this work without thanks or recognition for far too long.”

Abigail Kramer is a journalist in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC parent coordinators: Mamdani says he’ll change your role. We want to hear from you.

2026-01-07T22:03:36+00:00

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The day before his inauguration, New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, said that he wants to “improve the parent coordinator role to be a meaningful organizer of parents, rather than an administrative coordinator reporting to a principal.”

Parent coordinators play many essential roles in their school communities, from welcome committee to tech support to de facto social worker. Historically, some parent coordinators have called on the city to give them better training and a clearer job description. Many have said that they feel undervalued and underpaid.

Chalkbeat wants to hear from parent coordinators: How do you see your role now? What do you think of Mamdani’s goal? What do you want the new mayor to know about your job?

Help us understand by taking our survey.

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Mamdani names Kamar Samuels as NYC schools chancellor, reverses course on ending mayoral control

2025-12-31T23:10:12+00:00

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As Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced Kamar Samuels as his new schools chancellor on Wednesday, he also reversed course on one of his main K-12 campaign pledges: He no longer plans to end mayoral control of the nation’s largest school system.

Instead, he will ask Albany to extend the governance model when it comes up for renewal in June. He said he will work alongside Samuels, a veteran New York City educator, toward a version of mayoral control that will “engage parents, teachers, and students in decision-making,” Mamdani said at a press conference on the northern tip of Central Park just hours before his inauguration.

His stance on mayoral control represents a major about-face for the city’s new chief executive. But Mamdani’s views on school governance were an outlier compared with other mayoral candidates, and the idea to ditch mayoral control entirely had many skeptics, especially when paired with Mamdani’s sweeping plan to build a free child care system.

Mamdani acknowledged the challenges of the massive system he’s inheriting, with its $43 billion budget, roughly 150,000 staff, and nearly 900,000 students. While literacy rates are improving, he said, nearly 45% of the city’s students in grades 3-8 remained below grade level, according to last year’s state tests. Roughly 154,000 students are homeless. And thousands of teachers are needed to meet the mandate to shrink classes, particularly in hard-to-staff positions for special education, bilingual education, math, and science.

He said he now realizes that New Yorkers should direct their concerns to him.

“I will be asking the legislature for a continuation of mayoral control,” Mamdani said, “and I will also be committed with my incoming schools chancellor to ensure that the mayoral control we preside over is not the same one that New Yorkers see today.”

Under the current governance model, the mayor unilaterally selects the schools chancellor and appoints the majority of the Panel for Educational Policy, a board that votes on school closures, contracts, and other major changes to Education Department regulations. The panel is typically considered a rubber stamp of mayoral priorities, though Mayor Eric Adams left some vacancies on the board, resulting in recent votes that pushed back more than usual.

Mamdani pledged to incorporate community involvement in a way that will not be “ceremonial or procedural, but tangible and actionable.” He wants to restructure parent meetings for community education councils so that “working parents can actually attend them” and improve awareness of these elected parent boards that oversee school zones and advise on policy. Voter turnout for these boards has been less than 2%.

Mamdani also promised to “improve the parent coordinator role to be a meaningful organizer of parents, rather than an administrative coordinator reporting to a principal.” The responsibilities of parent coordinators, a role created in the initial deal allowing for mayoral control, vary widely from school to school. Many do a tremendous amount of organizing already, particularly when it comes to helping homeless families, but many in the role have long complained about its low wages.

Mamdani said he chose Samuels because “this moment demands a new generation of leadership” that “understands our schools” and has a “transformative vision” on how to lead them.

As superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3 stretching from the Upper West Side to part of Harlem, Samuels oversaw some controversial school mergers, combining schools with different demographics as a way to foster integration in one of the country’s most segregated school systems. He initially used that approach while superintendent of Brooklyn’s District 13, where he also spearheaded a move away from gifted and talented programs that separate kids toward schoolwide enrichment models, embracing the International Baccalaureate program. Samuels started out as a teacher and principal in the Bronx.

Mamdani made clear on Wednesday that he remains opposed to gifted programs for kindergarten students, but that he has no plans to change the process for the current application season.

Samuels’ work overseeing the Adams administration’s literacy curriculum mandate, NYC Reads, led to an increase in test scores, Mamdani pointed out. Samuels also secured more than $10 million in grants across districts 3 and 13 to advance integration efforts through admissions policies, mergers, and rezonings.

“Equity is not an abstract idea. It’s a set of choices we make together in policy,” Samuels said. “But what matters is not just what we do, it’s how we do it, by listening to educators, by respecting families, by seeing students, not just as data points, but as whole people with enormous potential.”

In recent weeks, some parent groups had been calling for Mamdani to maintain stability of the school system and keep the current chancellor, Melissa Aviles-Ramos.

Liss will be the new child care office head

Mamdani also announced that Emmy Liss will serve as executive director for the mayor’s Office of Child Care, a position that will be critical in realizing Mamdani’s pledge to bring free child care to New Yorkers.

On Dec. 31, 2025, Zohran Mamdani tapped Emmy Liss, pictured with her son, to lead his office on child care. Liss was the chief of staff for Josh Wallack, a top aide in the de Blasio administration who oversaw the Education Department’s rollout for prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds.

Liss was the chief of staff for Josh Wallack, a top aide in the de Blasio administration who oversaw the Education Department’s rollout for prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds. She has been advising the mayor-elect on child care issues.

“When I worked on the expansion of universal 3-k and pre-K, I saw firsthand what it means when city government comes together to deliver the families with the vision of universal child care,” Liss said on Wednesday. “We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to come together again, to double down on the city’s investments and to design and implement a program that truly meets the needs of families and sustains our child care providers and educators.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Zohran Mamdani to tap Superintendent Kamar Samuels as NYC schools chancellor

2025-12-31T01:51:01+00:00

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Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is expected to tap Kamar Samuels, a Manhattan superintendent, to run New York City’s public school system, according to a transition committee member briefed by administration officials.

As the superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3, Samuels supervises schools with widely varying demographic profiles across the Upper West Side, Morningside Heights, and parts of Harlem. Samuels has led school integration plans and played a role in a previous effort to scale back gifted programs, initiatives that Mamdani has vowed to revive.

Samuels also has experience executing school mergers — a task that is often complex and controversial — which could be valuable as the city grapples with a growing number of tiny campuses. Those mergers, however, have tended to have an explicit integration focus in what is one of the nation’s most segregated school systems.

Before his tenure in District 3, where he oversaw several mergers, Samuels was the superintendent in Brooklyn’s District 13, which spans from Brooklyn Heights to Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and parts of Bedford-Stuyvesant. While there, he oversaw the move of Arts & Letters, a coveted pre-K-8 school, from its home in Clinton Hill to an underenrolled school building in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

He also spearheaded that district’s move away from gifted and talented programs — amid growing concerns from parents about racial disparities — and laid the groundwork to move toward implementing International Baccalaureate programs districtwide. The International Baccalaureate is recognized globally as a rigorous program, and District 13 aimed to use it to create a more inclusive schoolwide approach to enrichment as an alternative to gifted education, serving only a select group of students.

Samuels started out as a teacher in the Bronx nearly two decades ago before becoming a principal at the Bronx Writing Academy, or P.S. 323, where he took advantage of a teachers union program allowing schools to experiment beyond the confines of the contract: he staggered start times for teachers, adjusted class lengths, and incorporated online learning through a city program known as iZone, which paid for the school’s new computers.

His expected appointment was first reported by City & State.

He will face a series of challenges as New York City’s schools chief. As enrollment in public schools has plunged, the incoming administration will have to answer difficult questions about whether to close or merge more schools. Rates of chronic absenteeism, which skyrocketed during the pandemic, remain elevated. A state class size mandate will require finding thousands of new teachers and billions of dollars. Though reading and math scores have ticked up on state assessments, the city’s performance is widely considered middling given the agency’s nearly $43 billion budget — and there are wide gaps that cleave along lines of race and class.

Perhaps the trickiest task for the incoming chancellor will be managing one of Mamdani’s most significant education promises: to end mayoral control of the nation’s largest school system and give families and educators more of a say.

Mamdani has yet to outline how he would give up some of his own power over the school system, but it’s possible those moves would dilute the schools chief’s authority.

Some education observers were quick to praise Mamdani’s decision to elevate Samuels.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, a journalist who has written extensively about inequity in New York City schools, praised the move on social media as “outstanding news for those who still care about school integration and equality.” She added: “In the face of the national attacks on civil rights and dismantling of enforcement at the U.S. DOE this pick by Mamdani sends a powerful message.”

Others who have worked directly with Samuels said he is known for navigating thorny debates about inequity in the system and incorporating feedback from parents and other community members.

“He is savvy and respected,” said David Adams, the CEO of Urban Assembly, which supports a network of New York City public schools. The decision “reflects a mayor who is looking for a chancellor who knows how to operate within the system.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Pay teachers more, 311 for parents, move district boundaries: How Mamdani could improve NYC schools

2025-12-22T19:45:10+00:00

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Zohran Mamdani will take the reins of the nation’s largest school system on Jan. 1, inheriting some big challenges facing the $43 billion agency with roughly 150,000 staff and nearly 900,000 students.

Chronic absenteeism remains high, major gaps persist in reading and math proficiency, and enrollment continues to shrink.

On the campaign trail, Mamdani did not focus intently on schools, but he made one big education promise: to govern the city’s public schools with more input from New Yorkers and reduce his own power over the system.

Chalkbeat asked dozens of experts, students, parents, educators, and nonprofit leaders to share bold ideas for the incoming mayor to consider as he crafts an agenda for New York City’s public schools. This is the second installment of a two-part series. Check out Part 1.

Here are some of the most thought-provoking responses we received. They have been edited for length and clarity.

NeQuan C. McLean

Community Education Council president, District 16, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

Redraw local school district boundaries

NeQuan McLean

New York City cannot solve its enrollment crisis with school maps drawn for a different era. City Council districts are redrawn every 10 years, but our community school district lines have not had a true citywide review since the 1970s. Some districts now sprawl across dozens of schools, while others are too small to sustain strong programs. I propose a mayor-backed School District Redistricting Commission, with real community voice, to design a fairer map that stabilizes enrollment, expands access to programs, and keeps neighborhood schools viable.

Evan Stone

CEO, Educators for Excellence

Launch 311 service to answer parent questions

Evan Stone, CEO, Educators for Excellence

There is an opportunity to rethink the relationships with families across the system by increasing decision making, engagement, and transparency.

First, I think the system should rethink and relaunch the parent university to tie into the work of parent ambassadors. Use the program to engage families in the massive curriculum shifts that are underway and set them up to support their students at home (trainings run by teachers). Launch a 311 for schools to answer parent questions (especially around enrollment). Next, I think they should move to mobile voting to increase parent engagement in Community Education Council elections and have the parent representatives on the Panel for Educational Policy elected through a direct election. And finally, I think they should give local parent councils a real budget to run participatory processes to invest in their districts aligned with citywide priorities.

Crystal Lane

Chief education officer, DREAM Charter Schools

Extend student advising after graduation

Crystal Lane, Chief education officer of DREAM Charter Schools.

Measure success by who our alumni become at 24, not test scores at 10. High school graduation shouldn’t mean goodbye. Assign every graduate a dedicated advisor who checks in monthly through age 24, helping navigate financial aid renewals, job applications, housing issues, or just life in New York. Think Big Brothers Big Sisters, but citywide and mandatory.

Today, schools are buried in annual metrics instead of preparing young people to thrive in college, career, and life.

Rebecca Bailin

Executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care

Rebecca Bailin

Universal child care for NYC’s 2-year-olds

The first step toward making our city an affordable place for families is 2-Care for All, aging down 3-K and Pre-K to 2 year-olds and saving parents $20,000 a year. 2-Care must start with neighborhoods with the highest rates of child poverty and scale up from there to provide full-day, year-round care across the city. We are thrilled that Mayor-elect Mamdani has committed to implementing universal child care, and look forward to working with his Administration to make 2-Care for All a reality as soon as possible. Families cannot afford to wait any longer.

Mashfiq Ahmed

Teacher, John Dewey High School

Pay teachers more

Mashfiq Ahmed

New York City needs to confront teacher burnout and end its reliance on their unpaid labor. Many teachers are taking their work home with them or staying late at school lesson planning, designing curriculum, and doing family outreach. Our underpaid and overworked educators are holding up an underfunded system, especially in schools that serve marginalized communities. Real equity under our city’s new administration requires reinvesting public money directly back into the workers who make public education possible. The next administration should help fund more prep time, reduce class sizes, and provide salaries that accurately reflect the value of teacher’s labor. For a starting salary, teachers should earn about $90,000 a year.

Yiatin Chu

Co-president of Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education and Stuyvesant High School parent

Create classroom dashboard for parents

Yiatin Chu

Empower every public school parent by giving us a dashboard displaying class-specific information like teacher resume, average funding per student, class size, textbooks/curriculum, standardized scores of students from previous years, cohort data (e.g., suspensions, attendance, iReady results). True partnership requires transparency — an informed parent is the most powerful advocate for their child.

Adam Schwartz

English as a new language teacher, Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School

Equip schools with a basic English curriculum for newcomers

Adam Schwartz

NYC is a city of immigrants. The city created the We Speak NYC curriculum to help adult newcomer immigrants learn to communicate in basic English. New York City Public Schools should do the same for their children. Academic English development is central to city and state education policy. But newcomer English language learners need to learn to communicate in basic English. Schools are on their own to purchase or create these curricula, with little guidance or support. This hidden burden falls on teachers. Newcomer ELLs deserve a basic English curriculum centered around their lives in a city of immigrants, as do their hardworking teachers.

Nyah Berg

Executive director, New York Appleseed

Establish a deputy chancellor for school integration

Nyah Berg

Such a role would provide the leadership and accountability needed to implement and evaluate the nearly 100 existing School Diversity Advisory Group recommendations for creating equitable, integrated, and inclusive schools. Continuous segregation is costly for students and families, economically and socially, while integration is a proven affordability strategy that expands opportunity and strengthens school communities. A dedicated senior leadership post ensures that addressing school segregation is not an afterthought but a guiding goal across the public school system.

David Banks

Former chancellor, New York City Department of Education

Double down on reading curriculum overhaul

New York Chancellor, David C. Banks, poses for a portrait.

I think [Mamdani] needs to be on the record as he’s going to double, triple down on NYC Reads. We have we re-engineered the school system, re-trained all the teachers. We did it in close partnership with the UFT [teachers union] and the CSA [principals union]. It checks all the boxes. I think NYC Solves needs a bit more work, but NYC Reads is absolutely on the right track.

Camilla Spillmann

Student, West End Secondary School

End the funding boost for specialized high schools

Camilla Spillmann, student at West End Secondary School

Specialized high schools have huge alumni donor pools, and they also get extra funding due to the Fair Student Funding formula. These schools may have unique needs for their programs, and it’s undeniable that the students who are there have worked hard to be there, but it feels unfair to give the extra to schools that would have easier avenues to getting outside funds. We should address this discrepancy.

Joel Rose

CEO, New Classrooms Innovation Partners

Rethink how classrooms fundamentally operate

Joel Rose

New York City should position itself as a global leader in designing the classroom of the future. Today’s classrooms were built for a different era — fixed schedules, one-size-fits-all pacing, and disconnected tools that make it hard for teachers to meet the wide range of student needs. The next mayor should launch a major R&D effort within the DOE to pilot new models that integrate modern technology, flexible time structures, real-time diagnostics, and personalized learning tools. By treating innovation as a core function — not an afterthought — NYC can build classrooms that reflect how students actually learn and how teachers can most effectively teach.

Keri Goldberg

Kindergarten and first grade teacher, P.S. 321 Brooklyn

Create new apprenticeship programs for teachers

Keri Goldberg

It takes time to learn the craft of teaching but it’s nearly impossible to be a student teacher in New York City. Develop a paid apprenticeship program (in collaboration with teacher colleges) that supports aspiring teachers by partnering them with master teachers for two years. In the first year, the apprentice teacher works full-time in the master teacher’s classroom and in the second year the master teacher continues to serve as a mentor and collaborator. These partnerships would help lower teacher-student ratios without a need for additional space or admissions caps to comply with the reduced class size mandate; put new teachers on a path to success; and tap the knowledge of accomplished practitioners. Offer apprentice teachers subsidized housing, too!

Mateo Tang Oreilly

Student, Central Park East High School

Prioritize cultural studies

Mateo Tang Oreilly, student at Central Park East High School

I feel like there is not enough in place in our schools that either keep students connected to their culture, or connect students to new cultures. Our city is a melting pot of all different kinds of people, but I have seen our education system become the cause of assimilation, and loss of cultural knowledge and identity.

Nancy Bedard

Education senior staff attorney, Brooklyn Legal Services

Guarantee access to arts education

Nancy Bedard

I was born and raised in NYC, and my two older sisters had access to arts education. They had sewing machines, pottery wheels, musical instruments. By the time I entered school, these resources were removed. Mamdani should guarantee that the Education Department fully and equitably funds arts education to meet state-mandated requirements in every local school district. Recent figures show 69% of NYC eighth grade students could not meet the state Education Department’s arts requirements due to inadequate arts education resources. The majority of these students are children of color in low-income districts. Arts education motivates children to attend school, improves grades, reduces suspensions, and is therapeutic.

Arthur Samuels

Founder & executive director, MESA Charter High Schools

Rethink teacher certification rules

Arthur Samuels

If you’re trying to attract young teachers from other states, which we should want to do, we need to streamline the process of granting certification for teachers who cross state lines. With the class-size law now in force, Mayor Mamdani should partner with the State Education Department to remove unnecessary barriers. In general, New York’s byzantine teacher-certification rules block many aspiring teachers — especially lower-income candidates and people of color — without clear evidence that those rules improve teacher quality. For a district where most students are kids of color, that means missing out on the diverse educators that research shows strengthens student outcomes.

Liz Accles

Executive director, Community Food Advocates

Better wages for school cafeteria workers

Liz Accles

Elevate school meals as a highly valued part of public education by investing in the workforce to fully reflect their vital role in school communities.

NYC’s program serves 850,000 culturally affirming, high-quality meals daily — an extraordinary effort. These nutritious meals are essential to student well-being and learning. To sustain and advance this progress, NYC must treat school food professionals as key educational partners, with competitive wages, clear career paths, and robust professional development. Strengthening recruitment and retention will improve food quality, dining environments, and menu innovation, ensuring school meals are valued as foundational to learning and healthy school communities.

Vanessa Leung

Co-executive director, Coalition for Asian American Children and Families

Collect better ethnicity and language data

Vanessa Leung

Mamdani must commit to collecting detailed, disaggregated ethnicity and language data on students so that every student is seen and supported. Students who hail from places as different as Bangladesh and Vietnam are currently grouped under the same “Asian and Pacific Islander” umbrella by the Department of Education. Data that treats our communities — nearly 1 in 5 students — as a monolith erases our diversity and renders our differing challenges invisible. Better data can help align communities facing similar challenges to inform consistent policies towards integration and more inclusive admissions practices.

Rafiq R. Kalam Id-Din II

Founder and managing partner, Ember Charter School for Mindful Education, Innovation and Transformation

Lift the cap on charter schools

Rafiq R. Kalam

We must end the divisive narrative that pits charter vs. traditional public schools. Instead, we need to double down on offering families a wide variety of public choices, particularly high-quality and equity-focused charter schools, some of the most successful and innovative public schools in the country. We should equalize funding and double the number of these public schools — expanding their reach to help meet the demand for universal child care.

Abby Loomis

Second grade teacher, Brooklyn Arbor Elementary School

Make schools greener — and healthier

Abby Loomis

I can’t wait to see Mayor Mamdani follow up on his plan for green and healthy schools. This means upgrading school buildings by improving ventilation (which will improve student health and attendance), installing rooftop or school yard solar, and investing in green spaces that will mitigate flooding and rising temperatures, while also allowing kids to play and move! Also, let’s chill on the AI, please.

Christopher Emdin

Professor of science education, Teachers College

Focus on culture and community

Christopher Emdin

Learning should be rooted in neighborhoods and driven by real projects that matter to young people and communities. Culture is not an add on. Hip hop has to be centered as a core literacy, a science practice, and a civic language. Schools should partner with artists, libraries, museums, parks, and maker spaces. Teachers should be supported as researchers with time to build alongside students. End test centered schooling and zero tolerance discipline. Invest in restorative justice, wellness, and joy. Measure success by relevance, creativity, and community impact. When schools reflect the culture of the city, young people do not just succeed, they lead.

Cheri Fancsali

Executive director, Research Alliance for NYC Schools at NYU

Invest in programs that already work

Cheri Fanscali

The boldest move? Commit to the long game — and change course when necessary. It is easy to fall into the trap of chasing the next shiny thing. Instead, city leaders should sustain what works: high-dosage tutoring, career-connected learning, small learning communities, community schools, evidence-based literacy and math instruction, culturally responsive pedagogy, leveraging robust cross-agency collaboration, and professional learning communities for educators. Too often, effective or promising programs are abandoned before they can reach scale or show impact.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Tutoring, campus mergers, affordable housing for teachers: How Mamdani could improve NYC schools

2025-12-19T19:36:28+00:00

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Chronic absenteeism remains high, major gaps persist in reading and math proficiency, and enrollment continues to shrink.

Chalkbeat asked dozens of experts, students, parents, educators, and nonprofit leaders to share bold ideas for the incoming mayor to consider as he crafts an agenda for New York City’s public schools. This is the first installment of a two-part series. Check out Part 2.

Here are some of the most thought-provoking responses we received. They have been edited for length and clarity.

Shael Polakow-Suransky

President, Bank Street College of Education

Reimagine high school with yearlong capstone project

Shael Polakow-Suransky

The sunsetting of Regents exams is a once-in-a-generation chance to reimagine high school. Instead of wasting months on test prep, let’s replace 12th-grade seat time with a yearlong “city capstone.” All seniors would pursue either deep civic action projects or apprenticeships in high-growth sectors like green energy and health care. This is a long-term affordability strategy: By connecting students to professional networks and skilled careers, we arm them with the future earning power to pay rent and remain in the boroughs they call home. Let’s stop asking our youth to bubble in answers, and empower them to build the city they deserve.

Rashid Ferrod Davis

Founding principal, Pathways in Technology Early College High School

Pair every school with an industry partner

Rashid Davis

My bold proposal for improving public education in New York City is for all schools to have at least one industry partner. Not all employers can offer extensive internships immediately. Examples of initial, smaller commitments include hosting guest speaking events, conducting resume workshops, or offering workplace tours.

Kevin Dahill-Fuchel

Executive director, Counseling In Schools

Include social and emotional well-being on student report cards

Kevin Dahill-Fuchel

My proposal is simple yet profound: Expand the current “report cards” of each student’s social and emotional well-being beyond pre-K and kindergarten, all the way through high school. Currently, once students move to first grade, they join an academic race that ignores character and individual talents. Imagine if every student was systematically recognized for non-academic qualities such as being friendly, helpful, fun, hardworking, respected, lively, and reflective. Not only would they be valued and nurtured as a complete person, but they would also have a better chance at academic success because their social and emotional foundation would be stronger.

Lisa Margosian

Chief executive officer, Achievement First Public Charter Schools

Increase affordable housing for teachers

Lisa Margosian

In New York City, only about 20% of rentals are affordable to teachers — a crisis for a city that relies on strong pre-K through 12 public schools. If we want excellent teachers in every classroom, and a workforce that reflects the backgrounds of our students, we must make it possible for teachers to live here. New York needs a citywide effort to build dedicated, mixed-income housing for teachers and cap rent at 30% of income. This practical step would make teaching sustainable, improve recruitment and retention, and give students the stability and high-quality instruction they deserve.

Rodney Lee

Parent of two children from District 1, an elected Community Education Council representative, and a nonprofit administrator

Support schools to address bullying

Rodney Lee

We need a curriculum to create a culture of accountability and kindness. I remember how much my daughter wanted to meet new friends in middle school. This quickly diminished as she became a victim of ridicule for trying to participate in class. She was kicked, threatened, and ultimately there were over 20 documented incidents or bullying during sixth and seventh grade that resulted in my demoralized, self-esteem-shattered baby girl to transfer to a new school for eighth grade. It was frustrating to learn that victims of bullying were encouraged to transfer as the aggressors were harder to transfer or deal with. We need to change this practice.

Sharon Collins

Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching recipient and STEAM coordinator at New Heights Academy Charter School

Sharon Ann Collins

Put teachers on school boards

Our best education advocates are our classroom teachers, and yet they are not at the decision-making table. Put teacher representatives on the Panel for Educational Policy, Citywide Council on High Schools, and Community Education Councils as advisors. There, teachers can share their perspective and insights into curriculum, AI and technological tools, class size, standardized testing, how the budget truly should be spent to really impact student trajectories, and educational innovations that would revolutionize education for our NYC students.

Katie Pace Miles

Brooklyn College professor and founder of The Reading Institute

Intensive tutoring for all who need it

Brooklyn College Professor Katie Pace Miles

Equitable high-impact tutoring can radically change outcomes for students who are behind grade level. Privileged families hire tutors when their child needs academic support. An equitable public school system should ensure that all students who need additional one-on-one support to develop their literacy and math skills are afforded one. Research has shown that when high-impact tutoring is provided, meaning that it occurs 3-5 times a week using evidence-based programs, students behind benchmarks are able to catch up to grade-level expectations. Ensuring all students in our public schools have access to this type of support benefits schools, students, and families.

Arlen Benjamin-Gomez

Executive director at EdTrust-New York

Arlen Benjamin-Gomez

Require every district to create a local integration plan

Diversifying schools is one of the few proven strategies to improve outcomes for all students, and solutions already exist. District 15’s equitable middle-school lottery reduced economic segregation by 55% and racial segregation by 38% in just one year. We should expand these admissions models, publicly report segregation data, and require every district to develop an integration plan.

Crystal Rodriguez

Bronx District 8 Community Education Council president

Crystal Rodriguez

Mediation hubs for parents and educators to collaboratively solve problems

New York City needs a Family Accountability & Restorative Engagement Hub in every district. It would be a city-funded space where parents, students, and educators collaborate on problem-solving before issues escalate — such issues as bullying, chronic absenteeism, special education concerns, parent-leader mediations, parent-teacher mediations. These hubs would standardize restorative practices, ensure compliance with Chancellor’s regulations, provide trauma-informed support, and give families real decision-making power rather than symbolic roles.

Ray Domanico

Senior fellow, Manhattan Institute

Tackle underenrolled schools with mergers

Ray Domanico

Declining birth rates in the city have resulted in far fewer students enrolled in the city’s traditional public schools, a trend that will continue for the foreseeable future. The new team in city hall should act boldly to adjust the system’s resources to its lower enrollments. This must be done strategically by consolidating underenrolled schools into larger schools with stronger leadership and programmatic offerings. Vacated school buildings should be used either to support communities with other needed services or sold to be converted into affordable housing for their communities. This is an opportunity to address both school quality and affordability issues.

Leonie Haimson

Executive director, Class Size Matters

Leonie Haimson

Create moratorium on AI in classrooms

Mamdani should enact a two-year moratorium on the use of AI in the classroom, and hold town hall meetings to hear from parents, teachers, and students as to how its rushed adoption risks undermining privacy, the environment, student cognitive growth and creativity, and the human connection central to a quality education.

David Adams

Chief executive officer, The Urban Assembly

Hold schools accountable for growth, not just test scores

David Adams, Chief executive officer of the Urban Assembly.

NYC schools need an accountability system that rewards progress and makes innovation easier, not riskier. The Mamdani administration can improve public schools by elevating school impact scores that communicate student growth, not just performance. This will incentivize schools to solve problems, give parents the school quality information they deserve, and spur competition on the metrics that matter. When schools demonstrate outsized gains, the system should rapidly scale their practice, while increasing flexibility, freeing leaders to focus on innovating and problem-solving.

Accountability should be a runway for excellence, not a cage for compliance. Make things work, and scale those solutions.

Mathew Moura

Senior Vice President of Strategy, Teaching Matters

Give every teacher a coach of their choice

Mathew Moura

Let’s give every teacher coaches they can select in partnership with principals and districts to create coherent professional development, tailored to their needs, with the resources required to be able to help all kids. Every kid has the right to a good teacher. Every teacher has the right to be supported to become one.

Rachel Sabella

Director, No Kid Hungry New York

Treat schools as nutrition hubs

Rachel Sabella

NYC schools are well-situated to address the growing hunger crisis. They’re already connected to nearly a million students and their families, and they have infrastructure in place to help them tackle the issue. The incoming administration should increase the number of school pantries, provide in-school resources to help families apply for SNAP and other benefits, and maximize the reach of existing school meal programs. By strengthening our school meal programs and thinking creatively about summer meals, our next mayor can get the whole school community involved in keeping kids and families fed all year long.

Diane Ravitch

Education leader and author

Diane Ravitch

Expand ‘community schools’ that provide wraparound support

Mamdani can’t do everything to fix education but he can pursue one powerful idea: community schools.

Instead of promoting school choice, which destabilizes neighborhoods and does not improve education, the mayor should commit to expand community schools.

These are schools with wraparound services where children can get medical screening, vision testing, and dental care. Where students can count on getting breakfast, lunch, even dinner. Where parents can meet school personnel who can help them connect to city services, access health care, and find employment resources.

Public schools can be great again if they meet the needs of their communities.

Jeremiah Dickerson

Student at Williamsburg Charter High School

Improve school food

Jeremiah Dickerson

As a student in NYC, I constantly hear classmates complaining about the meals we’re expected to just pick up and eat, and I’m no stranger to that experience myself. Too often, I walk into school, see breakfast laid out, and turn right back around after being greeted with a dry, rubbery egg sandwich. Students deserve better. Why not offer simple, healthier options like yogurt with fresh fruit, whole-grain bagels with cream cheese, oatmeal, breakfast burritos with eggs and veggies, or even warm pancakes and turkey sausage? Our city claims to champion nutritional value, but that support should start with serving real, nutritious food.

Lori Podvesker

Director of disability and education policy, INCLUDEnyc

Better integrate students with disabilities

Lori Podvesker

NYC can reduce disability segregation by training general education teachers and administrators on inclusive practices/supports, behavior management, and federal and state laws, fully utilizing the special education continuum so more students receive special education services in general education classrooms, restructuring District 75 for collaboration, ensuring equal access to opportunities, citywide initiatives, schedules, and same after-school and summer programming as their general education peers, addressing systemic issues like busing and the need to support paraprofessionals better, develop mechanisms and tools to access schools on the extent their students with IEPs are with general education students, and focusing on integrated learning in the least restrictive environment as required by law.

Liz Pitofsky

Founder, Service Learning Project

Make sure all schools have active student councils

Liz Pitofsky

Public schools were founded to create engaged citizens: let’s get back to that original goal by engaging all K-12 youth in problem-solving about their schools and neighborhoods. When children and teens are given opportunities to make their voices heard, they see themselves as leaders with the critical responsibilities of citizenship. This not only benefits them- it strengthens our schools, our city, and our democracy. Mamdani should make it a priority for all NYC schools to have student councils that meet regularly with administrators, as well as social studies classes that integrate youth-led community problem-solving.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Who will Mamdani tap to lead NYC schools? Here are some possible contenders.

2025-12-07T18:22:14+00:00

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With less than a month until Zohran Mamdani takes office, he has yet to reveal one of his biggest personnel decisions: the leader of the nation’s biggest school system.

Hiring a schools chancellor will be his first major education test and could signal how he hopes to shape the city’s public schools over the next four years — a topic he largely avoided on the campaign trail.

The mayor-elect indicated he is open to keeping current Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos. But he has offered few other clues about who is on his short list, and it is unclear how close he is to a decision. Earlier this week, Mamdani’s team solicited suggestions for major appointees from its education transition committee, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the communications.

Mamdani’s team has kept a tight lid on the selection process, instructing transition committee members this week to avoid talking to reporters — a contrast with his promise to share his power over the school system with families and educators. Some advocates have called on Mamdani to create an inclusive chancellor selection process in the coming months. For now, the mayor-elect has little time to weigh feedback before taking office.

“It would be hard to run a big public process in the time they’ve had,” said Evan Stone, the CEO of Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group. Once he has made a choice, Stone added, “there is still a great opportunity to engage families on what the priorities of the chancellor are.”

As the leadership transition nears, several names have repeatedly surfaced as possible contenders, though his transition team has not confirmed who is under consideration. If history is any guide, the final choice could be a surprise. Here’s what you should know about the people rumored to be in the running.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos

Who she is: Aviles-Ramos has been chancellor for a little more than a year, taking over from David Banks after he abruptly stepped down. She’s been at the city’s Education Department for nearly two decades, working her way up as a teacher, principal, and superintendent in the Bronx. She also served as Banks’ chief of staff.

What she has going for her: She has the backing of the city’s influential teachers union, which endorsed Mamdani in the general election. Some parent leaders are in her corner, too, as she has rolled out some initiatives to bolster family engagement. Top officials have previously leaned on her in moments of crisis: Before she was named chancellor, she was tapped to manage the Education Department’s response to the massive influx of migrants into city schools.

Complicating factors: Aviles-Ramos has largely been responsible for keeping Mayor Eric Adams’ education initiatives on track and hasn’t executed a detailed policy agenda of her own. Given the union’s strong backing, some wonder if she would not be independent enough. Her connection to Adams, who ultimately dropped his bid for reelection amid swirling corruption scandals, could also be a liability. And while no mayor has appointed their predecessor’s schools chief, Mamdani kept Adams’ police commissioner, demonstrating he is willing to retain high-level staff.

What she says: Aviles-Ramos, who has met with Mamdani, is campaigning for the role. “If given an opportunity, I would love to stay on,” she told the Daily News.

Meisha Ross Porter

Who she is: A more than 20-year veteran of the Education Department who worked her way up in the Bronx as a teacher, principal, and high-level administrator. She served as chancellor under Mayor Bill de Blasio for less than a year, beginning in March 2021, overseeing the city’s plans to fully reopen school buildings and convince students to show up after some spent more than a year learning remotely. Porter now serves as a visiting senior fellow at the Center for Educational Innovation, an organization that works with school leaders and families, according to her LinkedIn profile.

What she has going for her: She is widely considered to be a staunch advocate of equity in education, was the first Black woman to lead the system, and is respected by many educators and department staffers. Porter is already deeply familiar with the system and oversaw an effort to overhaul gifted programs, an idea that Adams scrapped but Mamdani has indicated he’s interested in pursuing. The mayor-elect has shown an interest in recruiting top officials from the de Blasio administration.

Complicating factors: After leaving the Education Department, Porter had a rocky stint running the Bronx Community Foundation that raised questions about her leadership. The organization failed to distribute most of the money it raised, according to an investigation by the news organization New York Focus, and the organization’s board of directors ultimately fired Porter. She was recently considered a finalist to run Chicago’s school system, though that search process has appeared to stall.

What she says: Did not respond to a request for comment.

Angélica Infante-Green

Who she is: Infante-Green is Rhode Island’s education commissioner, and she has a long track record in New York. She served as a deputy commissioner in New York State’s Education Department, spearheading the state’s school integration plans. Before that, she oversaw New York City’s efforts to serve English language learners and expanded bilingual and dual language programs. She’s an alumna of Teach for America and worked in multiple Manhattan schools.

What she has going for her: She has extensive knowledge of the city and state education bureaucracies and would need little time getting up to speed. A daughter of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Infante-Green has focused on vulnerable children, including English learners and students with disabilities, groups that Mamdani has indicated will be a focus of his administration. In Rhode Island, Infante-Green helped oversee the state’s strategy to reduce chronic absenteeism in the wake of the pandemic, a model that is paying off and earned national attention.

Complicating factors: Infante-Green was involved in contentious contract negotiations with the Providence Teachers Union, which passed a vote of no confidence in her and the local superintendent. Mamdani has cultivated a close relationship with the city’s teachers union, and has said he will consult union leaders on his chancellor pick. And Mamdani criticized charter schools, which Infante-Green supported in Rhode Island.

What she says: Did not respond to a request for comment.

Who else?

Several other candidates have been rumored to be in the mix. Kamar Samuels, the superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3, was floated as a possible candidate, according to the New York Times. He has previously spearheaded school mergers with an eye toward integration. Moves like that could be appealing to Mamdani as the city grapples with a glut of small schools, and the mayor-elect has signaled he is interested in school integration efforts. (Samuels did not respond to a request for comment)

Alex Marrero, the current superintendent of Denver Public Schools, may be eyeing the job. He has roots in New York as a principal in the Bronx and later in administrative roles in New Rochelle and East Ramapo. He was reportedly a finalist to lead Chicago Public Schools, a job he indicated he would not accept.

In a statement, Marrero said he has “not spoken to anyone from the Mayor-Elect’s team.” He added: “While my ties to New York and its communities run deep, as a matter of respectful practice, I do not speculate on these matters and continue to concentrate my attention and efforts on DPS.”

Alexendra Estrella, the superintendent of Norwalk Public Schools in Connecticut, has also been floated. She previously served as the superintendent in Manhattan’s District 4, which includes East Harlem. Her tenure as superintendent included some tensions with families and teachers. (She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Rita Joseph, a long-time Brooklyn teacher and chair of New York City Council’s education committee, has also been rumored but has no high-level administrative experience in a school system. (Her spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.)

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Zohran Mamdani’s thin education agenda didn’t stop a surge of donations from NYC DOE employees

2025-12-03T20:51:57+00:00

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Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani received the highest number of individual donations from New York City Education Department employees than any other winning candidate since mayoral control was implemented, a Chalkbeat analysis of more than 20 years of election data found.

Over 500 city residents working in the city’s largest school district donated approximately $40,000 to Mamdani’s campaign, according to the city’s Campaign Finance Board where donors self-report.

However, while Mamdani had more individual donations from Education Department employees than any other winning candidate since 2002, Mayor Eric Adams received the most amount of money donated by DOE employees when he ran in 2021. Roughly 300 DOE employees donated to Adams’ campaign in 2021, which received over $55,000 from those working for the city’s Education Department.

The United Federation of Teachers endorsed Mamdani in the general election after avoiding picking a candidate during the Democratic primary. And even after the union came out in favor of Mamdani, members continued to debate his thin political record as well as the candidate’s position on Israel and the crisis in the Gaza strip, causing some turmoil within the union.

Mamdani won just over half of the city’s vote in November. Among his few K-12 ideas, Mamdani’s push for ending mayoral control and removing the gifted and talented program for kindergartens sparked controversy, yet teachers Chalkbeat spoke to were drawn to his affordability plan.

Mamdani’s campaign galvanized New Yorkers across the city, attracting about 53,890 donations. That’s more than twice as many donors as Mayor Eric Adams had when he won four years ago and former chief Bill de Blasio for his 2013 and 2017 victories.

In terms of total amount raised, Mamdani’s roughly $4 million was the least among the winning candidates since mayoral control of the city’s Education Department began. After Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who donated over $200 million to himself in total for his three campaigns from 2001 to 2009, de Blasio led with over $11 million in 2013.

No employee from the city’s education department donated to Bloomberg’s campaign, according to available records.

Chalkbeat’s analysis only included donors who listed the education department or a specific public school in the employment section.

More than half of DOE donors who supported Mamdani’s campaign identified themselves as teachers, including substitute and special education teachers.

Jonathan Collins, a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University, said it’s not surprising that New York City teachers, whose salaries range from $68,902 to $123,939 for this school year, support a candidate whose leading campaign promise is affordable housing, transportation, and living.

“Amongst the professions where you see degree earners … teachers tend to make the least and so they’re underpaid relative to their level of educational attainment,” Collins said. “They are middle class people paid like working class people. They’re particularly interested in these affordability campaigns.”

Some teachers who donated to Mamdani’s campaign acknowledged his K-12 education agenda was not a big part of his platform.

Emma Webley, a bilingual teacher at P.S 89 Cypress Hills in Brooklyn, said while canvassing for Mamdani, many educators would question his lack of education policies. She agrees with Mamdani’s opposition to mayoral control but admits the mayor-elect needs to polish his stance more, such as clarifying whether Adams’ mandatory reading curriculum, known as NYC Reads, will continue in his administration.

“It would make sense for him to be focusing on housing and other issues first and then moving on to what is happening in the classroom. But if that didn’t happen ... in the first year of his leadership, then I would be asking questions,” she said.

Kyle DeAngelis, a third grade teacher at Harlem’s P.S 368, also known as the William Lynch School, met Mamdani in February at an “Educators for Zohran” meetup, a coalition of teachers independent of the campaign, advocating for the mayor-elect. DeAngelis was impressed by the candidate, he said, and discussed hiring more counselors and social workers to provide mental health services for students. Mamdani agreed and from there, the third grade teacher knew he would rank the Queens assemblymen first.

He felt compelled to donate and volunteer for Mamdani’s campaign because living on a teacher’s salary in the city is challenging, and his salary raises have not kept up with inflation. He was also drawn to Mamdani’s affordability agenda since food and housing insecurity is a constant issue his students have brought up in class.

“It’s not just what’s going on within the four walls of the classroom,” DeAngelis said. “When children cannot afford or families can’t afford childcare, when they can’t afford groceries, when they can’t afford rent, when they can’t afford healthcare, these are all things that have a profound impact on the work that we do in classrooms every day.”

Ananya Chetia is a reporting intern with Chalkbeat NY. Contact Ananya at achetia@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani’s schools chancellor pick: Some parent groups are pushing for him to keep Aviles-Ramos

2025-12-03T19:52:38+00:00

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A growing chorus of New York City families are pushing Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to keep schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos in place when he takes office in January to avoid a leadership shakeup in the middle of the school year.

“Families across this city deserve stability, experienced leadership and continuity during this critical transition,” members of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council, which includes dozens of parent leaders across the city, wrote in a recent letter to Mamdani. “Removing [Aviles-Ramos] would create unnecessary disruption and weaken the progress underway.”

A separate group of local parent leaders are planning to send a similar letter this week.

Ever since New York City’s mayor won control of the school system more than two decades ago, each incoming mayor has appointed a new schools chief when taking office. But Mamdani has said he’s open to breaking that pattern by keeping Aviles-Ramos, who was chosen by Mayor Eric Adams. The mayor-elect has already tapped Adams’ police commissioner to stay in her role.

The latest push from parent leaders may create additional pressure on Mamdani to stick with Aviles-Ramos, especially as he has vowed to include families and educators in decisions about how the school system is managed. The city’s teachers union, which endorsed Mamdani in the general election, also supports keeping Aviles-Ramos.

Aviles-Ramos took over more than a year ago after former Chancellor David Banks abruptly resigned amid a federal investigation of Adams’ inner circle (Banks has not been accused of wrongdoing). She joined the school system in 2007 and worked her way up as a teacher, principal, superintendent, and Banks’ chief of staff. She helped lead the Education Department’s response to a massive influx of migrant students. And she has largely continued Adams’ existing agenda.

For months, advocacy groups including New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools have encouraged Mamdani to conduct a thorough process that includes a search committee and public forums. Keeping Aviles-Ramos in her role on a temporary basis would create time to collect feedback from educators and families, they argue. (That group is hosting a meeting on Dec. 8 to discuss the chancellor search process.)

If Mamdani taps Aviles-Ramos, two of the city’s highest-profile agencies would be managed by people selected by Adams, who faced multiple corruption scandals and is deeply unpopular.

“I’ve said time and again that I will consider anyone on the basis of the work that they have done — not hold it against them as to who appointed them,” Mamdani said in October.

Still, Mamdani has not yet released a detailed education agenda, and he has embraced some of Adams’ signature initiatives, including a sweeping reading curriculum overhaul. Aviles-Ramos is well-positioned to keep those efforts on track, the chancellor’s parent advisory group noted in their letter.

The schools chancellor is a major appointment. The post is among the nation’s most visible jobs in public education, and the Education Department is the largest city agency, with roughly 150,000 employees and a nearly $43 billion budget. The mayor-elect’s signature campaign promise — universal child care — will require close coordination with the department.

Mamdani’s transition team did not immediately respond to questions about when he plans to name a chancellor and whether he will collect public input before making a decision.

NeQuan McLean, a parent leader in Brooklyn, said the Education Council Consortium — which is made up of local education council leaders — plans to send a similar letter this week encouraging Mamdani to keep Aviles-Ramos in place.

She “has done some great work around parent empowerment,” said McLean, who helps lead the consortium and is the president of the local parent council in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He cited an initiative that helps connect families to housing support, food benefits, and other services.

But McLean said the group will also push for a more open-ended search process, which he noted could still result in Aviles-Ramos staying on the job. “This is a public-facing position and the public should weigh in on the decision,” he said.

A spokesperson for Aviles-Ramos did not respond to a request for comment, though she has signaled an interest in some of Mamdani’s education priorities. In September, she announced plans to expand a pilot program to support homeless students. Mamdani repeatedly touted the initiative on the campaign trail and plans to scale it up.

Mamdani has said little about who he is considering for the role or whether he will conduct a national search. At least one potential candidate for the role, Meisha Porter, is in the running to oversee Chicago’s public school system, though that process has slowed to a crawl. She is a veteran of New York City’s Education Department who briefly served as chancellor under Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s child care voucher waitlist hits 10,000, leaving working parents in crisis

2025-12-01T20:48:29+00:00

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Naomi Veerasammy and her 2-year-old daughter leave their Jamaica, Queens, apartment weekday mornings by 6:30 a.m. and head to the home of whichever friend or relative has agreed to watch the toddler that day.

Veersammy, a paraprofessional at a public elementary school, relies on a rotating cast of relatives and friends to watch her daughter for little to no pay, so she can still make it to work by 8 a.m. on the city bus.

The single mom nets under $2,000 a month in income and can’t afford full-time day care, which costs between $1,500 to $2,000 a month for the average city toddler.

“It’s very, very hard on me financially, mentally, physically to find a sitter for my daughter every day,” Veersammy said, adding that her daughter needs stability.

Hoping for more stable child care, Veerasammy applied for child care vouchers worth an average of $300 a week for kids up to age 13 from low-income families across the state.

Veerasammy met the income criteria, but the city stopped enrolling new families in May. She’s now on a waitlist that has mushroomed to 10,000 city children. It’s a glaring indication of both the exploding child care affordability crisis for the city’s middle- and low-income families and the insufficiency of the current publicly funded options to help defray those costs, experts said.

The massive waitlist is also an acute crisis in and of itself — one that threatens to push more families with young children out of the city and shutter small child care providers who rely on vouchers for income.

Andrea Davilar, a family child care provider in St. Albans, Queens, currently has only four of her 12 full-day seats filled. She suspects there are families on the waitlist who are interested in enrolling their kids, but can’t until they receive vouchers.

“Are they trying to force us out of business?” she said of the city’s waitlist. “They have to remember we are the backbone behind the workforce.”

Losing family child care providers is something the city can ill afford at a time when incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani is hoping to provide universal child care — an expansion that would likely lean heavily on home-based programs.

That’s part of why some observers are encouraging Mamdani to make clearing the voucher waitlist his first step on what could be a long road to building free child care.

Issuing vouchers to those 10,000 kids would bring “virtually free child care immediately” to a wide swath of city families, said Lauren Melodia, an economist at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs who studies child care.

“It’s not the big vision … but you want to be able to deliver services to people while you’re building the big vision,” she added.

Mamdani’s transition team didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Vouchers are a key tool for infant, toddler, after-school care

The vouchers can be redeemed at a wide range of child care providers or even used to pay approved relatives or friends. They’re an especially critical resource for families with kids 2 and under who don’t qualify for the city’s free 3-K and prekindergarten programs as well as those who need care outside of school hours.

Separate from the vouchers, the city funds a limited number of free seats for kids 2 and under from low-income families. But families often don’t know about the seats or how to apply, experts have said. Roughly 40% of those seats were unfilled last year.

Officials in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration said the voucher program’s costs are soaring because of the program’s popularity, an increase in the voucher’s value, and a growing number of families who are supposed to receive subsidized child care as a condition of their federal welfare benefits.

Officials predict the city will need a total of $2.9 billion from the state in the upcoming budget — $1.8 billion more than the city typically receives — just to maintain the program.

Melodia, the economist, said the cost of providing vouchers to all the families on the waitlist for a year would be more modest: around $155 million.

Gordon Tepper, a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul, said “no one has done more to support and expand child care statewide” than the governor, noting that she has doubled funding for the voucher program and wants to reach universal child care.

Demand for vouchers boomed as eligibility widened

The voucher program’s current budget crunch traces back to a series of pandemic-era changes.

Prior to the pandemic, the city issued the majority of vouchers to families receiving federal cash assistance, whose child care the city is required to subsidize because their benefits come with work requirements.

Those work requirements relaxed during the pandemic, keeping more families at home with less need for child care. The number of vouchers going to those families fell from over 55,000 in 2017 to under 19,000 in 2022.

That drop, combined with a one-time infusion of federal relief funds, allowed Hochul to significantly expand the eligibility criteria for the vouchers, opening them to families who make under 85% of the state median income, or roughly $114,000 a year for a family of four.

At the same time, Hochul nearly doubled the value of the vouchers, from an average of $154 a week in 2019 to $301 a week last year. The change made the vouchers more attractive to families and providers — and expensive for the state.

City families flocked to the vouchers. Enrollment in the low-income voucher program skyrocketed from under 9,000 2022 to nearly 70,000 this year.

The changes created a major budget cliff.

After federal pandemic aid dried up, city officials resumed enforcing work requirements, bringing an expected surge of families who receive federal assistance to request vouchers.

To avoid kicking thousands of families out of the program each month, city officials asked the state, which has historically funded most of the voucher system, to commit an additional $900 million to the $1 billion city program.

Hochul eventually agreed to free up an additional $350 million for the program, contingent on the city chipping in the same amount.

That infusion allowed the city to continue offering vouchers to the majority of families who were already enrolled, city officials said. But it wasn’t enough to enroll new families.

Starting last May, the city began placing eligible new applicants for low-income vouchers on a waitlist, which has grown from 1,500 in August to its current 10,000.

Parents on voucher waitlist are desperate for relief

For families stuck on the waitlist, shouldering the costs of child care on their own often comes at the expense of other basic needs.

Milana Kochishvili, a mother of two elementary school children in southern Brooklyn, applied for vouchers after her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, leaving the family to rely on her $72,000 annual income as a payroll specialist at a plumbing company. But she has been on the waitlist for months.

The only after-school option that works with her schedule costs about $800 a month. With $4,500 a month in take-home pay — nearly half of which goes to pay rent — it’s an expense she can’t afford.

“I’m in a position now where I can only afford basics,” she said. “God forbid the car breaks or something like that, that’s it.”

Adams recently launched an expansion of free, city-funded after-school programs, with a pledge to add 20,000 seats by 2027. But for some parents who work longer hours, the schedule of the city’s free programs don’t fit their needs.

Kimberly Watson, a single mom of an elementary student in Brooklyn, works as a caseworker in a hospital and needed an after-school program with longer hours. The private program she found costs $450 a month — an untenable expense for Watson, who takes home roughly $2,700 a month in income and spends $1,200 on rent.

She applied for a child care voucher and cleared the eligibility threshold, but was placed on the waitlist. Paying for child care has left her behind on some utility bills — and even on her rent, she said.

Getting a voucher would mean she can “just cut back on one thing that I have to worry about so I can catch up on other things.”

For Veerasammy, the paraprofessional with a 2-year-old, there could be some economic relief on the horizon: a bill supported by both Mamdani and a supermajority on City Council that would give paraprofessionals a $10,000 recurring annual bonus.

But she said that money would go toward paying off credit card debt, leaving her still in need of a voucher.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Mamdani’s education transition committee: child care, higher ed, policy pros, but no K-12 teachers

2025-11-24T22:46:07+00:00

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Of the nearly 40 people Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani tapped for his youth and education transition committee, notably absent were principals, teachers, and students who are currently in New York City’s K-12 system.

Mamdani, who announced the names to his transition teams Monday, centered his campaign on an affordability agenda, including free child care, but had little to say about improving the nation’s largest school system.

Several advocates from the world of child care policy and school integration made the list, along with higher education leaders and some former high-level officials from Bill de Blasio’s administration.

The members of the 17 transition committees will work on helping Mamdani’s new administration make personnel decisions and provide policy guidance, so the 34-year-old Queens state assemblyman can hit the ground running when he takes office on Jan. 1.

Whereas Mayor Eric Adams tapped several Bloomberg administration officials on his education transition team, Mamdani’s list includes some Education Department officials from de Blasio’s tenure, including Josh Wallack, who oversaw the city’s massive free prekindergarten expansion; Edie Sharp, who served as Chancellor Richard Carranza’s chief of staff; and Karin Goldmark, a deputy chancellor of school planning and development who now runs GreenLink Education, a nonprofit that helps schools tackle sustainability efforts.

Some other notable committee members include: teachers union President Michael Mulgrew; Mark Dunetz, a former high school teacher and principal who now runs the New Visions for Public Schools network; and Sharon Greenberger, the president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater New York who was the head of the School Construction Authority and then the Education Department’s chief operating officer under Bloomberg.

Mamdani, who has mentioned concerns about school segregation in a city with among the most segregated schools in the nation, also tapped for the committee Nyah Berg, the director of Appleseed New York, an integration advocacy group, and Matt Gonzales, of New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools. Gonzales previously served on de Blasio’s School Diversity Advisory Group, or SDAG, which advised phasing out gifted and talented programs and curtailing selective admissions. Mamdani referred to the group several times on the campaign trail and also voiced interest in eliminating gifted programs that start in kindergarten, though the Bronx Science alum has walked back previous comments about addressing racial segregation in specialized high schools.

(Mamdani’s favorite Bronx Science teacher, Marc Kagan, who retired from the social studies department in 2014, was tapped for the transportation, climate, and infrastructure committee.)

Higher education leaders on the committee include SUNY Chancellor John King and CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez.

Child care and after-school policy experts made the list, including Susan Stamler of United Neighborhood Houses, Tara Gardner of the Day Care Council of New York, and Rebecca Bailin, who started the grassroots advocacy movement behind New Yorkers United for Child Care.

“I’m most hopeful about the tremendous opportunity we have to help shape a transformative policy to support families, strengthen our child care providers, and bolster our city’s economy by putting New York on a real path toward universal child care,” said Grace Rauh of Citizens Union, which is home to the 5BORO Institute think tank that has examined the importance of affordable child care.

Terrence Winston, who runs the Coalition for Community Schools Excellence and works with nonprofits who partner with public schools to provide wraparound services to students and families, felt encouraged to see several familiar names across different sectors and hoped this would be a “genuine opportunity to supply innovative input and insights that will influence the mayor-elect’s first 100 days in office.”

He added, “There will, however, need to be a committed investment in these collaborations — especially when things get difficult.”

Here’s the list of who will help shape Mamdani’s vision for youth and education:

Tazin Azad [former Brooklyn Borough appointee to the Panel for Educational Policy]

Rebecca Bailin, New Yorkers United for Child Care

Nyah Berg, Appleseed

Evelyn Castro, Medgar Evers College

Jason Cone, Robin Hood Foundation

James Davis, PSC-CUNY

Marielys Divanne, Futuro Solutions

Mark Dunetz, New Visions for Public Schools

Kesi Foster, Partners for Dignity & Rights

Amy Freitag, NY Community Trust

Tara Gardner, Daycare Council of NY

Debra Ellen Glickstein, KidsRise

Karin Goldmark, GreenLink Education

Matt Gonzales, New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools (RJPS)

Sharon Greenberger, YMCA Greater NY

Brian Jones, Center for Education & Schools and New York Public Library

John King, State University of New York (SUNY)

Sebastian Leon Martinez, YDSA

Randi Levine, Advocates for Children

Christine Marinoni, Public School Advocate

Felix Matos Rodriguez, City University of New York (CUNY)

Rashad Moore, Crown Heights Baptist Church

Michael Mulgrew, United Federation of Teachers (UFT)

Lori Podvesker, INCLUDEnyc

Hasoni Pratts, National Urban League

Grace Rauh, Citizens Union

Arva Rice, NY Urban League

Raysa Rodriquez, Citizen’s Committee for Children

Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, Alliance for Quality Education

Edie Sharp

Felicia Singh, Coalition for Asian American Children and Families

Susan Stamler, United Neighborhood Houses

Hannah Towfeik, Muslim American Society (MAS)

Mary Vaccarro, United Federation of Teachers (UFT)

Joshua Wallack

Eric Waterman, East Flatbush Village Inc.

Terrence Winston, Coalition for Community Schools Excellence

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Zohran Mamdani wants to end mayor control of NYC schools. It has eroded under Eric Adams.

2025-11-21T21:29:39+00:00

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Zohran Mamdani campaigned on ending mayoral control of New York City’s public school system — by far his most significant education promise.

As debate intensifies over whether the mayor-elect should follow through on that pledge, a significant shift has flown under the radar: Under Mayor Eric Adams, the chief executive’s power over the school system has weakened.

On paper, the city’s mayor still exerts near-complete authority over the city’s schools. The mayor hires and fires the head of the school system and appoints a majority of the school board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP.

But from his first months in office, Adams struggled to manage the board, which voted against several administration proposals. During his term, state lawmakers diluted the mayor’s power, adding new parent representatives to the panel while preventing the mayor from removing appointees who vote against the administration’s proposals.

More recently, as a lame duck, Adams has ceded more power. He has allowed three of his 13 mayoral seats on the 24-member board to go unfilled, handing the majority to board members selected by others.

And in recent months, the panel has repeatedly voted against City Hall’s proposals — an extraordinary departure from boards under previous administrations that only occasionally bucked the mayor. On Wednesday, in an unusual move, they voted down the Education Department’s budget.

“The idea that we are rubber stamps and aren’t making judgments — that’s in the past,” Greg Faulker, the chair of the board who was appointed by Adams, said of the board’s larger role.

Six months after Mamdani takes office, it will be up to lawmakers in Albany whether to extend mayoral control in its current form. The question for Mamdani is whether he will lobby lawmakers for sweeping reforms or embrace a PEP that has become detached from City Hall.

PEP seen as ‘mere formality’ under some mayors

During the campaign, Mamdani pledged to end mayoral control and replace it with a system that shares power with families and educators, though he has not said what that means.

His critique of mayoral control has zeroed in on the PEP, which he contends does not take community input into account, especially on contentious school closure, mergers, or re-location proposals.

“They go to a hearing about the future of a school that their children go to — eight hours of testimony,” Mamdani said in a recent television interview. “Meanwhile, the decision was actually made weeks and months prior, and this is just a mere formality.”

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg won mayoral control of the school system in 2002. He did not tolerate dissent from the PEP — and famously fired two of his own appointees for opposing a plan to end “social promotion” of students from one grade level to the next. After replacing them in what was dubbed the “Monday night massacre,” the proposal passed.

Ultimately, Bloomberg’s board passed numerous controversial proposals, including dozens of school closures despite community resistance.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who ran in opposition to many of Bloomberg’s education policies, vowed to give the board’s mayoral appointees more independence. But little changed in practice. The board typically voted in lockstep with the administration’s wishes, with only a few exceptions. In one episode, a mayoral appointee cast a decisive vote against two school closures proposed by the administration. In short order, she was off the board.

Adams loses his grip on mayoral control

From his first months in office, Adams lost the tight grip on the PEP that other mayors have enjoyed.

Adams was slow to appoint panel members early in his term and was forced to hastily withdraw one of them after her anti-gay writing came to light. With a vacant slot, City Hall lost a routine vote to approve the city’s funding formula. (It was approved at the next month’s meeting after the chancellor vowed to review the funding scheme.)

But managing the board has also grown more complex. The PEP has nearly doubled in size since 2019 — a response from state lawmakers to concerns that the governance system is not responsive to community input.

It now includes 24 voting members, including five selected by parent leaders, one chosen by each of the five borough presidents, 13 mayoral appointees, and a chair selected by the mayor from a list devised by state lawmakers. (The schools chancellor, a secretary, two students, and a representative from the comptroller’s office serve as non-voting members.)

The city's Panel for Educational Policy has voted down some Adams administration proposals at recent meetings.

Members serve one-year terms, and the mayoral appointees can’t be removed if they vote against the administration’s wishes, a change state lawmakers made just months after Adams took office.

“Having PEP members who can’t be summarily dismissed as Bloomberg did is an important structural difference,” said Jeffrey Henig, a political science professor at Columbia University. “It can be a more vital body that sometimes stands up to the mayor.”

The larger board means more panel members are weighing in on any given decision, making it harder to forge a majority if there are more dissenting voices. City Hall must also devote more effort to recruiting panel members to fill the mayor’s 13-member majority.

Asked why the mayor has not filled three vacancies on the board, a City Hall spokesperson said it can be difficult to quickly find qualified people. The position is unpaid and requires attending monthly public meetings that sometimes stretch past midnight.

“Our administration continues to work hard to ensure this panel is well-staffed,” City Hall spokesperson Zachary Nosanchuk wrote in an email.

Notably, Mamdani may not be able to appoint a majority to the PEP when he takes office because the current members’ terms won’t expire until June.

‘You need to listen to us’: A more independent PEP opposes the administration

No issue has reflected the changing power dynamics between the mayor and the PEP more than the recent negotiations over school bus contracts, which cost nearly $2 billion each year.

After the contracts expired over the summer, city officials agreed to a five-year extension with the bus companies. But dozens of parents and advocates flooded PEP meetings to argue that they should approve a shorter extension to give officials more room to overhaul the troubled system entirely.

“Don’t reward bad behavior,” parent Christi Angel said at the September PEP meeting. “This is a broken system.”

Despite the companies’ handshake agreement with the city for a five-year contract, the PEP passed a resolution saying they wouldn’t support it — including the mayoral appointees. The bus companies later threatened to lay off their workers, potentially grinding the whole system to a stop. The PEP held firm.

“Once that resolution passed, it was game over,” Faulkner said, noting the administration encouraged the PEP to approve a five-year deal. “And the fact that it passed unanimously was a further indication that you need to listen to us.”

On Wednesday evening, the PEP approved a three-year extension of the contracts.

Shortly after, the chancellor, who is in the running to keep her job under Mamdani, signaled her support of a more independent PEP.

“With an incoming administration that has really spoken about its values around community engagement, it’s a great time to reset,” Aviles-Ramos said.

Her comments came at a remarkable moment. Minutes earlier, the board voted down the Education Department’s budget after concerns surfaced about growing administrative spending, including on the chancellor’s office. (The budget could be approved at a future meeting.)

Growing PEP independence stirs debate

The panel’s newfound power has earned varied reactions.

Last month, the board voted down more than $4 million in technology contracts after families and educators raised concerns at a PEP meeting about the companies’ use of artificial intelligence.

One of them was a deal with an AI company launched by former football star Colin Kaepernick, who appeared at a conference alongside Aviles-Ramos a week before the vote. It was an embarrassing setback for the chancellor, who has recently touted efforts to bring AI into schools.

“I was really surprised and thrilled,” said Leonie Haimson, a student privacy advocate who criticized the AI contracts before the vote at last month’s panel meeting. Still, Haimson believes the PEP should have even more independence from the mayor, noting that the board has still approved proposals under Adams despite intense community pushback.

“A lot of important decisions are made without the transparency and accountability that should be required,” she added.

Others have been frustrated that the mayor has lost power over the PEP, arguing the increasingly sprawling board doesn’t always have expertise in what they’re voting on. One technology contract they voted down was a $1.5 million deal with Kiddom, a digital platform that helps teachers access curriculum materials.

Abbas Manjee, Kiddom’s cofounder and chief academic officer, said the company’s use of artificial intelligence is teacher-facing and felt the PEP members didn’t seem familiar with the platform before lumping it in with other AI companies.

He noted the company helps schools access reading and math materials that are at the center of Adams’ curriculum mandates, a top mayoral education priority.

“It’s almost like you’re shooting yourself in the foot,” Manjee said. “Where is mayoral control?”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani’s universal child care push will require building new seats and filling empty ones

2025-11-13T23:42:18+00:00

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A Brooklyn prekindergarten classroom that Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani visited Thursday to plug his $6 billion proposal for free universal child care bustled with activity.

More than a dozen 4-year-olds filled the small room with magnet creations, art projects, and a play bowling alley.

But one floor below, two large classrooms sat empty — as they have for the past five years.

To fulfill his ambitious and costly pledge to provide free universal child care to children 2 and under, Mamdani will have to build new seats and figure out how to make better use of the existing ones, he acknowledged Thursday.

“While so much of this conversation rightfully centers on funding, there’s also a number of issues around policy, around structure,” Mamdani said. “The city has oftentimes made it harder … today, we have two classrooms that are empty that used to be providing infant care in this very facility.”

Ever since the child care center, part of the Friends of Crown Heights network, switched from serving a mix of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers to exclusively offering city-funded pre-K and 3-K programs, it hasn’t been able to enroll enough 3- or 4-year-olds to fill the space, said Angalie Dasai, the network’s CEO.

It’s a reality that has bedeviled child care providers across the city: Even as demand for free care soars, many programs — particularly in the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods — have struggled to fill their seats.

Last year, more than 27,000 of the city’s roughly 136,000 free child care seats for kids ages 4 and under went unfilled, according to city data, or about 1 in every 5 seats.

The vacant seats are a problem at multiple levels. They force wasteful public spending, threaten the financial stability of providers, and signal that the city isn’t meeting families’ needs, experts said.

Providers, advocates, and elected officials say one logical fix is giving child care operators the flexibility to convert unused seats currently reserved for one age group to serve a different age.

For the Friends of Crown Heights program, that would mean converting the existing vacant seats for 3- and 4-year-olds into seats for infants and toddlers, Dasai said. She knows there’s demand for those seats in the neighborhood, but the center, which still has its license to serve infants and toddlers, can’t open them up.

“If you give programs the choice, if it’s more flexible,” she said, “we will fill the seats.”

In addition to shifting the age configuration of their seats, some providers have asked for more flexibility to convert seats currently funded only for the six hours and 20 minutes a day from September to June to seats that run 10 hours a day, year-round.

There are signs Mamdani is listening. Dasai said he was “receptive” when she raised the suggestion to him Thursday. And he highlighted the issue at a press conference with reporters.

“We know that the lack of flexibility sometimes between school day and extended care has also meant that there are families that are unable to get the care that they need,” Mamdani said.

Fulfilling his vision of universal child care will mean “ensuring that the government becomes a partner, as opposed to a burden or an obstacle,” he added.

Providers, advocates eye new contracts

Officials and experts cite a number of reasons for the vacant seats. Birth rates are declining, families with young children have fled the city in growing numbers since the pandemic, and some parents struggle with how to enroll.

Some providers also say the number — and types — of seats they’re funded for don’t match the demand in their neighborhood. But providers and lawmakers say the current child care contracts, which expire next year, don’t allow seat conversions.

Members of the City Council, which will be a key player in negotiating the city budgets that set Mamdani’s child care spending, are urging the city Education Department to rebid the contracts with more flexibility.

“This would allow providers to adjust the mix of infant/toddler, 3-K, and pre-K seats based on real-time community demand, enrollment trends, and local demographics,” officials wrote in a report from Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ office released Thursday.

A spokesperson from the city Education Department declined to comment on the contracts.

Several providers said the agency recently notified them that contracts will be extended for two years, meaning they would last at least until 2028.

But one former city official said they believed that contracts could be amended to allow more flexibility for seat conversion without a full rebidding.

“It’s the low-hanging fruit,” said the former official, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive contract process. “It could buy time to plan for a thoughtful expansion and a new contract re-bidding.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

NYC paraprofessionals are fighting for a $10,000 raise. City Council is listening.

2025-11-12T23:56:53+00:00

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The fight for better pay for New York City’s paraprofessionals, the classroom aides who work alongside students with disabilities, will take a key step on Thursday that could make raises a reality before the end of the year.

Legislation supported by the New York City teachers union that would give paraprofessionals an immediate $10,000 annual raise is set to get a hearing in the Civil Service and Labor committee Thursday. The committee will then call a separate vote on the bill. If it passes, the bill will proceed to a vote from the full City Council.

Introduced by Manhattan council member Keith Powers, the bill is co-sponsored by 47 of the council’s 51 members, making it likely to pass its next hurdles.

The raises would bring some immediate economic relief to thousands of paraprofessionals, whose starting annual salary of $32,000 forces many to work second and third jobs to stay afloat and makes it difficult to recruit new candidates, according to paraprofessionals and United Federation of Teachers officials. There were roughly 1,400 vacant paraprofessional positions last year, according to Education Department figures, leaving students with disabilities unable to access critical services and support.

Raises would also add a major new line item to the city’s education budget — costing an estimated $260 million a year, lawmakers said in January.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who ran a campaign centered on affordability and won the endorsement of the teachers union in the general election, has expressed his support for the legislation.

“When it comes to paraprofessionals, we have so many vacant positions because these positions simply do not pay enough,” he said at a mayoral debate in June. “I support legislation in the council … which would create a recurring annual bonus so we can actually fill those positions.”

The bill was originally scheduled for a hearing next month, making it unlikely to pass before the end of the calendar year and forcing the process to start over, union officials said. But the hearing was recently moved up. “We’ve got to get these paraprofessionals paid, so we are trying to act with urgency here,” said Powers.

Using legislation to circumvent collective bargaining

The effort is notable for using the legislative process to achieve a raise for city employees, rather than the collective bargaining municipal unions conduct with the city government when contracts are renewed. A spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams said in January that any pay raises should be worked out through collective bargaining and noted that paraprofessionals received a contract in 2023 that runs until 2027.

Another Adams spokesperson said officials will share their views on the bill during Thursday’s hearing and didn’t immediately say whether Adams would veto it. Adams, who leaves office Jan. 1, recently vetoed several pieces of legislation passed by the council.

Powers said he’s confident that the bill has enough support to override a mayoral veto if one comes.

Teachers union President Michael Mulgrew and other union leaders have been sounding the alarm over the past year about a paraprofessional shortage.

Some union members critical of Mulgrew — including paraprofessionals — believe the legislation was an effort to shore up support in a closely contested union election earlier this year. Union leaders should have won the raises through collective bargaining, those critics say.

“I’m not against paraprofessionals getting more money, it’s just the method,” said Marie Wausnock, a Staten Island paraprofessional who cofounded a union caucus slate called Fix Para Pay that is largely opposed to Mulgrew’s Unity caucus.

“I find it incredible a union president is taking this ask outside of collective bargaining, which is against every rule in the unionist book,” Wausnock said.

She said the pay bump would make an immediate economic difference for her and many other paraprofessionals. But she noted it won’t count toward pensions, and she worries that city lawmakers will change their mind about supporting such a large annual expense.

“It’s not a fix,” she said.

Teachers union officials say this approach was necessary because the “pattern bargaining” system that ensures municipal employees with different job titles get the same annual percent raises meant that wages for paras continued to fall further behind those of higher-paid employees like principals.

From 2005 to 2025, the starting salary for paraprofessionals increased by about $12,000, while wages for top principals rose by $86,000, according to a union analysis.

Melissa Arnold Lyon, a professor at the University at Albany studying education and labor politics, said the move fits into a larger pattern of education labor unions across the country using legislatures to win raises.

She added that public sector unions in New York might feel additional pressure to look outside of the collective bargaining process because of the state’s Taylor Law, which prohibits strikes by public sector unions, limiting their leverage in bargaining.

“It is quite difficult to reframe the base salary in New York state in particular, because of that tradition and the legal structure,” she said.

A difficult job becomes even harder

Tonia Calvo, a veteran paraprofessional who has worked in city schools for nearly two decades, said the job, while always challenging, has felt increasingly unsustainable in the wake of the pandemic, as student needs intensified and the cost of living soared.

“One woman that I work with was … trying to avoid being evicted, one was talking about paying off her car just so that she can come to work,” she said. She often meets paraprofessionals who have taken on second jobs at places like Target and ShopRite “because their salary is not enough to afford to live in this city.”

Calvo worries it’s becoming increasingly difficult to recruit new candidates unless they have other financial support.

The annual pay bump would start at around $10,800 for 2025, and would rise to $12,000 by 2030, according to the union. For Calvo, the money would go toward helping pay off her children’s student loans.

For many of her colleagues, it would allow them to stop working nights, to add a couple of “goodies” to their grocery shopping, and attend training sessions to get better at their work, she said.

“I think they’re scared to hope for more,” she said, “because they’re so used to getting less.”

Correction: Nov. 12, 2025: A previous version of this story said the council will vote on the bill during Thursday’s hearing. The vote has not yet been scheduled.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Mamdani’s $6 billion universal child care plan: How will NYC fund, staff, and scale up the program?

2025-11-11T21:29:13+00:00

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Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has been clear on how he wants New Yorkers to evaluate his tenure: by whether he can achieve his ambitious campaign promises, including free child care starting at 6 weeks old.

“Being right in and of itself is meaningless,” Mamdani told The New York Times. “We have to deliver.”

Much of the discussion around whether Mamdani can follow through has focused on how he’ll pay for the eye-popping estimated $6 billion annual price tag for universal child care.

But paying for the program is only the first step.

If he gets the funding, Mamdani will face an array of logistical and operational challenges in standing up new public infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of youngsters, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former officials, policy experts, advocates, and educators.

Though Mamdani seems to be looking toward the rollout of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious pre-K and 3-K programs as a road map, the expansion into child care for infants and toddlers 2 and under brings a new set of challenges. The youngest New Yorkers require different space and supervision considerations than 3- and 4-year-olds, increasing the urgency of growing a staffing pipeline and identifying new spaces. Moreover, many observers say there are big flaws in the current child care system that could undercut expansion efforts if they’re not addressed.

“Is child care for all possible? It’s absolutely possible. Anything’s possible with the resources and the will,” said Richard Buery, the CEO of Robin Hood, and a former deputy mayor under de Blasio who oversaw the rollout of universal prekindergarten. “But I would not understate … the operational complexity of doing so.”

Here’s what experts told Chalkbeat about where the child care system stands now and what it will take to make it free for all.

How is the city going to pay for it?

Cost isn’t the only obstacle to Mamdani’s universal child care pledge — but it is the biggest.

The $6 billion estimate covers both the cost of creating new seats and bringing the salaries of child care workers, whose median income is currently $25,000, on par with those of city public school teachers, whose median yearly pay is close to $100,000.

The city’s 3-K and pre-K systems, by comparison, cost a total of about $1.6 billion, according to the most recent figures from the city’s Independent Budget Office.

Mamdani plans to fund the program through a tax hike on millionaires and corporations, a proposal that would need approval from the state legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul. He estimates the taxes would raise about $9 billion a year.

Hochul has already shut down the idea of a tax hike, but has opened the door to increasing state funding for child care, which she shares as a top priority.

“I can’t just write a check and cover this cost, but I’ve talked to Zohran Mamdani … and we will get on a path forward,” she said last month at a child care summit convened by the 5Boro Institute at Citizens Union, a think tank.

De Blasio faced a similar dilemma, albeit over a much smaller price tag, when he tried to convince former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to greenlight a tax hike on wealthy residents to fund universal pre-K (Cuomo rejected the tax, but found other money in the state budget.)

Meanwhile, some advocates and experts are pushing a phased-in approach with a less daunting initial price tag. The group New Yorkers United for Childcare suggests starting out with universal care for 2-year-olds — a proposal City Comptroller Brad Lander estimates would cost $1.6 billion a year.

And while there’s no way around the high costs, proponents point out that child care also brings substantial economic benefits by freeing up more parents to work.

How close are we to free universal child care now?

There were about 466,000 kids ages 4 and under living in New York City as of 2022, according to the state health department.

City officials say both pre-K for 4-year-olds and 3-K for 3-year-olds are universal, in that everyone who applied this year got an offer. But 15% of 3-K applicants and 7% of pre-K applicants got an offer to a program they didn’t list on their application.

Of the city’s roughly 195,000 3- and 4-year-olds, about 101,000 of them were in free 3-K and pre-K programs last year.

Some observers say there’s still unmet demand for 3-K. Lander estimated 3-K has to grow by 16,000 seats to become truly universal.

Moreover, the vast majority of city-funded pre-K and 3-K programs run only six hours and 20 minutes a day from September to June, leaving tens of thousands of families paying out of pocket for afternoon and summer coverage.

Making afternoon and summer coverage free for all pre-K and 3-K families would cost around $872 million, Lander estimates. But the City Council is proposing a less costly intermediate step: moving to a “family share” model that charges families on a uniform sliding scale based on income for extended hours.

About 17,000 3- and 4-year-olds got state-funded child care vouchers for low-income families worth $300 a week, according to the Administration for Children’s Services, which runs the voucher program. (There are currently about 10,000 city kids on the waitlist for vouchers because of insufficient funding, officials said.)

For kids 2 and under, free child care is much more limited — and reserved for low-income families.

In 2024, only 32,000 infants and toddlers got free care through city-run programs or state vouchers — just a quarter of the roughly 108,000 kids who qualify based on family income, according to Lander’s analysis. And that’s not to mention the more than 150,000 tots who don’t qualify for a means-tested program and currently have almost no free options.

Who’s going to staff it?

The staffing needs to create a universal program for infants and toddlers are likely to be immense, experts said.

Younger kids require more teachers — one for every three infants, and one for every five to six toddlers, according to licensing regulations, compared to one for every 10 3 and 4-year-olds.

Babies and toddlers are also more likely to be in small, home-based child care settings, meaning any expansion will likely lean heavily on those providers.

It’s a workforce that has been decimated by years of low pay, the loss of students and staff to universal pre-K and 3-K programs, and the COVID pandemic. President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign has further strained the immigrant-heavy workforce, according to providers and advocates.

The chapter of the United Federation of Teachers representing home-based child care providers has shrunk from 28,000 in 2007 to just 12,000 today, said Tammie Miller, the chapter chair.

“People love what they do … but they cannot make a living,” said Doris Irizarry, a long-time home-based child care educator and cofounder of the advocacy group ECE On the Move.

Many observers said a logical first step for Mamdani is expanding the existing 3-K and pre-K model to include 2-year-olds. The city recently launched a pilot to open 240 seats to kids 2 and under, regardless of their parents’ income, through providers already contracting with the city.

For infants, who are more likely to still be at home with parents or in some kind of informal care, the equation may look different. Mamdani has said he plans to subsidize care “at home for families who prefer to have a trusted neighbor or relative take care of their child.”

Expanding paid family leave is “both the most economically efficient way to provide care for young children and good for families,” said Emmy Liss, a former Education Department official who helped oversee universal pre-K and studies models of free child care nationwide.

But some experts warned it’s no replacement for investing in the workforce.

“Expanding paid family leave is clearly an important benefit for families,” said Lara Kyriakou, the policy director at All Our Kin, an organization that supports home-based child care educators. “And it’s not a substitute for a trained, informed workforce.”

Where are the programs going to be?

The city relied on space in K-12 public school buildings for a substantial share of 3-K and pre-K programs. Several experts said it will likely be harder to outfit public schools for infants and toddlers — though models do exist.

Mamdani has promised to open more child care centers, using city space and public school buildings wherever possible. He also pledged to subsidize commercial rent and ease the regulatory burdens of opening new programs.

One regulation some providers and experts say makes it harder to build new child care sites: The city’s Health Department requires programs serving kids under 2-years-old to occupy the ground floor.

“Is this really a barrier we need to keep in place?” Hochul asked at the recent child care summit. “If we don’t add more capacity … then we’re failing.”

Who’s going to oversee it?

The city’s child care sector is currently controlled by an alphabet soup of governmental agencies.

The Education Department handles the contracts and supervision for 3-K and pre-K programs. The Health Department is in charge of licensing. The Fire and Buildings Departments deal with building inspections. And the Administration for Children’s Services operates the state-funded voucher system for tens of thousands of low-income families.

Most observers said the Education Department should continue to play the leading role in an expanded child care system — but urged officials to simplify the complex governance structure. Buery, the former deputy mayor, said he doesn’t see how Mamdani could pull off the operational challenges without maintaining mayoral control of the school system, an arrangement Mamdani said he wants to change.

A universal system will also likely have to balance two distinct funding models, at least for now: vouchers that hand cash to parents to spend on child care, and contracts that fund providers.

Some officials hope to eventually simplify that process, too.

“We need to, as we go on with it, figure out a way to phase out that type of system,” said City Council speaker Adrienne Adams, a Queens democrat who has clashed with Mayor Eric Adams over child care in recent years. “I believe that we can evolve away from the voucher system.”

What needs to be fixed in the current system?

Providers, advocates, and experts warn that if the city doesn’t act to shore up the foundations of the current system, any expansion efforts will cause it to buckle.

Experts and providers both agreed the city should improve its process for reimbursing providers, which has resulted in delays so substantial that some providers have had to close.

Another major issue: The city’s free child care programs had more than 27,000 unfilled seats last year, according to city data. Programs reserved for low-income families were more likely to go vacant, reflecting the onerous process of qualifying, experts and advocates said.

The glut of unfilled seats is partly due to demographic projections for pre-K that failed to fully take into account how the city’s declining birth rates and COVID enrollment losses would play out on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood level, said Dan Weisberg, the former first deputy chancellor at the city Education Department under Adams.

Some advocates and experts said the city can help fill programs by allowing providers to shift the kind of seats they’re offering — from 3-K seats to 2-year-old seats, for example, or from school day to extended day — to meet the demand in their communities. Some of those changes might happen only through new contracts. (The Education Department is planning to issue a 2-year extension when the current child care contracts expire next year, people familiar with the plans said.)

Weisberg encouraged the new administration to take a more conservative approach in building out capacity because it’s much easier to add seats than take them away, he said.

Correction: Nov. 11, 2025: A previous version of this story described a pilot program as being open to 2-year-olds. It’s open to kids 2 and under.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Mamdani’s child care promise: Who’s advising the mayor-elect on his ambitious plan?

2025-11-06T23:40:45+00:00

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As Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani figures out how to deliver on his promise of universal child care, his administration is grappling with what lessons to draw from the expansion of universal prekindergarten and 3-K.

In many ways, the rollout of universal pre-K under former Mayor Bill de Blasio offers a clear template for Mamdani — an ambitious and fast-moving effort that “showcased the ability of city government to actually meet the needs of New Yorkers,” as Mamdani said in June.

But many child care providers still feel resentful about how the program rolled out a decade ago, saying it unleashed disruptions to the system that persist to this day. Some of those providers are now urging Mamdani’s campaign to slow down and avoid some of those same pitfalls.

“Members of the provider community have strong feelings about what worked well and what didn’t during the first expansion,” said Xanthe Jory, a former top official overseeing child care expansion in the city Education Department under de Blasio. “They will have important questions about what will be different this time around. The success of another expansion will depend, in part, on the degree to which their concerns are addressed.”

It’s a balancing act that will shape how Mamdani approaches perhaps his most ambitious and complex campaign promise: providing free, universal child care for kids as young as 6 weeks old.

And the stakes are high. Families with young children continue to leave the city at an alarming rate due in part to ballooning child care costs. At the same time, any major changes Mamdani makes will send ripple effects across the city’s sprawling child care ecosystem, which relies on thousands of independent child care providers.

Mamdani’s campaign is seeking advice from people on different sides of the issue.

Former de Blasio budget chief and deputy mayor Melanie Hartzog, who played a key role in the prekindergarten expansion, is co-chairing Mamdani’s transition committee. Emmy Liss, the former chief of staff for Josh Wallack, a top de Blasio aide who oversaw the pre-K rollout in the city Education Department, has also been advising the campaign on child care, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations. (Liss declined to comment on her involvement, and Mamdani’s campaign didn’t respond to an inquiry.)

Observers and people involved with that effort say there’s much Mamdani’s campaign can learn from it — including the sense of urgency and speed with which officials approached the rollout.

“We can’t take too long, because then people lose hope, it doesn’t actually benefit people, and then it has the risk of getting deprioritized,” said Rebecca Bailin, the executive director of New Yorkers United for Childcare, a parent advocacy group.

But others say de Blasio’s administration failed to account for the collateral damage the rapid expansion would bring to existing child care providers, causing staff to flee and some programs to shutter.

“There was such a push to move forward that, in many cases, the providers were left behind,” said Laura Ensler, the founder of an early childhood program in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood who has known Mamdani for years and has also been advising his campaign. “We had a lot to offer and there weren’t many opportunities to share our experiences because they were moving so quickly.”

Now, as Ensler offers advice to Mamdani’s team about crafting its plan to reach universal child care, she is urging them to take their time.

“We know we want to act fast on everything that Zohran has put out there,” Ensler said. “And I’m one of the people that will say, look at every perspective of what you’re doing before you commit, because people will be hurt if you don’t.”

A need for speed

After de Blasio took office in 2014, it took just 18 months for his administration to stand up tens of thousands of pre-K seats, an all-hands-on-deck blitz that involved everything from marketing the new program to completing building inspections.

Some staffers who worked on the effort said that speed was key: People needed to experience the program in order to build the long-term support to keep it going.

“There was a clear political window, and a mayor who was willing to match that window with resources and focus. You can only maintain that level of political focus for so long,” said Liss. “Building pre-K quickly built the political coalition in many ways to sustain the program.”

Some observers say Mamdani may be stepping into an even more opportune political window. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who endorsed Mamdani after the June primary, has signaled that she shares the goal of universal child care as a top priority.

“The stars have really aligned in a big way around this issue,” said Grace Rauh, the executive director of the 5Boro Institute at Citizens Union.

A lesson in unintended consequences

For some child care providers and advocates, de Blasio’s much-heralded pre-K programs left a complicated legacy. Teachers at programs run by city public schools earned much more than those in city-funded programs run by private providers, setting off a mass exodus of staffers from private programs.

Many smaller home-based providers said they weren’t included in the initial rollout of city-funded contracts — and lost many of their students to the new programs.

“I can tell you that we lost many, many qualified child care providers as a result, and I truly believe that further enhanced the child care deserts that we currently have,” said Tammie Miller, the chapter chair for thousands of home-based providers represented by the United Federation of Teachers.

Membership in Miller’s unit has shrunk from 28,000 providers in 2007 to just 12,000 today, she said.

And despite its claims of universality, the program has failed to include many children with disabilities, who require more expensive programs and specialized staff. As recently as last year, hundreds of preschoolers with disabilities couldn’t access free 3-K and pre-K seats.

“It is essential for the administration to consider the needs of children with disabilities at the outset,” said Randi Levine, the policy director at Advocates for Children. “It’s much harder to add something on later.”

Advocates and former officials said they hope the Mamdani administration takes heed of some of those lessons and builds them into its approach from the start.

Liss said the system’s exclusion of home-based providers and students with disabilities are two of the clearest lessons she’s drawn from the rollout — ones she hopes “a new team could take and think differently for the future.”

Other veterans of the pre-K effort said that while it’s still important to move quickly, slowing down when needed could help the next administration avoid further destabilizing an already fragile system.

“Maybe instead of 90 miles an hour, let’s go 80,” said Jory, the former Education Department official. “I think that even letting the foot off the gas a little bit would allow for some really thoughtful work that will support the system long term.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Charter leaders, union officials, and education advocates rush to influence Mamdani’s schools agenda

2025-11-05T21:51:33+00:00

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After Zohran Mamdani’s election victory on Tuesday night, education advocates across New York City swiftly offered words of encouragement and began pitching ideas to help shape the mayor-elect’s schools agenda.

Some groups urged Mamdani to continue Mayor Eric Adams’ signature curriculum reforms. Others praised his focus on affordability and expressed excitement about his pledge for universal child care. And charter school leaders said they want to build bridges with the incoming mayor, even though the Mamdani campaign criticized the sector on the campaign trail.

Mamdani has said little about his vision for the nation’s largest school system — giving outside groups an opening to help shape his thinking. Mamdani has signaled he is willing to listen to new ideas and has pledged to give families and educators a greater voice.

On Wednesday, Mamdani announced a handful of advisors to begin his transition to City Hall. They include Melanie Hartzog, the leader of New York Foundling, which operates some early childhood and other education programs. Hartzog previously served in city government, including as a deputy mayor and top budget official under former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Mamdani also tapped Grace Bonilla, CEO of the United Way of New York City, which also operates education programs. She previously worked in the administration of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. None of the leaders of the transition team Mamdani announced on Wednesday have deep experience in K-12 education.

Teacher groups push to keep Adams’ signature education initiative

Under Adams, the school system made big changes to reading and math instruction, mandating specific reading programs for elementary schools and for Algebra 1 in high school. Curriculum shifts are underway at middle schools, too.

Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group, said Mamdani should keep those efforts going. The group pointed to rising test scores as evidence of success, though experts have cautioned it is difficult to directly attribute the gains to the curriculum changes. Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which endorsed Mamdani, also said he hopes the mayor-elect stays the course.

“Changing the curriculums constantly is not a good thing for us,” Mulgrew told Chalkbeat.

Mamdani has indicated he is open to keeping some of those curriculum changes in place, though he has also said teachers should have more flexibility in how they are used.

Charter leaders offer an olive branch

Mamdani has made no secret of his skepticism of charter schools, which educate about 15% of the city’s public school students, arguing they divert resources from city-run public schools. While the mayor’s power over charter schools is limited, Mamdani said he plans to conduct audits of them. (Charter schools are publicly funded but privately managed.)

Charter school leaders staged a massive rally weeks before the primary, warning of threats to the sector. But some charter leaders took a warmer tone after Mamdani’s win on Tuesday, noting that his message on affordability resonated with many families.

“We look forward to a mayor who will unite us, strengthen us and provide us the resources our children and families deserve,” James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center, said in a statement.

Some Mamdani critics hope to work with him

Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, has been a major critic of Mamdani’s education proposals — including ending mayoral control of schools and scrapping gifted programs that begin in kindergarten.

Yiatin Chu, the group’s co-founder, still hopes to find common ground with the mayor-elect on issues like chronic absenteeism, the state’s class size reduction mandate, and attracting more families to the public school system amid declining enrollment. (PLACE endorsed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.)

“I believe that we have the pulse on public school families,” Chu said. “Of course we would like to work with him and his chancellor.”

Education advocates praise focus on universal child care, affordability

Multiple education groups expressed excitement about one of Mamdani’s central campaign pledges: to roll out universal free child care starting when children are 6 weeks old.

The Alliance for Quality Education, an advocacy group, praised Mamdani’s focus on affordability and noted he is the first mayoral candidate the organization has ever endorsed.

“We have fought for a future where every child can learn in a well-funded school, where child care is accessible to all, and where people do not have to choose between caring for their children and paying rent or putting food on the table,” the organization’s co-directors, Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari and Marina Marcou-O’Malley, said in a statement. “We believe Zohran shares that vision.”

Union officials also cheered Mamdani’s win. Mulgrew, head of the teachers union, said he and the incoming mayor are aligned on many of the union’s priorities, including ramping up teacher hiring and boosting pay for aides who work with students with disabilities. The union chief also praised Mamdani’s comment to bolster the city’s prekindergarten program for 3-year-olds, launch free child care, and root out wasteful spending.

Still, the union chief acknowledged that it remains to be seen what Mamdani will prioritize.

“I’m not sure exactly what his signature issue is going to be,” Mulgrew said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani wins mayoral election. Here’s what it means for NYC schools.

2025-11-05T03:23:39+00:00

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Zohran Mamdani won Tuesday’s New York City mayoral election, putting the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist in charge of the nation’s largest school system at a time when graduation rates have risen but college readiness is low and too many students are still failing to show up to class regularly.

He won a little more than 50% of the vote, beating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent and won roughly 41% of the vote, according to the Associated Press, which called the race with 75% of the votes tallied. Republican Curtis Sliwa trailed with about 7% of votes. Mamdani becomes the first Muslim mayor of New York City.

One of the most pressing questions ahead for the mayor-elect is whether he will end two decades of mayoral control, a governance model that gives the chief executive enormous power over the city’s schools, including the selection of its chancellor.

Mamdani’s campaign galvanized the youth vote, but the Queens state assemblyman didn’t display a deep interest or expertise in education in the race, and he doesn’t have much of a record of school-related legislation from his time in Albany. Until recently, his campaign website devoted just one 168-word paragraph to K-12 education. But overseeing New York City public schools is no small feat: It has a $41 billion budget, 150,000 staffers, and nearly 900,000 students at more than 1,600 schools.

The school system’s graduation rates have soared 30 percentage points over the past two decades, and state test scores for reading and math have improved since the pandemic. But a closer look at a range of metrics reveals that student progress may be more stagnant than some of these figures indicate.

Just 52% of high school students in 2024 were considered ready to succeed in freshman-level college coursework, according to a recent audit from the state comptroller’s office. Students’ scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, were essentially the same last year as in 2003. And schools are facing a crisis of chronic absenteeism, with 1 in 3 students missing at least 10% of school last year.

The fate of mayoral control remains murky

Prior to mayoral control, schools were governed by the Board of Education and a decentralized system in which the city’s 32 districts had a lot of power over their own budgets, hiring, and contracts. Complaints about corruption, patronage, and fiefdoms ran rampant.

Today, the mayor chooses the schools chancellor and appoints the majority of members of the Panel for Educational Policy, which votes on major Education Department contracts and school closures.

Mamdani has echoed criticisms that mayoral control gives little say to parents and educators on decisions that directly affect them. He has promised a system of “co-governance” with existing parent councils and school-level leadership teams, though he has offered few details on how that would work.

But how much power he is willing to give up remains to be seen.

“I remain opposed to mayoral control,” Mamdani said at the final debate last month, “and I also believe that the mayor is accountable for that which happens in this city.”

He has yet to define what that accountability means.

Mamdani’s biggest education agenda, free child care — which focuses on the littlest New Yorkers rather than the K-12 system — could prove challenging to enact if the system’s 32 districts are controlled locally. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious initiative scaling up prekindergarten for 4-year-olds could not have happened without mayoral control, the city’s former chief executive has said.

Lawmakers will consider whether to continue the current system in June 2026. Some education advocates, who met recently with Mamdani’s team, are pushing for a short-term renewal while a commission would create a more detailed plan.

Finding ways to better support teachers

Mamdani, who was endorsed by the United Federation of Teachers in the general election, often talks about the importance of lowering class sizes. To help meet the state’s mandate for capping classrooms — at 20-25 students depending on grade level — Mamdani unveiled a $12 million plan to recruit 1,000 teachers a year by offering tuition assistance to those who commit to teach in city schools for three years.

He also supports Mayor Eric Adams’ literacy and math instruction overhaul, but has emphasized the importance of teachers having more input over how the mandated curriculums are implemented.

In the final debate, Mamdani’s tone on the reading curriculum changes — and the school system overall — shifted a bit, sounding more pessimistic than previously.

“We are not even on track to ensure greater literacy levels across those schools, despite the strides that have been taken with NYC Reads,” Mamdani said. (Reading scores ticked up on the latest state tests, though it’s unclear to what extent the curriculum changes are responsible for those improvements.)

Promises to focus on vulnerable students

When discussing how to fix education, Mamdani has often expressed that larger systemic issues, like homelessness and hunger, need to be addressed too. The city has “grown numb” to the numbers of homeless and hungry children and the segregation in its public schools, he told Chalkbeat on the campaign trail.

“This continues to be a focus for my campaign of putting forward a vision for our school system,” he said.

In responding to a Chalkbeat questionnaire about the most pressing problems of the city schools, he offered some hints that he’d want to focus on the system’s most vulnerable children, including students with disabilities and homeless children. Roughly 154,000 students lived in shelters or doubled up with other families or friends last year, a record high.

He also said he’d support the city’s community school model, providing wraparound services, such as mental health or dental clinics and other social services. The city currently runs more than 400 community schools, and the city’s teachers union supports the model, which has shown some promising results.

Stirring up debate on gifted programs

Mamdani recently reopened a long-running debate over the city’s gifted and talented program in elementary school, saying he wanted to eliminate gifted classes with a kindergarten entry point.

The program has come under fire by integration advocates since it enrolls disproportionately few Black and Latino students relative to their population in the school system as a whole. In the past few years, the program switched from basing admissions on a test given to 4-year-olds to teacher recommendations. Teachers, however, overwhelmingly recommend students.

New York remains an outlier in sorting in kindergarten for gifted and talented programs.

Mamdani did voice support for keeping gifted programs starting in third grade. But many of the programs for third graders, started by the Adams administration and focused on undeserved areas, have failed to gain traction.

And while Mamdani has expressed interest in overhauling gifted programs, he backed away from previous calls to eliminate the Specialized High School Admissions Test, which serves as the sole basis of entry for eight high schools, including Mamdani’s alma mater, Bronx Science.

Mamdani has also discussed tackling problems with Education Department procurement and expanding solar panels on schools. His overarching vision for the school system, however, remains opaque.

“We’ve been wanting to see how these different ideas fit together,”Jonathan Collins, professor of political science and education at Columbia University Teachers College, previously told Chalkbeat, “and instead he’s been pivoting from one idea to another.”

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Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

From TikTok to the ballot: How Mamdani is winning over NYC youth

2025-10-30T12:30:00+00:00

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It may come as no surprise that students at Bronx Science, Zohran Mamdani’s alma mater, are cheering on the 34-year-old mayoral frontrunner.

Students outside the specialized high school last week liked Mamdani’s youth, that he was raised by immigrant parents, and that he’s a person of color, saying those were good qualities for a mayor of New York City.

The Queens state assemblyman is gaining traction with students beyond Bronx Science too — even winning over some students at Archbishop Molloy High School, the esteemed Queens Catholic school former Gov. Andrew Cuomo graduated from 50 years ago.

“I love Mamdani,” said Katie Brophy, 17, standing outside Molloy last week. Katie supports Mamdani’s city-run grocery store proposal to support low-income residents.

Students told Chalkbeat they learned about some of Mamdani’s proposals — like free city buses and increasing the minimum wage — through watching him on TikTok visiting bodegas and different parts of the city. They connected with his straightforward messages about making the city more affordable. In his first pitch on the campaign trail, the video has quick scene cuts, a warm tone filter that softens the city, with Mamdani speaking against a rhythmic beat.

Mamdani’s celebrity status online has grown to include more than a million TikTok followers, while Cuomo has just 14,000 followers. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa has nearly 200,000 followers, but some students still struggled to identify him by name.

Voting patterns highlight a generational divide in the race. During the Democratic primary, Cuomo led with voters above age 50, but Mamdani won, with twice as many votes from those under 50 as his opponents, according to an Emerson College poll.

More than 90,000 young voters ages 25 to 34 led in early voting registration in the primaries. Meanwhile, during the first weekend of early voting in the general election, voters over 55 made up just over half of overall voters, Gothamist reported.

City residents ages 18 or above can vote in the upcoming mayoral election on Nov. 4. Early voting started Saturday and runs through Nov. 2.

Mamdani moved here from Uganda at the age of 7 with his parents, Mira Nair, a filmmaker, and Mahmood Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University. He graduated from Bronx Science in 2010. Cuomo, who is the son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo, was born in Queens and graduated from Molloy — where his picture hangs in the school’s Hall of Fame — in 1975, when it was an all-boys school. Brooklyn-born Guardian Angels founder Sliwa attended an all-boys Jesuit high school called Brooklyn Preparatory School before being expelled in 1972 and then failing to graduate at Canarsie High School. Both schools Sliwa attended do not exist anymore. (Canarsie High School was replaced by multiple schools at what’s now called the Canarsie Education Complex.)

New York City’s former schools Chancellor David Banks called Mamdani the candidate of the “new, young generation.”

“The fact that he got so many young people engaged in this process. I find that very, very exciting,” Banks told Chalkbeat. “He just built an army of young people who hit the streets. I haven’t seen that kind of energy in a long, long time.”

Dev Brar, a senior from Bronx Science, said he’s voting for Mamdani because of his promise to increase the minimum wage to $30 dollars an hour by 2030. He also doesn’t come across Cuomo’s advertisements.

“Cuomo’s campaigns are on TV, and I don’t really watch that,” Dev said of the former governor.

Mamdani’s appeal among young people isn’t universal, however. There were some rabid opponents to the frontrunner at Cuomo’s old stomping grounds. A student in Molloy’s navy polo uniform driving a white sedan, rolled the windows down on a recent Friday after school and yelled, “F— Mamdani!”

From fighting Trump to free bus-skepticism, students share their views

Senior Jillian Kahn from Molloy, said all the candidates “have significant drawbacks.” She supported Sliwa’s commitment to reforming animal shelters and affordable housing.

“But sometimes when he speaks, he sounds like he’s in a dreamworld,” she said.

She was skeptical of Mamdani’s proposal to make buses free, adding that this was the state government’s responsibility instead. If Jillian had to choose, she’d pick Cuomo.

But many students in the Bronx and Queens were troubled by sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo and death rates at nursing homes during the pandemic while he was governor. Cuomo denied the harassment claims and called the federal nursing home investigation politically motivated.

“He loves his rich billionaire friends,” Katie said, referring to his deep-pocketed campaign donors. She also cited the harassment allegations as a reason to steer clear of supporting him.

Another point in Mamdani’s favor, several students said, was how the frontrunner said he would stand up to the Trump administration.

Out of the three candidates, Mamdani is the most vocal about fighting President Donald Trump, said Bronx Science student Madiha Bukhari. The 17-year-old was particularly mad about the Trump administration cutting $400 million from Columbia University in March. (The university paid a $200 million fine to partially recover funding cuts.)

Going to the same high school as the mayoral frontrunner was a point of pride for Madiha, who like Mamdani, also lost a race for the school’s vice presidency.

“We have that in common,” said Madiha. As someone who is Muslim and part Indian, she said she “feels a cultural connection” with him too.

Senior Tory George from DeWitt Clinton High School, located near Bronx Science, felt she could relate to his identity too.

“He’s brown, he’s young, he’s actually a New Yorker,” she said about Mamdani. Free buses and rent freezes also appealed to her.

Beyond city reform, students want to see the next mayor tackle a variety of issues to support the nation’s largest public school system, including increasing funding for schools and serving “better food” at the cafeterias.

None of the mayoral candidates have made education a focal point this election, despite the Department of Education being the largest city agency.

Sixteen-year-old Sadar Shan wants Mamdani to invest in mental health facilities at schools. At Bronx Science, where Sadar currently attends, there are 12 counselors for roughly 3,000 students.

“That’s just not enough attention needed per student,” Sadar said.

Like Madiha and several other students Chalkbeat spoke to, stopping Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from violently arresting city residents — and fighting Trump’s policies — was on Sadar’s priority list.

“[Mamdani] can stop Trump from taking over the city,” he said.

Ananya Chetia is a reporting intern for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Ananya at achetia@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani campaign quietly convenes education advocates to shape schools agenda

2025-10-28T12:30:00+00:00

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Though New York City’s public school system has not been a focal point of Zohran Mamdani mayoral agenda, his campaign has quietly started reaching out to education advocates to collect ideas.

Last week, a handful of Mamdani campaign staffers organized a roundtable discussion with dozens of education advocates, parent leaders, and experts to solicit input on what Mamdani should prioritize if he is elected on Nov. 4, multiple people in attendance told Chalkbeat.

The conversation covered several broad topics in virtual breakout rooms, including funding, community schools, literacy, “privatization,” youth groups, students with disabilities, English language learners, children experiencing homelessness, and artificial intelligence, according to a meeting agenda.

One topic of discussion was Mamdani’s vow to end mayoral control of the city’s public schools, which allows the mayor to select a schools chancellor and appoint the majority of the Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP, a board that votes on major contracts and policy decisions. Mamdani has pledged to replace mayoral control with a “co-governance” model that includes more input from students, educators, and parents, though he has not said what that might look like.

Jonathan Greenberg, a Queens parent leader invited to give a short presentation on mayoral control at the meeting, laid out a plan backed by the Education Council Consortium, a coalition of parent leaders. The proposal would extend the mayoral control law in the short term while giving the mayor fewer votes on the PEP. (State law grants the authority of mayoral control, which is up for renewal in June 2026.)

“That would create a functional PEP that would have to be engaged and have meaningful discussion on the issues rather than simply taking what the mayor says and voting,” Greenberg said.

Meanwhile, a commission would come up with a more detailed vision for reforming the school governance system to be implemented later.

The Mamdani staffers who participated in the meeting did not weigh in on that proposal.

“I wish they had, but really they just listened,” Greenberg said.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, has said it would be a “terrible mistake” to roll back mayoral control and has criticized Mamdani for not having a clear education platform.

The education roundtable also included conversation about an advisory group report released in 2019 under Mayor Bill de Blasio that offered recommendations for improving school diversity, according to the agenda. Mamdani has referenced it several times on the campaign trail, including in a proposal to phase out gifted programs for kindergarten students.

Several major advocacy groups attended, including the Alliance for Quality Education. A staffer from Advocates for Children, which helps low-income families navigate the school system, delivered a presentation on the organization’s recommendations for whoever the next mayor is. Multiple attendees said City Council education chair Rita Joseph participated as did Jamaal Bowman, a former congressman and Bronx middle school principal. Both have been rumored as possible chancellor candidates.

Planting seeds for a Mamdani transition?

The meeting offers a window into a possible Mamdani K-12 policy agenda that may be taking shape as Election Day on Nov. 4 nears. The 34-year-old Democratic Socialist has offered few detailed plans for how he would lead the nation’s largest school district, serving over 900,000 students in roughly 1,600 schools.

He has emphasized that he would focus on the city’s most vulnerable children, including doubling a program that deploys school staff to check in with homeless students and their caregivers to serve about 7,000 children. In response to a questionnaire from Chalkbeat about new ideas for improving some of the city’s lowest performing schools, he expressed support of community schools, which offer a range of wraparound services like mental health support and food pantries.

Mamdani’s staffers told attendees they were interested in education policy ideas that connect to affordability, a major campaign theme that underpins his proposals to roll out universal child care and freeze rent for tenants in stabilized units. They also asked attendees to consider potential threats from the Trump administration or economic trends as well as practices in other cities that New York could adopt, according to multiple attendees.

Some attendees who have been pushing the campaign to engage more on education issues cheered the opportunity to weigh in.

“It’s great that they’re finally digging into this work,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a president of the local parent council in East Harlem. “Was it a little later than I hoped? Yeah, absolutely.”

In recent weeks the frontrunner has outlined some new policy ideas, including plans to recruit 1,000 additional teachers a year and reform the Education Department’s contracting process to stamp out redundant spending and waste.

Erika Kendall, president of the local parent council in Brooklyn’s District 17, covering Crown Heights, helped lead a conversation about charter schools during the roundtable. She emphasized some of the ways that charters can draw public resources that she believes could be used in traditional public schools, such as a requirement that city officials subsidize their rent if they don’t offer space in public buildings. (Mamdani has expressed reservations about the publicly funded yet privately managed schools, though he will have little formal power over them.)

“The goal was to hear from as many people as possible — to understand what people are seeing on the ground,” Kendall said, noting the conversation was productive. “I don’t think they were prepared for how comprehensive these conversations were going to be.”

Meanwhile, at least one parent group, Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, expressed frustration that they were not included. The organization favors expanding selective admissions and endorsed Cuomo.

“As a grassroots parent advocacy group that has advocated for high quality public education, which Mamdani said would be a priority, we are disappointed that we were not invited to the table,” Yiatin Chu, the group’s co-founder, wrote in an email. “Additionally, we extended an invitation to his campaign to discuss his education platform and got no answer.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Voter guide: Where the NYC mayoral candidates stand on the future of education

2025-10-24T20:40:06+00:00

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New York City’s next mayor will oversee the nation’s largest school system: more than 1,600 schools serving roughly 900,000 students with about 150,000 employees.

Its $40 billion budget makes it the largest city agency.

And yet, the candidates have not made education a central theme.

Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani’s affordability agenda includes free child care, but he has a slim K-12 platform. He’s offered some hints that he’d want to focus on the system’s most vulnerable children, including students with disabilities and the growing number of homeless students. A record high of the city students — 154,000 — lived last year in shelters or doubled up in homes with friends or family.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, has positioned himself as the champion of selective admissions, calling for doubling specialized high schools and expanding gifted and talented programs — both of which serve a fraction of the city’s students and disproportionately enroll white and Asian American children.

And Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa vowed to slash $10 billion from the Education Department’s budget, roughly 42% of how much the city spends on schools. (Mamdani has also called for tackling wasteful department spending.)

Perhaps the most consequential education idea Mamdani has espoused about the city’s school system: having less control over it.

Here’s a closer look at some of the educational issues that have come up on the campaign trail.

What might the future of mayoral control look like?

Ever since Michael Bloomberg won sweeping control over the school system in 2002, including the power to appoint the schools chancellor, every mayor has lobbied state lawmakers to keep this governance model in place.

Mayoral control’s supporters say it creates a clear line of accountability: The buck stops with the mayor, who wields enormous influence over the Education Department’s budget.

Mamdani has vowed to “end” mayoral control, embracing a longstanding critique that it gives little say to parents and educators on decisions that directly affect them. The frontrunner has promised a system of “co-governance” with existing parent councils and school-level leadership teams, though has offered scant details on how that would work.

At the same time, he has said, the mayor should still be held accountable for the public school system — raising questions about how much power he is willing to relinquish.

“I remain opposed to mayoral control, and I also believe that the mayor is accountable for that which happens in this city,” Mamdani said in this week’s debate.

Both of Mamdani’s opponents support mayoral control.

Cuomo recently said it would be a “terrible mistake” to roll it back.

“That’s probably been the most dramatic educational reform in 40 years,” Cuomo said. “We’d go back to the old system that had local school boards, which were corrupt patronage mills.”

Whoever is elected must soon negotiate with state lawmakers over mayoral control, which is up for renewal in 2026. (It’s typically extended every couple years.)

How will the city meet the challenges to shrink classes?

Over the next two years, all New York City public school classrooms must be capped between 20-25 students under a state law. That will require thousands of new teachers, billions of dollars, and thorny tradeoffs at overcrowded campuses.

Mamdani, who was endorsed by the United Federation of Teachers, recently unveiled a plan to recruit 1,000 teachers a year by offering tuition assistance in exchange for a three-year teaching commitment. The $12 million plan won’t be enough to fully staff smaller classes, Mamdani acknowledged. To speed up the process of building new classroom space, he has also called for filling vacancies at the School Construction Authority, the agency overseeing such projects.

During the primary, Cuomo expressed support for the class size law, though he cautioned it would be difficult to implement without an infusion of new funding from the state. In recent weeks, however, the former governor’s tone has shifted considerably. In a town hall meeting with parent leaders last month, he decried the law as “detached from reality” and “reckless.”

“It is an impossibility without funding,” Cuomo said. Sliwa shares that position.

What will happen to Mayor Eric Adams’ curriculum mandates?

Mayor Eric Adams’ main educational agenda has focused on overhauling reading and math instruction. All elementary campuses must now use city-approved reading curriculums. High schools transitioned to a standard Algebra 1 program. A growing number of middle schools must use city-approved literacy and math programs, too.

In a rare instance of agreement, the candidates have said they generally support the reading curriculum changes. Cuomo has raised concerns about whether the mandated math curriculums are as strong. Mamdani said teachers should have more control over how the curriculums are implemented.

Yet in a recent debate, Mamdani took a more pessimistic tone on the reading curriculum changes — and the school system more broadly.

Mamdani has not laid out a detailed vision for improving instruction, but in a meeting with business leaders over the summer, he suggested artificial intelligence could be a useful tool in crafting lesson plans and reduce the number of employees at the Education Department, the Wall Street Journal reported. More recently, he walked back some of those comments, saying AI should supplement rather than replace staffers.

How can NYC fix its failing schools?

Mayors have taken widely different approaches to the city’s lowest-performing campuses. Bloomberg closed many large high schools and opened new, smaller ones in their place. His successor, Bill de Blasio, flooded campuses with social services and academic support, viewing closures as a last resort.

Cuomo has indicated he would shutter schools in the bottom 5% of reading and math performance on state tests, or those with graduation rates below 60%. In their place, the city should open new programs, including charters or high schools that offer students early college credits, he said. (Opening new charter schools would require approval from state lawmakers who have generally been hostile to the sector.)

Mamdani has not outlined a clear plan for improving schools, which Cuomo seized on in the final weeks of the campaign. The Democratic nominee indicated that he is more in line with de Blasio’s vision and said he would support a network of more than 400 community schools that provide wraparound support, pointing to mental health services, tutoring, and other social services.

“While the research on large-scale school improvement initiatives is limited, it is critical to implement strategies that are grounded in data,” Mamdani wrote in response to a Chalkbeat questionnaire, pointing to some encouraging evidence on the community school model.

He has also expressed reservations about the charter sector, which enjoyed support under Bloomberg, arguing they siphon resources from traditional public schools and has vowed to audit them.

What might happen to gifted programs, specialized high schools?

Debate over the city’s gifted and talented program heated up again after Mamdani indicated he wanted to eliminate the classes that start in kindergarten and keep the program starting in third grade. Cuomo and Sliwa both said they would expand gifted programs with kindergarten entry.

Adams had opened dozens of new programs for third graders in underserved areas, a way to address a thorny issue vexing the city’s gifted system: It admits disproportionately few Black and Latino students compared to their share of the population citywide.

For kindergarten gifted and talented classes, students win seats based on prekindergarten teacher recommendations. Though acceptance no longer relies on testing 4-year-olds, a much criticized process, educators still have concerns about sorting kindergartners. Many of the new third grade programs, however — which invite students to apply based on their report cards — are failing to attract applicants.

While Mamdani has expressed interest in curtailing certain gifted programs, he has backed away from his previous stance calling to eliminate the Specialized High School Admissions Test, which serves as the sole basis of entry for eight schools including Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, and Mamdani’s alma mater, Bronx Science. Many integration advocates have blasted the test as fueling the lack of offers to Black and Latino students. He previously told Chalkbeat that he would analyze the test for gender and racial bias.

Cuomo called for expanding the number of specialized high schools to 18 and said he would consider bringing back more selective admissions for other schools. Sliwa has also expressed support for increasing the number of specialized schools.

Who will be the next schools chancellor?

One of the most significant personnel decisions the next mayor will face is who to appoint to lead the nation’s largest school system.

Mamdani has said little about how he will make the decision or if he will conduct a national search. He has indicated that he is open to keeping Melissa Aviles-Ramos, the current schools chancellor appointed by Adams, which would represent a break from previous mayors who have appointed their own schools chief.

It’s also unclear whether he would be willing to give up any of his power to appoint a schools chancellor, a major element of mayoral control.

Cuomo declined to say who he would select when asked during a recent debate. Sliwa said he would appoint Robert Holden, a Queens City Council member.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Going DOGE on the DOE: Mamdani wants to reclaim ‘efficiency’ from the right and root out waste

2025-10-21T23:05:20+00:00

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Move over, DOGE.

Zohran Mamdani wants to reclaim the mantle of government efficiency — and he’s targeting the city Education Department’s $41 billion budget.

On Tuesday, the mayoral frontrunner zeroed in on the school system’s contracting process, which he said is slow, poorly managed, and rife with wasteful spending.

“For too long, we have allowed individuals like Elon Musk to pretend as if concerns of efficiency and waste are that of the right wing, when in fact, they should be the bedrock of any progressive politics,” Mamdani told reporters. Musk spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency under President Donald Trump, an effort to slash government programs.

Mamdani’s plan would “overhaul procurement infrastructure across the DOE,” he said. Contracts with outside vendors represent about $10 billion of the Education Department’s budget.

The announcement on Tuesday was the second education proposal his campaign has rolled out in recent weeks. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, has repeatedly called out Mamdani for not releasing a more detailed education plan.

As the largest city agency, the Education Department is a frequent target of politicians who contend the public school system isn’t generating outcomes for students in line with its spending. Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa recently vowed to slash $10 billion from the department’s budget, roughly 42% of the city’s contribution to the public school system.

Mamdani acknowledged that many contracts are “essential” and indicated his goal is to root out duplicative spending and plow those dollars back into classrooms rather than slash the system’s budget.

If elected, Mamdani said he would conduct annual audits of the department’s 50 biggest vendors and 25 largest contracts, establish “procurement hubs” in every borough, and require that the department use the same online system for vendors as other city agencies.

Focusing on Education Department spending could help the mayoral frontrunner and Democratic nominee find money for other new programs he’s proposed. Though he has promised to push for tax increases on businesses and the rich to finance some of his most ambitious campaign proposals, he also acknowledged that he may need to find money for new programs within the city’s existing budget. When he unveiled a $12 million teacher recruitment effort earlier this month, he suggested it would be financed by cutting waste.

Mamdani did not indicate how much money he anticipates saving by improving the procurement process, only saying it would lead to a 10% reduction in “redundant spending.” He added the plan would reduce the city’s reliance on emergency procurement procedures and speed up the contracting process.

Mamdani did not offer many examples of duplicative contracts. When asked by a reporter for specific cases, he pointed to hundreds of millions worth of technology purchases during the pandemic, noting the Education Department did not carefully track those devices.

“These were contracts that the DOE entered into without any kind of a system of coordinating inventory,” Mamdani said.

The proposal won praise from the city’s teachers union. “Fixing this tangled mess is long overdue,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement. He called the procurement system “a chronic source of frustration.” (The union endorsed Mamdani in the general election.)

Some budget experts said it is encouraging that Mamdani is focusing on the issue.

“This is an astronomically complex and large system and is likely that there is duplication and inefficiency within that,” said Ana Champeny, the vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog group. The “monumental challenge,” Champeny said, is “how do you start identifying that and ensure you get the best bang for your buck?”

Pruning contracts can lead to significant outcry. When the Adams administration cut $60 million from the Education Department’s food budget, which is largely fulfilled by contractors, schools were forced to yank popular food items from cafeterias, drawing backlash from students. Many of the items were eventually restored.

Other observers noted that Mamdani’s focus on reforming the contracting process could be an effort to reassure middle class and higher-income voters that he will be a responsible steward of the city’s budget. It is also popular with the city’s teachers union, as it directs possible cuts away from their members, said Jonathan Collins, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University Teachers College.

Still, Collins said it’s unclear how the procurement reforms fit into Mamdani’s broader thinking about how to improve the city’s school system. Mamdani has recently released proposals across very different topics, from improving teacher recruitment to phasing out gifted programs for the city’s youngest students.

“We’ve been wanting to see how these different ideas fit together and instead he’s been pivoting from one idea to another,” Collins said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat asked: Mamdani pledges to boost special education, focus on vulnerable kids

2025-10-20T22:27:59+00:00

Zohran Mamdani indicated that improving special education, an often neglected part of the school system, would be a priority if elected.

“One of the biggest challenges currently facing the school system is the need to strengthen support for students with disabilities,” the Mamdani campaign wrote in response to a Chalkbeat questionnaire.

Mamdani singled out preschool children who often languish at home without seats and do not receive all the services to which they’re entitled. He suggested too many children with disabilities are attending private schools at the city’s expense.

And he also said the city should redouble its support for the city’s 154,000 homeless students, pointing to a program that pairs homeless students with adult mentors.

The Democratic nominee has not laid out a clear vision for improving the nation’s largest school system, aside from a desire to cede some of his power over it. He recently unveiled a plan to recruit more teachers and said he would phase out gifted programs for the city’s youngest students.

But his campaign’s responses indicate that his education agenda may focus on some of the system’s most vulnerable children, who are often far behind their peers in reading and math, experience elevated rates of chronic absenteeism, and are much less likely to graduate on time.

“It is encouraging that he acknowledges that one of the biggest challenges of the system is around supporting kids with [individualized education programs],” said Lori Podvesker, director of disability and education policy at IncludeNYC, which helps families navigate the special education system.

To improve support for students with disabilities, Mamdani pledged to recruit more special education teachers, a longstanding shortage area. He also vowed to reduce the number of students with disabilities who get private school tuition reimbursed by the city because the Education Department cannot offer an adequate placement.

Those payments were expected to balloon to roughly $1.3 billion last school year — a more than fourfold increase compared with a decade ago — according to figures from the city’s Independent Budget Office. (That includes legal, consultant, and transportation costs in addition to tuition payments.) Previous administrations have also expressed alarm with the growing cost but have failed to address it.

Still, Podvesker said she wished the responses fleshed out what concrete steps Mamdani would take to improve the special education system and how he would approach making schools more inclusive for students with disabilities.

In response to the questionnaire, Mamdani also did not outline any new strategies for improving the city’s lowest performing schools. Instead, he vowed to support a group of more than 400 community schools that provide wraparound services including mental health clinics and may offer additional learning time. The city’s teachers union, which endorsed Mamdani, backs that approach, which has shown some promise.

Mamdani left the door open to experimenting with expanding teacher training and other ideas that are “proving effective.”

You can find the Mamdani campaign’s full responses below.

Chalkbeat posed the same questions to all three candidates on Oct. 1. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa did not respond to multiple requests. Early voting starts on Oct. 25. Election Day is Nov. 4.

What is your assessment of the school system’s strengths and weaknesses? Do you think a dramatic overhaul is needed or smaller adjustments?

The strength of New York City’s public school system lies in our dedicated teachers, administrators, counselors, paraprofessionals, and custodial staff who work tirelessly to educate and care for our students. One of the bright spots is Every Child and Family is Known, a pilot in the Bronx to support students experiencing homelessness. One in eight students are experiencing homelessness. By pairing Caring Adults to provide hands-on support to students and their families, Every Child and Family is Known exemplifies the ways that schools can serve as true hubs of our communities by meeting the needs of students inside and outside of the classroom. The pilot has proven to be very successful, resulting in reduced chronic absenteeism and improving students’ sense of belonging and well-being. I am heartened to see the Chancellor’s recent announcement of a $2.8 million expansion of the program. I intend to expand it even further, doubling the number of students and families served, with an ultimate goal to make it a citywide program that can serve every student in the shelter system so that anyone experiencing homelessness in the NYC public school system can access services to meet their basic needs.

One of the biggest challenges currently facing the school system is the need to strengthen support for students with disabilities. More than one-fifth of our students have disabilities and in the 2021-2022 school year, 37% of preschoolers with disabilities went the whole year without receiving at least one of the services the New York City Department of Education (DOE) was legally required to provide. I will improve special education for New York City’s students by increasing special education services for preschool age kids, reducing Carter cases, recruiting special education teachers and equipping them with resources to succeed, increasing evidence-based instructional approaches for students with disabilities, and improving language access for families. These improvements will make general education classrooms more inclusive so that students with special needs are no longer marginalized and can be well-served.

Mayor Bill de Blasio spent nearly $800 million on trying to turn around the city’s lowest performing schools, and eventually pulled the plug after it achieved a mixed record of success. There are few slam dunk methods for improving struggling schools at scale.

How would you approach school improvement? Do you have any ideas or strategies that haven’t been tried before?

While the research on large-scale school improvement initiatives is limited, it is critical to implement strategies that are grounded in data. A 2020 Rand study found that schools participating in the NYC Communities Schools initiative showed significant positive results, including better attendance and graduation rates, student achievement, and family engagement at schools–and less disciplinary incidents. I am a big supporter of the current network of 421 community schools that provide students with critical access to medical care, mental health services, tutoring and academic support, summer and afterschool programs, opportunities for experiential learning, and social services. I will also do a review of curricula based on the science of how children learn, including NYC Reads, and invest in efforts to scale strategies that are proving effective, including investing in teacher training.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Will Mamdani break tradition and keep Eric Adams’ schools chancellor? He’s open to it.

2025-10-17T21:26:20+00:00

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Ever since New York City’s mayor won control of the public school system more than two decades ago, the city’s chief executive has installed his own schools chancellor.

But frontrunner Zohran Mamdani said this week that he is open to ending that pattern by keeping Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, who was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams, at the helm of the nation’s largest school system.

The Education Department veteran was named chancellor one year ago after David Banks abruptly retired, and is widely respected by parents, school leaders, and the teachers union, which has publicly supported her.

“I think she has been doing a good job,” Mamdani told reporters Wednesday after he unveiled a proposal to recruit more teachers. “And I’ve said time and again that I will consider anyone on the basis of the work that they have done — not hold it against them as to who appointed them.”

During a mayoral debate Thursday evening, Mamdani again singled out Aviles-Ramos for praise. “Some of the initiatives that Mayor Adams has launched, especially with this chancellor, have been showing positive signs.”

Previous mayors have appointed new school chiefs after taking office to take the system in a different direction. Yet Mamdani has said little about his education vision and has praised Adams’ signature initiative to overhaul reading and math instruction. Keeping Aviles-Ramos could help those efforts stay on track, some education experts said, while avoiding a leadership transition in the middle of the school year. The next mayor will take office in January.

“Often, mayoral candidates are running against their predecessors,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “Mamdani hasn’t articulated a very specific package of education policy reforms that would diverge considerably from the current administration.”

Mamdani’s chancellor search could be complicated by his vow to end mayoral control, which gives the mayor authority to appoint a schools chief and set policy for more than 1,600 public schools. He has proposed replacing it with a “co-governance” system that includes more feedback from families and educators, though he has not outlined a plan.

That could curtail the power of whomever he chooses to lead the system. Some experts said weakening mayoral control could also make it harder to pull off his pledge to offer universal child care, because it would require coordination with the Education Department.

Pressed during the debate Thursday, Mamdani did not indicate what specific power over the school system he would be willing to relinquish and seemed to suggest the mayor would retain an important role.

“I think the mayor needs to retain the accountability so that New Yorkers know exactly who they can come to when they have critiques,” Mamdani said.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa both criticized Mamdani’s proposal and said they would seek to keep that power, which must be regularly renewed by the state legislature.

Aviles-Ramos has a powerful ally

New York City’s teachers union has publicly supported keeping Aviles-Ramos in the role, especially as she has been open to relaxing the city’s curriculum mandates to give teachers more flexibility.

“She absolutely should be up for consideration for the work she has done,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew previously said. The union endorsed Mamdani in the general election after sitting out the primary.

Some families hope Aviles-Ramos will stay, noting that the chancellor has been receptive to parent feedback and foregrounds her identity as a Latina, a group that includes 42% of public school students.

“She speaks so openly about having a daughter who is school aged, having to navigate the system — that connects with a lot of parent leaders,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, president of the District 4 parent council in East Harlem.

Salas-Ramirez added that “there is also some resistance with having a chancellor affiliated with Adams,” who has faced corruption charges and abandoned his bid for reelection as his polling remained in the single digits.

Mamdani has not offered many details about what he’s looking for in a schools chief if he is elected. Last month, he said he had not conducted any interviews.

Several other candidates have been floated, The New York Times reported, including Meisha Porter, who briefly served as chancellor under Mayor Bill de Blasio; Kamar Samuels, the superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3; and Rita Joseph, who helms City Council’s Education Committee.

Aviles-Ramos appeared to make a case that she should stay in the role during her “State of Our Schools” speech last month, some observers told Gothamist. She vowed to expand a program that supports homeless students that Mamdani has also said he plans to grow. And she touted surveys that show 92% of school leaders trust her at her word.

A spokesperson for Aviles-Ramos declined to comment on whether she has spoken with Mamdani or would consider staying in the role.

But in the final line of her speech last month, Aviles-Ramos suggested she is looking to the future.

“We are just getting started,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani’s opponents want to grow NYC’s gifted programs. Attracting students isn’t easy.

2025-10-17T16:54:51+00:00

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When mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani reiterated his intention in Thursday night’s debate to eliminate gifted programs for the city’s youngest students, his opponents quickly shot back with promises to move in the opposite direction.

Curtis Sliwa and Andrew Cuomo pledged to open up more gifted classes.

“We don’t have enough slots,” said Sliwa, the Republican nominee, who pledged to double the size of the kindergarten program.

Cuomo, the former New York governor running as an independent, touted his plan to expand gifted and talented programs.

Meanwhile, a group of state and city lawmakers are hoping to go even further, introducing legislation last week that would force the Education Department to scale up gifted classrooms across the city.

But funneling more students into gifted classrooms, which disproportionately enroll white and Asian American students, might be easier said than done.

Three years ago, Mayor Eric Adams made a similar pledge to expand accelerated learning opportunities. The city opened dozens of gifted programs in underserved areas, with 38 schools hosting new gifted programs for rising third graders and eight more programs for kindergarteners, which has historically been the main entry point, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of Education Department data.

Supporters of gifted programs argue these classes help keep families in the public school system. Yet the overall number of students formally admitted to gifted programs citywide fell by more than 1,000 between 2019 and 2023, the Chalkbeat analysis found.

To fill empty seats, schools have moved students to gifted classrooms even if their families didn’t apply, more than offsetting the decline. With those students included in the total, nearly 18,000 students, about 5% of elementary students, were enrolled in gifted classes last year, an increase of about 2,000 children since 2019, department officials said.

New programs are slow to gain traction with families

According to city data, 44 of the schools offering the program — around a third of the citywide total — had fewer than 18 students enrolled in at least one of their gifted classes last year. Over half those schools were newer programs, Chalkbeat’s analysis found.

Experts and educators point to several factors that have made it difficult to grow the program through the formal admissions process. Many families don’t know gifted tracks are available. Another major reason: The third grade entry point adds logistical hurdles for families.

“It’s harder for parents to make a decision to change schools in third grade because of friendships, because of siblings, because of convenience and location reasons,” said Allison Roda, an associate professor at Molloy College who has studied the city’s gifted program.

An Education Department spokesperson said the agency has tried to make it easier for families to learn about and apply to gifted programs by making it part of the regular kindergarten application process.

Adams argued it is fairer to assess students for gifted programs after they’ve had a few years of formal schooling, and experts have criticized the city’s practice of tracking students at age 4, which few other school districts do. Mamdani has indicated he plans to keep the program starting for third graders.

It can take time for schools with new gifted offerings to establish enough of a reputation to attract applicants from other communities, Roda said, noting that some white families have expressed reluctance to accept a gifted seat if it means switching to a school that is predominantly Black and Latino.

About 62% of students in gifted classrooms are white or Asian American, even as they represent just 35% of the public school system as a whole. And while more Black and Latino students are now enrolling in gifted programs, they continue to be vastly underrepresented.

P.S. 279 in Crown Heights opened a gifted program starting in third grade in recent years, but had only admitted nine students as of 2023, according to city data. Outside the school on a recent weekday, several parents said they had no idea the program existed.

Caesar Ashley, a parent at the school, said his daughter was placed in the program last year even though the family never applied.

“If you do good on your work,” his fourth grader said, “they’ll put you in the class.”

Typically, second graders in the top 10% of their school based on report card grades are eligible for gifted programs that begin in third grade. In the wake of the pandemic, city officials eliminated an admissions test for kindergarten gifted programs and now rely on nominations from prekindergarten teachers.

Schools are allowed to move students into gifted classrooms without an application as long as they use “academic criteria,” a department spokesperson said.

Some principals may be reluctant to encourage their students to enroll in gifted programs elsewhere, because school budgets are directly tied to student enrollment. If a student leaves and isn’t replaced, that means fewer dollars for art, music, and afterschool programs.

Underenrolled gifted programs end up costing the city more. Schools usually cover the costs of gifted classes from their own budgets, which are based on student headcount. But for schools without enough students enrolled in gifted classes to cover the cost of a full-time teacher, the city chips in to make up the difference, paying out roughly $2.9 million to 44 schools last year.

Research on whether gifted programs benefit students who attend is limited, though one study focused on New York City found the programs can meaningfully boost reading and math scores, particularly among Black and Latino children. The Education Department’s own research on that question is less conclusive.

Families may not see clear benefits to sending their students to gifted programs, which sometimes move at a faster pace but often use the same curriculum as traditional classrooms, said Roda, who has interviewed numerous families about gifted programming.

“There’s skepticism among parents about what is actually different,” she said.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani’s $12 million teacher hiring plan: Tuition aid for 3-year commitment to NYC schools

2025-10-15T19:18:03+00:00

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To help New York City hire thousands of extra teachers to lower class sizes, mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani wants to offer prospective educators tuition assistance in exchange for a commitment to teach three years in city schools, he said Wednesday.

The plan, one of only a handful of K-12 education proposals Mamdani has put forward in the runup to November’s mayoral election, would bring in roughly 1,000 extra teachers a year at an annual cost of $12 million, he said at a press conference outside an elementary school in Astoria, Queens, the area he represents in the state assembly. Mamdani said savings from cutting contracts and bloat within the Education Department’s bureaucracy would cover the cost.

Under the state’s 2022 class size law, all city classrooms must meet the designated caps of between 20 and 25 students by 2028 — an effort that will require both carving out new space and hiring thousands more educators.

All told, the city will have to hire nearly 18,000 additional teachers to meet the law’s demands, according to estimates from the Independent Budget Office.

“This city faces an urgent question of where and how will we find them,” Mamdani said.

The Democratic socialist was flanked by Queens State Sen. John Liu, one of his early endorsers and a chief architect of the state’s class size law, along with officials from the city teachers union, which backed Mamdani after the Democratic primary and was a major force in lobbying for the state class size law.

“The teachers we have are doing incredible work, but we need to ensure that we ask them to do a job that is in fact possible, and one key part of that is ensuring that they have a limited number of students in their classroom,” he said.

City officials embarked on an unprecedented hiring spree starting last spring to meet the legal requirement of bringing at least 60% of classrooms citywide under the caps by this fall.

The Education Department doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in extra funding to over 700 schools to hire roughly 3,700 new teachers needed to lower class sizes. That’s on top of the 4,000 to 5,000 teachers schools hire each summer to fill vacant positions.

By the end of September, city schools had hired around 6,300 teachers for this school year. That’s up from roughly 4,800 hired over the same period last year, but city officials didn’t respond to a question about whether it was enough to meet the mandated caps.

Mamdani plan builds on existing programs

Mamdani’s proposal is similar to some existing programs like NYC Men Teach and New York City Teaching Fellows that subsidize tuition or offer an expedited path into the teaching profession.

K-12 education has largely taken the back burner in the mayoral election, but attracted some attention in recent weeks after Mamdani made a controversial proposal to eliminate kindergarten admissions for gifted and talented programs.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who’s running as an independent and has sought to contrast his education plans with Mamdani’s, has also proposed similar teacher recruitment plans, including growing NYC Teaching Fellows, investing more in “Grow Your Own” programs, and offering tuition assistance for future teachers and career changers.

Mamdani’s plan, which he calls “Community to Classroom,” would offer two tracks: one for high school students who can get college credits, mentorship, and up to $12,000 a year in tuition assistance if they commit to teaching in city schools. The other is for career changers, who would also receive $12,000 in tuition assistance to take adult education courses through CUNY or SUNY.

In addition to tuition assistance, program participants would get free OMNY cards, support on certification exams, and mentorship from current city teachers.

Mamdani didn’t immediately offer details about which contracts or central costs he would cut to achieve the savings needed to fund the program.

He acknowledged the program would not meet the city’s full teacher need for the class size law, but said he hopes to expand the program in the future and improve retention of existing teachers.

City officials have already leaned on programs like Teaching Fellows to boost hiring numbers, doubling the size of that program’s cohort from 500 last summer to 1,000 this summer.

Former First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg, who led teacher recruitment efforts in New York City before stepping down this summer, said that while he hasn’t reviewed Mamdani’s plan, effective efforts to boost hiring should combine “targeted recruiting, tuition subsidies, and support.”

Pointing to programs like the Teaching Follows program, he said “there’s no telling how much we could scale them up effectively” but is “confident we could do it significantly.”

Teacher hiring won’t be enough at overcrowded schools

Even if the city reaches its elevated hiring goals in the coming years, hundreds of schools are too crowded to meet the class size caps. Those schools will need to either find additional space or cut their student numbers by capping enrollment — a strategy the city so far has not embraced.

Mamdani criticized Mayor Eric Adams for doing too little to plan ahead for those schools — and vowed to fill vacant positions in the School Construction Authority to speed new school projects.

“My first order of business will be to exhaust every single option we have in front of us,” he said.

Mamdani, who has said little about who is eyeing as his schools chief, praised current Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos for her “creativity” and “ingenuity” in seeking to meet the class size law’s demands so far.

“I think she has been doing a good job,” Mamdani said when asked if he might keep Aviles-Ramos in the position. “I will consider anyone on the basis of the work that they have done, not hold it against them as to who appointed them as to who appointed them to that job.”

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani wants to rethink gifted and talented in NYC. The program has already seen big shifts.

2025-10-10T23:33:20+00:00

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Mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani reignited the debate over New York City’s gifted and talented system earlier this month when he signaled his intention to shake up the program by eliminating admission for kindergartners.

The gifted programs, which enroll nearly 18,000 elementary students across 140 schools, have long been a lightning rod for questions about diversity, fairness, and academic achievement. Roughly 2,500 students are currently admitted in kindergarten and remain in separate classes or schools through fifth grade.

Both of Mamdani’s opponents, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa, quickly countered with proposals to preserve and expand gifted classes. And on Friday, four lawmakers from southern Brooklyn introduced state legislation that would require the city’s Education Department to expand gifted programming.

Lost in the recent political volley: New York City’s gifted and talented system has already changed in recent years, with a meaningful increase in the number of Black and Latino students, children from low-income families, and students with disabilities.

Those demographic shifts are the result of a move from a test-based admissions system to one based primarily on teacher recommendations, along with Mayor Eric Adams’ administration opening dozens of new gifted and talented programs starting in third grade in underserved areas.

The changes have opened gifted education to a much wider swath of students, but also have created new challenges for schools that have long enrolled a much narrower range of students, some educators and parents said.

The gifted system’s trajectory under Adams also shows the challenges of growing: Many of the new third-grade gifted classes struggled to attract enough applicants, forcing schools to backfill the open seats with students who didn’t formally apply, according to a Chalkbeat review of city data and Education Department officials.

Mamdani’s proposal, which would preserve classes that start in third grade, seems to be sparking discussion within the city Education Department.

Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos told families at a Staten Island parent town hall on Monday that she’s “concerned” about the current admission process, and that the Education Department in recent days has started talking about possible changes.

How to structure the program is a challenge that has vexed multiple city mayors. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio in the final months of his tenure proposed eliminating separate gifted classes altogether, but Adams halted that plan.

“It’s a really important problem to solve, and a really hard one too,” said Tamara Sussman, a parent of a Queens student in a gifted program. It requires “balancing an equitable education with one that feels challenging and appropriate.”

From testing to recommendations: A more diverse gifted and talented

The city’s gifted programs long relied on standardized exams administered to 4-year-olds to determine admission, with roughly a quarter of test-takers qualifying for a spot in 2019.

Under the teacher recommendation system, which launched during the pandemic, that equation shifted dramatically. Last year, 85% of applicants to gifted programs were deemed eligible.

At River Park Nursery School on the Upper West Side, Director Maria Nunziata estimates around 80% of her preschool families apply for gifted spots — and she recommends virtually all of them.

“Every child brings to us some kind of gift and talent,” she said.

In other parts of the city, far fewer students even apply. Just 76 students from the Bronx’s District 9 applied last year, compared to 718 students from Upper West Side’s District 3, even though the latter district has 5,000 fewer students.

With far more eligible students than available seats, the city gives first priority to siblings of existing students. Some schools also set aside seats for students from underrepresented groups. The remaining seats are determined by a lottery.

Under the test-based system, children had to score above the 90th percentile to qualify for the vast majority of programs, which are separate gifted classes within neighborhood schools.

To be eligible for one of five standalone gifted schools — including New Explorations into Science, Technology and Math; Talented and Gifted School for Young Scholars; and The Anderson School — students had to score above the 97th percentile.

But the test helped drive sharp racial and economic segregation: In 2020, the last year it was administered, just 12% of kindergartners in gifted programs were Black or Latino.

After the city nixed the test, the demographics began to change.

In the 2023-24 school year, 30% of kindergartners in gifted programs were Black or Latino, officials said at a recent City Council hearing. The share of students from low-income families in gifted programs citywide rose to 47% last year, up from 34% in 2019, according to Education Department data.

“We are proud to host increasingly diverse [gifted and talented] classes that reflect the diversity of our city,” said Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle, who noted that the city also incorporated the gifted application into the normal kindergarten application to streamline the process for families.

A changing population brings new possibilities and challenges

Some parents and educators say the admissions changes have opened access to students with learning disabilities who would have been screened out by the test but nonetheless benefit from an accelerated program. Citywide, the share of gifted students with disabilities rose to 5% last year from 3% in 2019. (About 22% of students citywide have a disability.)

At Talented and Gifted School for Young Scholars in East Harlem, “taking away the test made it so we attracted students who were more neurodivergent,” said Elaine Tang, a special education teacher. The school recently opened its first classes with both a special and general education teacher.

“It’s kind of forced us to question: What does it mean to be gifted anyways?” she said.

She noted the school’s proficiency rates on state tests had remained in the high 90s. (Across all five standalone gifted schools, reading and math proficiency rates on state exams were in the mid-to-high 90s last school year, with little change from past years.)

As a wider set of students are now eligible for gifted seats, however, several parents and educators said some programs are straining to accommodate students with a broader range of academic abilities.

“Children feel like there’s something wrong with them when really they’re not ready for a curriculum that’s a year past their grade level,” said one staffer at a gifted program, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

At New Explorations into Science, Technology and Math, some parents are also noticing differences.

“When you go into the classroom, it’s louder,” said one parent who has two children who attended the school, one of whom was admitted after the new admissions changes went into effect. “It’s a stark contrast to when I used to go for the older one. They could sit. They could pay attention more. They could keep up.”

Other educators wondered whether pandemic disruptions have also altered students’ academic readiness and behavior.

“It’s hard to pull apart how it would have looked if none of these kids had been learning at home for the first half of their elementary experience,” said Leigh Ercole, who teaches fourth and fifth graders in the gifted program at Manhattan’s P.S. 165.

She continues to believe in the importance of having a gifted track, but would like to see an admissions overhaul.

Ercole believes the city should use a mix of teacher nominations and other assessments to measure whether students are prepared for gifted classrooms. Students should be universally screened to ensure everyone has a fair shot at admission, she said, adding that at a previous job in the Bronx, she saw few parents who knew about gifted programs.

“I don’t think the answer is to say, ‘No one is gifted,’” she said. “I think it’s going to do a disservice to students in the city.”

Sussman, the Queens mom, said her children, both of whom attended a gifted program at P.S. 150Q, benefited from math instruction that moved at a faster pace. But she was open to other methods of providing accelerated instruction, including “schoolwide enrichment” models.

Those programs provide accelerated opportunities for students based on their strengths and interests without tracking them into separate classrooms. An advisory group under de Blasio proposed schoolwide enrichment as a replacement for gifted tracks.

Ultimately, Sussman agreed with Mamdani’s plan to phase out gifted programs for kindergartners.

“It is really young to start dividing kids,” Sussman said.

One study finds NYC gifted programs boost learning

Amid heated debates about gifted education, there is limited research on a basic question: Do the programs boost student learning?

One study focused on New York City suggests the answer might be yes.

A group of University of Pennsylvania researchers found that the city’s gifted programs appear to significantly increase state test scores — with some of the largest gains among Black and Latino children. Still, strong students who did not attend gifted programs still performed well, suggesting they were unlikely to be harmed if they didn’t attend.

A separate review conducted by the city’s Education Department was less conclusive. “There is no clear trend or indication that G&T enrollment is associated with student achievement,” according to an analysis of math and reading scores obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request. (Both studies were conducted when the city relied on the admissions exam.)

Allison Roda, an associate professor at Molloy College who has studied the city’s gifted program, emphasized that there is enormous variation in how they are implemented.

“There isn’t a standard curriculum and so you might get enrichment, you might get acceleration,” she said. “It really depends on the school district and the teacher.”

Moreover, New York City’s approach of diverting gifted students to separate schools and classrooms starting as early as kindergarten makes it an outlier nationally. Tang, the Manhattan gifted teacher, taught in three New Jersey districts before moving to the city and never saw standalone gifted classes.

Separate gifted programs in the suburbs are “very rare,” she said. “I think we have to wonder why that is.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael atmelsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani wants to scrap gifted seats for NYC kindergartners, renewing debate over segregated program

2025-10-02T20:47:41+00:00

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Zohran Mamdani wants to eliminate a gifted and talented track for kindergartners in the public school system, his campaign said Thursday, a proposal that immediately renewed debate about the coveted yet intensely segregated program.

Mamdani, the Democratic nominee and frontrunner to be New York City’s next mayor, indicated that the current model unfairly separates students by perceived ability at the start of their education.

“Identifying academic giftedness at age 4 is hard to do objectively by any assessment, whether through testing or teacher nominations,” Dora Pekec, campaign spokesperson, wrote in a statement. Mamdani’s “agenda for our schools will ensure that every New York City public school student receives a high-quality early education that enables them to be challenged and fulfilled.”

Mamdani’s proposal, which was first revealed in response to a New York Times questionnaire, is notable because he has said little about how he would manage the nation’s largest school system. He has also not shared many details about how he would encourage school integration, one of his campaign pledges. Discussion about reshaping the city’s gifted programs, often a major flashpoint, has faded in recent years.

Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa immediately criticized Mamdani’s proposal. Both said they would expand gifted programs.

New York City’s school system, which largely enrolls students from economically disadvantaged families and is 62% Black or Latino, is unusual in the degree to which programs may admit students based on their academic records. Gifted programs are widely seen as a method for keeping middle class and white families in public schools. Many Asian American families and other families of color also see them as a pathway into higher-performing schools that may be in short supply in their neighborhoods.

But the programs are starkly segregated. Fewer than one quarter of students in gifted programs were Black or Latino during the 2023-24 school year, according to the most recent Education Department data. About 70% of students in gifted classrooms were white or Asian American, though they comprise about 35% of the student body. The programs enroll few students with disabilities or children who are learning English.

Under Mamdani’s plan, kindergartners would no longer be eligible for separate gifted programs, which typically use the same curriculums as traditional classrooms but may move at a faster pace. Fewer than 4% of all kindergartners, or about 2,100 students, enrolled in gifted programs during the 2023-24 school year.

Asked whether the proposal would affect a handful of citywide schools that only enroll students who are considered gifted or eliminate a separate onramp to gifted programs in third grade, Pekec indicated the proposal is focused on eliminating gifted programs that begin in kindergarten.

Cuomo has attacked Mamdani for lack of K-12 agenda

Some observers said Mamdani’s proposal could be an attempt to counter Cuomo’s criticism in recent weeks that the Queens assemblyman doesn’t have a clear K-12 education agenda. Last week, Cuomo said gifted programs should be expanded during a town hall organized by Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, known as PLACE, a group that supports screening students based on academic ability.

“It’s hard not to see this as a direct response to the political coalition Cuomo is trying to form,” said Jonathan Collins, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University Teachers College.

Cuomo quickly seized on Mamdani’s proposal, pointing to an Education Department survey that found many parents who left the city’s schools from September 2022 to the end of 2023 wanted more rigorous instruction.

“The answer isn’t to say good riddance to those families,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Eliminating opportunities for excellence doesn’t help underserved kids, it perpetuates the problem.”

Mamdani’s plan echoes a proposal by former Mayor Bill de Blasio to completely phase out elementary school gifted programs. Those efforts, announced in the final months of de Blasio’s final term, were scrapped by the Adams administration, which expanded gifted seats and focused on programs that start in third grade.

Under de Blasio, the city abandoned a controversial exam administered to 4-year-olds that determined their eligibility for gifted seats. Now, those decisions are based on teacher nominations and a lottery system, as there are thousands more eligible students than available seats.

After the Education Department began relying on teacher nominations, a greater share of Black and Latino kindergartners enrolled. During the 2023-24 school year, 14% of kindergartners in gifted programs were Black, up from 4% three years earlier. The share of Latino kindergartners in gifted programs doubled from 8% to 16% over that same period, Education Department officials said during a City Council hearing in June.

Under New York City’s system of mayoral control, Mamdani would have the authority to alter school admissions policies. Yet he has also proposed changing the governance structure in favor of giving parents and educators more input. Some observers pointed out the tension between Mamdani’s proposed changes to gifted programs and his pledge to make decisions more democratically.

The campaign appeared on Thursday to back away from a separate proposal to address racial segregation at the city’s eight specialized high schools that admit students based on a single exam, known as the SHSAT. (Mamdani attended the Bronx High School of Science, a specialized school.)

The schools are widely celebrated as among the strongest public schools in the country but admit few Black and Latino students. The Mamdani campaign previously indicated he would order a study of racial and gender bias in the admissions test. In a separate 2022 questionnaire before he ran for mayor, Mamdani said the test should be abolished.

On Thursday, Pekec wrote that “Zohran has said on multiple occasions he will keep the SHSAT.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC mayoral race: Cuomo seizes on Mamdani’s lack of education plan

2025-09-26T23:04:30+00:00

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With a little more than a month until the mayoral election, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is mounting a last-minute push to elevate an issue that has received scant attention: education.

For much of the race, candidates have barely touched on how they would improve New York City’s schools, even though the Education Department is the largest city agency and the mayor wields enormous power over it.

Cuomo, who is running as an independent, trails frontrunner Zohran Mamdani by double digits in the latest polls. But Mamdani, a Queens assemblyman and Democratic Socialist, has yet to articulate a clear vision for improving the nation’s largest school system — giving Cuomo an opening.

“Deciding our education policy — the future of 1 million students — is perhaps the most important job of a Mayor,” Cuomo posted on X earlier this month. “What’s his plan?” he said in a jab at Mamdani.

In recent weeks, the former governor has promoted his education agenda in the conservative-leaning editorial pages of the New York Post and Wall Street Journal. He has promised prekindergarten seats for 3-year-olds, vowed a push to raise a state cap limiting the growth of charter schools, and proposed replacing the city’s lowest-performing schools with charters or other models — an eyebrow-raising plan, as school closures are often deeply unpopular.

And on Thursday evening, he headlined a virtual education town hall for an audience of close to 100 people organized by Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, an influential group that favors expanding selective admissions.

Cuomo largely aligned himself with PLACE’s agenda and spoke in favor of expanding selective programs that often track higher-performing students in separate classrooms, including adding more specialized high schools that admit students based on a single test and enroll few Black and Latino students.

“You want to educate every child, but you want to make sure the children who can excel can excel,” he told the group, which has endorsed his bid for mayor. “You don’t want to hold back the extraordinary because you don’t want to separate them from the pack.”

Cuomo said he would consider reintroducing standardized tests and attendance as criteria for middle and high school admissions. Those measures were removed during the pandemic in favor of students’ course grades, a change that some education advocates argue is fairer.

The former governor described the state’s class size mandate, signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul, as “reckless” because the state did not properly fund it. PLACE has also criticized the class size law, in part, because it could require capping enrollment at popular schools. Cuomo suggested those schools should get exemptions from the law.

Cuomo’s education focus fills void left by Mamdani

Cuomo’s new education push draws attention to one of Mamdani’s biggest policy weaknesses, said Jonathan Collins, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University Teachers College.

“There have been constant questions aimed at Mamdani that they haven’t really answered in terms of what an education policy agenda would look like,” Collins said. “Cuomo potentially sees blood.”

A Mamdani spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about Cuomo’s criticisms of his education platform. Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for reelection as an independent, has largely not made education a central issue. However, he recently grabbed headlines for criticizing policies meant to protect transgender students after the Trump administration threatened to cancel $36 million in grants to the Education Department if the city did not alter those policies. Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa recently supported a pro-charter march across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Collins noted that Cuomo’s bid to focus on education policy could resurface some elements of his record that could pose some political downsides.

When he was governor, Cuomo pushed for reforms that tied teacher evaluations to standardized test scores, sparking intense backlash from educators and their unions that led many families to boycott the state tests. The governor also routinely sparred with advocates who accused Cuomo of failing to fully fund a formula that sends more money to high-need schools. (Cuomo relented shortly before he resigned amid scandals related to sexual harassment and his handling of the pandemic.)

As a mayoral candidate, Cuomo has detailed several broadly popular ideas in a 28 page plan, including expanding the number of community schools that embed wraparound services like mental health clinics on campus. Many of those ideas line up with the teachers union’s priorities, a group Cuomo courted during the primary. After the United Federation of Teachers endorsed Mamdani in the general election, the former governor has grown more hostile toward the union.

Asked at the PLACE town hall how he would preserve the mayor’s authority over the school system, which must be periodically renewed by the state legislature, Cuomo indicated he would battle the teachers union, which has criticized mayoral control.

“How do you beat them? You beat them with parents,” Cuomo said.

For his part, Mamdani has devoted just a few sentences on his campaign website to K-12 education and has said little about how he would improve the city’s highest-need schools. His biggest proposal is to end mayoral control of the city’s schools in favor of a system that is more responsive to parents and educators, though he has not offered details about how that might work. He has also vowed to tackle school segregation and root out wasteful spending at the Education Department.

“I take very seriously the responsibility of leading the largest school system in the United States,” he told Chalkbeat during a campaign event last weekend.

During Thursday’s town hall, Cuomo took direct aim at Mamdani’s proposal to give up control of the city’s schools, arguing it would return the system to an era of patronage and corruption.

“The unions and Mamdani want to go back,” Cuomo said. “Mayoral control was the best education reform in this nation in 50 years.”

Political observers said it’s unclear whether Cuomo’s education push is bearing fruit, especially in an election dominated by questions of affordability and public safety.

“If I’m Mamdani, I’m thinking there’s no evidence this is moving the needle,” Collins said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

How would Mamdani improve NYC public schools? The mayoral frontrunner offers few clues

2025-09-05T22:08:58+00:00

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On the first day of school, Zohran Mamdani stood in front of a middle school in Queens with the president of the teachers union and expressed enthusiastic support for a state mandate to reduce class sizes and a new law banning cellphones in school.

But, when asked by a reporter, he struggled to lay out how his administration would improve the city’s highest-need schools if he wins in November.

Education has not been a focal point in the election, even though the school system is the city’s largest department and commands a budget of more than $41 billion with roughly 146,000 employees. Mamdani, a 33-year-old Queens assemblyman who won the Democratic primary, devoted a single 168-word paragraph to K-12 education on his campaign website.

Pressed on his plans to improve schools on Thursday, Mamdani did not outline any specific policy initiatives. He emphasized the importance of funding and criticized his leading opponent, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent.

“One of the first fights that I was a part of in Albany was the fight to fulfill the Campaign for Fiscal Equity and to actually start to fully fund our public schools, which was a fight that had the opposition of then Gov. Andrew Cuomo,” Mamdani said, referring to a long-running legal battle over whether the state adequately funded its schools.

He vowed to root out nepotism and “look line by line at every single position” in the Education Department bureaucracy to ensure that they are “actually working towards the betterment of the system” — a promise similar to the one Mayor Eric Adams’ administration made before taking office four years ago.

Mamdani also committed to cut down on wasteful spending and consider input from educators.

“Amidst all of the contracting and consulting that we pay for through [the Education Department], we know that there’s immense amount that can be saved … and through an understanding that when you are procuring curricula, it may actually be worth your time to speak to some of the teachers who then have to teach that curriculum,” Mamdani added.

His administration would “redirect that funding back straight into that classroom,” he said. “That has been a large focus of how we are envisioning what it will look like to run the largest school system in the United States.”

To several education advocates and observers, the response underscored that Mamdani has largely stuck to broad promises to invest in schools rather than advancing detailed ideas about what those investments should look like.

“As a leader, putting forward a vision of education to be held accountable to is really important,” said Jonathan Collins, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University Teachers College. He added: “It’s September — the runway is getting shorter.”

Asked if he plans to release a more detailed agenda for K-12 schools before the election, Mamdani did not commit to doing so.

“We are continuing to develop policy,” he said.

The next mayor will inherit a school system that faces many pressing challenges, including elevated rates of chronic absenteeism, falling enrollment, and reading and math proficiency rates that cleave along lines of race and class.

Adams has focused on overhauling reading and math instruction and expanding career education programs. His reelection campaign is widely considered to be a long shot, leaving the next mayor to decide whether to continue those efforts.

Mamdani’s education agenda includes ending the current system of mayoral control of the Education Department in favor of an approach that includes more community voice, though he has not shared details about his vision for changing the governance system. He also favors mental health support and school integration.

The city’s teachers union refrained from endorsing in the Democratic primary due to rifts between educators over the candidates’ positions on Israel and whether to prioritize prior executive experience. The union later endorsed Mamdani for the general election.

Cuomo has offered a lengthier set of education proposals, including an effort to replace low-performing schools with other models such as charters, which are publicly funded but privately managed.

“While I don’t necessarily align with everything in Cuomo’s platform, there is more of a detailed platform for sure,” said Matt Gonzales, a member of New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools, an advocacy group that plans to soon put out a policy roadmap that it hopes the mayoral candidates will embrace. (Gonzales said he was not speaking on behalf of the organization.)

Gonzales applauded Mamdani’s focus on school funding and affordable child care, and he said the mayoral frontrunner could help define a progressive vision for schools as the Trump administration attacks diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

“There’s an opportunity for not just Mamdani, but others who are trying to lead cities and states, about what a diverse, inclusive education system should look like,” he said. “There is no [Democratic party] vision for public education.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

6 takeaways from an interview with Zohran Mamdani’s favorite high school teacher

2025-08-20T21:37:39+00:00

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Ask Zohran Mamdani which educators influenced him the most, and one name comes up again and again: Marc Kagan.

“He’s a fantastic teacher,” Mamdani said in an interview eight years ago.

The high school social studies teacher stuck with him. During a January forum in the thick of the Democratic mayoral primary, Mamdani spotted Kagan in the audience. A short time later, Mamdani posted pictures with Kagan, writing on X that he was “one of the best teachers I’ve ever had.” Kagan “taught me the value of excellence and hard work,” Mamdani continued.

Mr. Kagan was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had.

He taught me the value of excellence and hard work.

Thank you Mr. Kagan, and thank you to the many Mr. Kagan’s in classrooms across our city. pic.twitter.com/Gi0afIPvcT
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) January 24, 2025

Kagan, now 68, taught Mamdani twice at the Bronx High School of Science, one of the city’s vaunted specialized high schools, including an advanced world history course. At the time, Kagan was not a veteran teacher. He spent years working for the city’s transit system, first as a mechanic and later as a union activist and leader for the Transport Workers Union local.

After a falling out with the union’s leadership, he joined a city program that quickly trains career changers to fill hard-to-staff roles in public school classrooms. At 47, Kagan began his teaching career at A. Phillip Randolph Campus High School in Harlem. Two years later, he transferred to Bronx Science.

“I thought that I could do something useful and productive in the world” by becoming a teacher, Kagan said in an interview with Chalkbeat.

Mamdani is not Kagan’s first brush with a high-profile government figure. His sister is U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, a connection he largely avoided mentioning with his students because he felt it would be a distraction.

After nearly a decade in the classroom, Kagan retired from the city’s public schools in 2014 and went on to earn a doctorate in history from the CUNY Graduate Center; he now teaches as an adjunct professor at CUNY.

Chalkbeat recently caught up with Kagan about his impressions of the teenage Mamdani, a noteworthy interaction with Mamdani’s father during a parent conference, and his favorite history lesson. Here are six takeaways from that conversation.

Mamdani’s father worried about his son’s (very high) marks

When Mamdani was a student in Kagan’s 10th grade global history course, his father, Mahmood Mamdani, arrived at a parent conference frustrated with his son’s performance.

“He was grousing [that] Zohran was getting just a 95,” Kagan recalled. “Like, ‘Why isn’t he working harder? He could be doing better than this.’”

Kagan chalked up the concern about Mamdani’s grades to an immigrant family “striving for their child to do well at Bronx Science and to do well in life.” At the time, he didn’t know that Mahmood Mamdani was a professor at Columbia University who was known for his scholarship on post-colonialism.

Kagan tried to reassure the dad that Mamdani was deeply engaged with the coursework.

“I told him, ‘Never mind about the grade because the wheels are spinning in your son’s head,’” Kagan said. “And that was like the perfect answer … and he just kind of floated out of the room.”

Kagan saw echoes of the teenage Mamdani during the mayoral primary campaign

Kagan said he was impressed with Mamdani’s energetic mayoral campaign and was unsurprised that Mamdani appealed to so many voters during the Democratic primary. The democratic socialist candidate became known for distilling his platform down to easy-to-remember slogans centered on affordability — including free child care and bus service.

“I think you can see that wheel spinning in his head in the current-day Zohran,” Kagan said, echoing what he told the elder Mamdani years earlier.“ He was able to articulate the issues that he wanted to articulate in a way that people grasp and could understand and identify with.”

Although Mamdani unsuccessfully ran for student body vice president at Bronx Science, Kagan said he had little inkling that the teen would one day have big political aspirations.

He thinks the teachers union should take a stronger stand against Trump

When the United Federation of Teachers endorsed Mamdani for the November general election, Kagan tried to use the moment to push the union to be more proactive in countering the Trump administration. He tried to introduce an amendment that would require the union to hold a meeting about the issue.

“I look around even at the anti-Trump demonstrations that have occurred in New York, and I don’t really see the UFT there,” he said. “I’m not sure that I know exactly what they should be doing, but I know we’re not doing much.”

Michael Mulgrew, the union president, ruled Kagan out of order before he could introduce the amendment because the retired teacher had already spoken on the topic, Kagan said.

UFT spokesperson Alison Gendar countered that the union is pushing back against Trump.

“The UFT is fighting the overreach of the Trump administration in the courts and in the streets,” Gendar wrote in an email. “Protests, legal action, and union solidarity are the tools the UFT and its state and national affiliates have used seeking to block and dismantle the White House’s attacks on public education, workers, and immigrant students. “

He bristles at accusations that Mamdani’s criticism of Israel is antisemitic

Mamdani has long been a critic of Israel and supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which calls for cutting financial ties to the country due to its unequal treatment of Palestinians. During the primary campaign, Mandani responded to questions about whether Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state by saying it has a right to exist “as a state with equal rights.” He also characterized Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip as a genocide.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who lost to Mamdani in the Democratic primary and is now running as an independent, attempted to link Mamdani’s positions on Israel to antisemitism. And in the wake of the union’s decision to endorse Mamdani in the general election, some Jewish educators threatened to withhold their dues over the decision. (Mamdani has vowed to vigorously fight antisemitism if elected.)

Asked what his message is to educators who are skeptical of Mamdani’s positions on Israel, Kagan was blunt.

“There are people in New York City, in the UFT, that believe … criticism of Israel is antisemitic,” Kagan said. “They’re wrong.”

A favorite lesson probes the tradeoffs of civilization

In a unit focused on societies like the Iroquois and Maya and how they developed before European settlers arrived in the Americas, Kagan set up a debate about how students would structure society if it was up to them.

The unit “was a really interesting couple of days because people had to grapple with this idea of what is civilization? What do I like about it? What don’t I like about it?” he said. Kagan said his students often advocated for adopting current societal structures, not because they worried about access to iPhones or video games but because they worried about being conquered by other civilizations with more modern technology. Those arguments often surprised him.

“We’re just going to become victims of civilizations,” he said his students argued. “So we have to do it almost as a method of self-protection, rather than as something we necessarily want to fully embrace.”

Teachers should have more opportunities to learn from each other

At the beginning of his teaching career at Bronx Science, Kagan said he got some of his most valuable insights about the craft from informal conversations with other educators in the social studies department.

“I just sat at their feet and picked their brains and learned so much,” Kagan said.

The Education Department has made some efforts over the years to create opportunities for teacher mentorship and share best practices across schools, but Kagan said his main piece of policy advice would be for the system to deepen those efforts by giving teachers time to reflect and talk with each other by lightening their course loads after a couple years.

There is often little time to ask questions such as “What am I doing well? What am I not doing well? What can I teach to others?” he said. “It’s just hard to do that when you’re teaching 170 students.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Teachers union backs Zohran Mamdani for mayor after primary snub

2025-07-08T23:06:13+00:00

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The United Federation of Teachers is now throwing its support behind Zohran Mamdani in the general election for mayor of New York City, after the union declined to endorse a candidate during the Democratic primary.

The UFT’s delegate assembly voted Tuesday to endorse the 33-year-old Queens state assemblyman, less than a month after it refused to endorse the Democratic socialist in the primary.

At that time, union President Michael Mulgrew said there were unbreachable rifts among the rank-and-file over the candidates’ level of experience to manage the city and their positions on non-education issues, including Israel and the crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Members who cared most about affordability, he said, favored Mamdani. Other members supported former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former Comptroller Scott Stringer.

But now that the primary is over, it is unsurprising that the union would throw its weight behind the Democratic candidate.

Other major unions have made similar moves, including the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council; Local 32BJ SEIU, representing building workers, including doormen; and the New York State Nurses Association, all of whom supported former Gov. Andrew Cuomo during the primary.

The teachers union is the city’s second largest with nearly 200,000 members, including about 60,000 retirees. District Council 37, the largest municipal union, endorsed City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, with Mamdani as its No. 2 choice.

“As a union, we have to protect public education, public employees, and public service from attacks from Washington, DC. We have to make New York City safer and more affordable for working- and middle-class families,” Mulgrew wrote in a statement. “We have to make the jobs of educators and nurses more attractive with better pay and benefits, and retain those already doing the work. We need a mayor who understands the task before us and who will help us get it done.”

Mamdani said he was honored to have the UFT’s support.

“Public education is under attack from [President Donald] Trump’s authoritarianism on the outside and an affordability crisis from the inside,” he said in a statement. “The need for a true fighter for New York City teachers and students has never been higher.”

The general election will be held Nov. 4. Mayor Eric Adams is planning to run as an independent, along with lawyer Jim Walden. Cuomo has not yet decided whether he’ll run. Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa is on the Republican ballot.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Zohran Mamdani wants to end mayoral control of NYC schools. Here’s what that could mean.

2025-07-01T20:14:52+00:00

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Zohran Mamdani has not sketched out a plan to manage the nation’s largest school system. But the Queens assemblyman, who won a decisive victory for the Democratic mayoral nomination on Tuesday, has one big idea: giving himself less power.

Since 2002, the state has granted the mayor of New York City almost complete authority over the public school system. The mayor unilaterally selects the schools chancellor and appoints the majority of the Panel for Educational Policy, a board that votes on school closures, contracts, and other major changes to Education Department regulations.

Most mayoral candidates this year said they support mayoral control, though some suggested tweaks. Every mayor has lobbied state lawmakers in Albany for extensions to mayoral control since it was enacted more than two decades ago. Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic socialist, has vowed to be an exception to that rule.

“Zohran supports an end to mayoral control and envisions a system instead in which parents, students, educators and administrators work together,” his campaign website states. In its place, he calls for a “co-governance” model that empowers existing organizations, such as elected parent councils and local school teams that include administrators, teachers, and caregivers.

Mamdani’s plan would represent a fundamental shift in school governance at a time when the system faces many pressing issues, including elevated rates of chronic absenteeism, declining enrollment, and persistent gaps in student achievement.

“That’s a signal that he’s thinking about this in a very different way than the typical mayoral hopeful,” said Jonathan Collins, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University Teachers College. “Not too many politicians have been in the business of giving power away.”

Mamdani secured 56% of the vote in the Democratic primary, according to unofficial ranked choice results released on Tuesday. That momentum could carry him through a general election dominated by Democratic voters. But he still faces a crowded field, with Mayor Eric Adams, Independent Jim Walden, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who received 44% of votes in the primary. (Though Cuomo will be on the ballot, he has not said whether he will mount a campaign.)

Debate over mayoral control to start again in 2026

Whoever enters City Hall in January will quickly be thrust into the perennial debate about mayoral control, as the state law granting that authority is up for renewal in the middle of 2026. State lawmakers have shown some willingness to tweak mayoral control in recent years, granting only short renewals and adding new members to the education panel (though the mayor retains the majority).

Supporters of the model contend that it allows for the mayor to execute a clear policy vision for the city’s schools and makes it obvious to the public who is responsible for the system’s performance. The prior system of decentralized school boards was rife with corruption and patronage, they argue.

Critics contend that mayoral control makes it too difficult for parents, students, and educators to have a say over how schools are run and that mayoral elections every four years are a blunt accountability tool, as other issues often squeeze out education. They also note that Adams’ hired or promoted some of his relatives into senior government jobs. His schools chancellor, David Banks, retired amid a federal corruption investigation, though he was not accused of wrongdoing.

Mamdani has not articulated a clear vision for the city’s schools and said little about what alternatives to mayoral control he favors. His campaign did not respond to a request for specifics. Brad Lander, a mayoral candidate who cross-endorsed with Mamdani, also proposed changes to mayoral control to give City Council the power to weigh in on the appointment of the schools chancellor.

John Liu, a Queens Democrat who chairs the state Senate’s New York City education committee, said he could imagine a range of possibilities for Mamdani’s “co-governance” approach. He said it could involve transitioning to an elected school board similar to Chicago, or allowing other elected officials power to make additional appointments to the Panel for Educational Policy. That board has 24 members, a majority of whom are appointed by the mayor.

“It’s great to hear [Mamdani] discussing new ideas,” said Liu, who endorsed Mamdani and said more debate is needed about various approaches to running the system.

Still, Liu sounded a note of skepticism that the Democratic nominee would relinquish control of the school system. “What’s said on the campaign trail is not always what happens once you become mayor,” he said.

Mamdani’s ‘co-governance’ proposal draws enthusiasm and concern

Heather Lewis, a professor of art and design education at Pratt who has written extensively about the community control movement in New York, wondered whether Mamdani might give local community education councils more influence, a move she supports. Those bodies, which represent 32 local districts and four citywide councils, could have more authority to supervise the superintendents who oversee principals, she said, a power the local boards held before mayoral control.

Mamdani is “trying to figure out how to co-govern” — something no one has tried to do since Bloomberg implemented mayoral control, she said. “That’s exciting.”

Other observers were skeptical of deferring policy decisions to the local level. For one, turnout in local parent council elections has historically been dismal, with some council members winning with just a handful of votes, meaning those groups may not fully represent their communities.

Mamdani could also be forced to confront local decisions he may disagree with; Manhattan’s District 2, for instance, passed a controversial resolution in 2024 calling for a review of the city’s policy of allowing transgender girls to join girls’ sports teams.

“Is Mamdani really willing to go down roads like that?” said David Bloomfield, a professor of education, law, and public policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Bloomfield, who previously served as the general counsel for the city’s Board of Education before mayoral control, added that Mamdani’s pitch for “co-governance” may be a winning campaign message because it has a populist appeal to make the system more democratic.

“It is a signal of a mindset more than an operational plan,” he said.

Other observers said they are open to changes to mayoral control but wished Mamdani was clearer about how changing the governance structure could produce better results for students.

“Co-sharing power [is] a process, not an outcome,” said David Adams, the CEO of Urban Assembly, an organization that supports a network of 22 public schools across the city. “It’s like okay, cool, but to what end?”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Zohran Mamdani on education: The Democratic primary winner’s plans for NYC schools

2025-06-25T17:22:28+00:00

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If presumptive Democratic candidate for mayor Zohran Mamdani wins in November, he would oversee the nation’s largest school system – but he doesn’t want to do it alone.

The 33-year-old democratic socialist told Chalkbeat he is “opposed to mayoral control in its current iteration” and would advocate for a system that would lean on partnerships to govern the system of roughly 911,000 students and 1,600 schools.

The Queens assemblyman doesn’t have a long track record when it comes to city schools, but he is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science and a former standardized testing tutor who would like to study racial and gender bias in the specialized high school exam.

Despite a stunning apparent victory Tuesday, Mamdani has a long road ahead of him to get to City Hall. If he formally clinches the nomination after ranked-choice ballots are counted, Mamdani will still face in November Mayor Eric Adams, who is running a third-party campaign, and potentially former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is mulling the same. Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder, is running on the Republican ticket, and Jim Walden, a former assistant U.S. attorney, will be on the ballot as an independent.

While more of New York City’s budget goes to the Education Department than any other city agency, education wasn’t a focal point during this year’s primary race. But city schools could take on a larger role in the general election – and observers will be watching the United Federation of Teachers, which is the city’s second largest union and declined to endorse a candidate in the Democratic primary because of deep division within its members.

Here’s what we have learned about Mamdani’s views on city schools during his campaign:

Focus on child poverty, homelessness

The city’s affordability took center stage throughout Mamdani’s campaign and shaped his language around education. During the first primary debate, when Mamdani was asked about education, he talked about how 500,000 children go to bed hungry each night and how 100,000 of the city’s students are homeless. According to his platform, Mamdani would expand the city’s Bronx pilot “Every Child and Family Is Known,” which pairs children living in shelters with a “caring” adult who provides daily check-ins with them and weekly check-ins with their families.

During the second debate, when asked about supporting students with significant disabilities whose needs can’t be met in their neighborhood schools, Mamdani mentioned leaning on “high quality” tutoring. He also discussed ways to meet the state’s mandate to limit the city’s class sizes, including passing a City Council bill pushed by the teachers union to increase the wages for paraprofessionals, or teachers aides. The city is currently facing a shortage of these staffers, who often help students with disabilities. Mamdani also mentioned a push to cut down on Education Department contracts to consultants.

On his website, Mamdani’s K-12 platform discusses “strong” after-school programs, mental health services, and integrated student bodies. His platform focuses heavily on free child care from birth to five years old, and Mamdani called for raising the salary of child care workers to be on par with public school teachers.

He also supports a bigger city and state investment into the CUNY system and has long championed a “new deal” for CUNY to make the system tuition-free, increase funding for infrastructure and staff salaries, and provide free OMNY cards for students to reduce their public transit costs to and from class and work.

Mamdani said he would also create car-free streets in front of every school in the city as a way to prevent traffic deaths, foster outdoor play, and reduce pollution around schools. His vision is to make car-free school streets universal, he said, instead of the current opt-in system.

Mamdani’s views on thorny issues facing schools

Mamdani is one of the few candidates who opposes mayoral control (at least in its current form) and proposes instead to try to create “a more participatory educational system.”

That could include co-governance through the Panel for Educational Policy (the board that approves contracts and school closures) and school leadership teams (school-based teams consisting of school administrators, teachers, and parents), for instance. The city school governance system is up for renewal from the state in 2026.

Overhauling the city’s reading and math instruction with curriculum mandates has been Adams’ major school initiative. A new mayor will need to grapple with whether to continue, tweak, or scrap these changes. Mamdani called the city’s literacy program “a step in the right direction.” But he said the Education Department should increase teacher development and also provide more support to adapt materials for students struggling to access the curriculum as well ensuring it’s culturally responsive.

“I would work with our school communities to find the right balance of maintaining focus on literacy and the initiative, while adjusting the program to ensure we enable more teacher discretion,” he said in a statement in response to questions on several issues that Chalkbeat asked the mayoral hopefuls.

Ensuring the city’s compliance with the class size mandate will be another massive task for the next mayor. Meeting the targets will require a hiring spree projected to cost as much as $1.9 billion annually and potentially many billions more to create new classroom space.

Mamdani told Chalkbeat he would work with the School Construction Authority on a capital plan and would ensure the Education Department has enough funding to hire thousands of teachers. He provided few details on how he’d pay for that, though he said he would undertake a major audit to find inefficiencies to help the Education Department save money to invest in class size compliance.

Mamdani said he’d consider capping enrollment at overcrowded schools as well as consider mergers “where appropriate.”

As a graduate of Bronx Science and a former standardized test tutor, Mamdani told Chalkbeat he’s seen “firsthand the promise and the failure of our specialized high schools and their admissions process.” He said he supported an independent analysis of the Specialized High School Admissions Test for gender and racial bias, and he would address the city’s highly segregated school system by implementing recommendations from a 2019 school diversity advisory group. (The specialized high school admissions test, which is the sole basis for entry to eight schools, is enshrined in state law.)

When it comes to addressing New York City’s shrinking school safety force, Mamdani told Chalkbeat he would want to invest instead in guidance counselors, social workers, and mental health support, as well as expand free after-school and summer programs. He also would establish a youth advisory committee on hate violence prevention.

“As Mayor, I will focus on these investments along with restorative justice models, which allow our students to remain in schools, learn from mistakes, grow conflict resolution skills, and improve academic outcomes,” Mamdani said.

And Mamdani pledged to stand up to the Trump administration’s threats to cut education funding over diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

“I am running to protect New Yorkers from Trump,” he said in a statement to Chalkbeat. “My policies will deliver protections from his rising prices, safety from his attacks on immigrants and LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers, and protections from his attacks on funding for vital services.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani leads Cuomo in NYC mayoral primary. Here’s a look at their education records.

2025-06-25T03:08:18+00:00

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Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is leading in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, setting the stage for a surprising upset in the race for City Hall.

Results could be a week away since no candidate garnered enough first-choice votes to win outright Tuesday night, but former Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded the race and called Mamdani to congratulate him.

With 90% of first round votes counted, Mamdani won 43.5%, according to the Associated Press. This put him ahead of Cuomo, who came in with 36.3% of the votes, followed by city Comptroller Brad Lander with 11.4%.

Since the 33-year-old democratic socialist secured less than the 50% threshold needed for an immediate win, the city’s ranked choice system kicked in. The elections board is expected to release a preliminary tabulation of the ranked choice results as early as July 1, with an official, certified tally expected three weeks after the election.

But Mamdani’s opponents were treating Tuesday’s results as a victory for the upstart candidate.

“Tonight is his night. He deserved it. He won,” Cuomo told supporters Tuesday night. “We are going to take a look and make some decisions.”

In past elections, the winner of the Democratic primary had a strong shot at the mayor’s office, which oversees the city’s school system. But this year, the candidate who moves onto the Nov. 4 general election on the Democratic party line may still face an uphill battle.

In New York, third parties can nominate candidates who are already running under the major parties. So if Cuomo ultimately loses the Democratic nomination, he can run in the general election on an independent ballot line called Fight and Deliver, a party he created.

Mayor Eric Adams, who sat out the Democratic primary race, is running as an independent under the“EndAntiSemitism” or “Safe&Affordable” ballot lines. Additionally, Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, is running on the Republican ticket, and Jim Walden, a former assistant U.S. attorney, will also be on the ballot as an independent.

The mayor of New York City has a tremendous amount of power over the nation’s largest school system. Under mayoral control, which became state law in 2002, the city’s chief executive unilaterally picks the chancellor who oversees the Education Department’s $40 billion budget, roughly 150,000 employees, and nearly 911,000 students attending about 1,600 schools.

Mamdani’s education record

Mamdani doesn’t have a deep record when it comes to New York City’s K-12 schools.

As a legislator, he was among several sponsors of various education-related bills that have not been signed into law. One would require all school districts in the state to participate in the national school lunch program to serve free meals to students (as New York City already does).

He also sponsored a bill to overhaul how schools handle misconduct, banning suspensions for minor infractions like tardiness or dress code violations, and requiring schools to have professional development on restorative justice practices, which emphasize conflict resolution and relationship-building over punitive approaches.

Mamdani signed on to sponsor a bill to provide language assistance services for parents who don’t speak English and another to bolster school-based health clinics. He supported a bill to make the Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha school holidays across the state, as they currently are in New York City.

He signed onto a bill that would provide grants for schools to install solar panels, one that would require elementary and high schools to provide an Asian American history curriculum, and a bill to mandate instruction on climate change.

Mamdani also supported the Student Journalist Free Speech Act, which would protect students’ free speech rights in public high schools, and a bill requiring schools to include instruction on eating disorder prevention in health education for students in grades 6-12.

Cuomo’s education record

Cuomo touts his education record as a bright spot during his time as governor, but he often faced pushback from educators and advocates while he was leading the state. He came out of the gate with an aggressive reform agenda, attempting to overhaul teacher evaluations by tying them to state test scores. But he ended up relenting in the face of backlash of the massive opt out movement in the suburbs.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo leaves after voting in the Democratic primary at the High School of Art and Design Tuesday. He conceded to state Rep. Zohran Mamdani after the first round of votes were counted.

The former governor resisted massive increases in education spending, only to give in later by boosting state aid to schools. For years, he refused to fully fund Foundation Aid, a state funding formula that sends more money to high needs schools. According to that formula, created after a long-running lawsuit found the state failed to provide a “sound, basic education” to New York City, Cuomo short changed city schools by billions of dollars, advocates complained. (Still, New York spends more per pupil than any other state.)

Cuomo’s proposal to fund “free college” attracted much fanfare, but it ultimately was more style than substance thanks to the fine print: Students had to live and work in New York for as many years as they received free tuition, and if they left, they’d have to pay the scholarship off as a loan.

And while leading New York’s response during the pandemic, Cuomo had initially said he’d leave the decision whether to close schools to the state’s roughly 700 school districts, before pivoting on his plans for New York City, giving the Big Apple just 24 hours to come up with plans.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

What do NYC teens think of the mayoral candidates?

2025-06-17T10:00:00+00:00

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What is happening with the youth vote during this year’s mayoral race? Are New York City’s young people tuning in? Are the candidates reaching out to young voters? And why hasn’t education been a centerpiece of the mayor’s race so far?

Producers Jojo Fofana, a senior at Fordham High School for the Arts, and Roberto Bailey, a junior at Hunter College High School, examine the 2025 mayoral race and the role of young people in the election. They dig into the candidates and their positions, what they have to say directly to students, and why only 18% of young voters actually cast ballots.

You’ll hear from the candidates who sent one-minute videos to Chalkbeat with their direct appeal to young New Yorkers, and you’ll hear the producers share their candid reactions to these clips (you can also view the videos at the end of this article). And you’ll also hear what Jojo and Roberto wished the candidates would have tackled head on. In a conversation with Chalkbeat’s Amy Zimmer and Alex Zimmerman, you’ll learn more about the challenges of getting the candidates to focus on issues touching the Education Department — the city’s largest agency.

Ultimately, P.S. Weekly’s final episode of the season is a call to action, offering tips on how young people can register to vote, research the candidates, and connect with youth-focused organizations.

To find out more about how to register, visit Vote.org, and to learn more about how NYC high school students can get involved, check out YVote.

If you want to find out more about the candidates’ views on important education issues, you can find the candidates’ responses to seven critical education questions Chalkbeat asked them or you can read a cheat sheet here.

If you want to see which candidates best align with your views, check out the “Meet your mayor” quiz from our friends at THE CITY and Gothamist in which they asked the mayoral hopefuls where they stand on issues such as affordable housing and public safety.

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.

Read the transcript below

JoJo: So how many mayoral candidates for the 2025 New York City election can you name?

Student 1: Uh, only two. Um. I mean, everyone’s hating on Cuomo, so I should know it cause he is also, uh, ethnic, what his name’s, like Zohran?

Student 2: I can’t recall them at the moment.

Student 3: I, I don’t know. I actually, I know someone, but I don’t know their name. I think it was a female? Well, I’m just hoping they’re all better than Eric Adams.

JoJo: And how old are you?

Student 4: 18.

JoJo: You’re 18? Do you know that the mayoral campaign’s actually starting this year?

Student 5: Really?

JoJo: Yes. Do you know the name of our mayor right now?

Student 6: Um, No.

JoJo: Do you know what’s happening later this June?

Student 7: Um, my graduation?

JoJo: Hello, my name is Jojo Fofana

Roberto: And mine is Roberto Bailey.

JoJo: And welcome to P.S. Weekly and election season. Right now there are a dozen major candidates for Mayor of New York City with policies ranging from increasing the free fare buses to universal afterschool.

Roberto: As of right now, Andrew Cuomo is leading the polls with Zohran Momdani a close second, but things change fast these days. These candidates’ policies could have a really big impact on us and young people across New York City.

Archival audio: (Eric Adams Budget cuts.)

News Anchor 1: Well Mayor Adams laying out budget cuts across every city agency from libraries to schools and even the NYPD.

Food Fight is brewing at NYC public schools

News Anchor 2: That’s right both kids and parents expressing frustration after several popular items were removed from the lunch menu due to budget cuts.

Theme music

JoJo: Still young people have historically not shown up at the polls. Only 18% of people ages 18 to 29 voted in the last primary. There’s a big lack of engagement.

Roberto: 18% is honestly really scary to think that over 80% of young people aren’t making their voices heard and don’t have a say in their own future, their own city. It’s hard to fathom.

JoJo: Alright, so kids aren’t voting or more accurately, they’re not paying attention to it, but civic engagement has never been my strong suit either. I mean, AP government is really notorious for being a lead culprit in senioritis, so can you really blame them? I’d also like to add that many seniors are usually 17, so it’s not like they can vote anyway. Roberto, you are 17. Do you feel like you need to vote?

Roberto: I definitely do, but admittedly I never registered to vote even though in New York State it’s possible to register after you’re 16, and then you can vote when you turn 18. But…I never really learned what the process of voting looks like. I’ll be 20 or 21 when the presidential election rolls around, so hopefully I’ll learn by then.

JoJo: Okay, so I have a confession to make.

Roberto: Go on.

JoJo: I also didn’t know any of these candidates before we started reporting on.

Roberto: Me neither. I mean, I knew the big ones. Cuomo, Mamdani, Adams, the current Adams, not Adrienne.

JoJo: I didn’t even know Eric Adams was running for reelection this year.

Roberto: Do you think it would be any different if you were taught civics? In fact, has your school even offered civics classes?

JoJo: Yes and no. Of course, I know all about the three branches, but that’s on a federal level. When it comes to like my local election, I know next to nothing.

Roberto: I definitely understand that. Beyond history classes, I didn’t really have a lot of civics education at my school either. In general, voting and being involved in politics just weren’t super emphasized.

JoJo: So in order to help us — and YOU, our listeners -- learn more about these candidates, our friends at Chalkbeat reached out to each of them to answer a list of questions and send us a 1 minute video.

Actually I’ll let Amy Zimmer, Bureau Chief of Chalkbeat New York explain:

Amy: We sent out the seven questions plus the ask for the candidates to record a 60 second video for P.S. Weekly. So the questions were for Chalkbeat, for print, and then the video for P.S. Weekly to incorporate on this podcast. We sent this out March 25, and we gave them a deadline of a few weeks knowing that it was gonna take time. And here we are in June. And how many candidates responded? Five.

Roberto: Right, so we only got five responses, which was…a little disappointing. But hey, we’ll take it. So Jojo and I decided to just play the five candidates’ videos and record our live, unfiltered, thoroughly unresearched reactions.

You’re welcome.

Roberto: Okay, so the first video we have to listen to is Brad Lander.

JoJo: Wait. So, who is this guy?

Roberto: This is Brand Lander.

JoJo: Oh this is Brad Lander. Okay.

Brad Lander video: Hello. NYC students. I’m New York City Controller. Brad Lander, that’s our city’s Chief financial Officer, and I’m running for mayor. Did you know our city has a $116 billion budget?

JoJo: I did know that

Brand Lander video: And 34 billion of that is for our schools. Unfortunately, that budget is under

threat from Donald Trump, and we don’t have a mayor who will stand up and fight for it.When I’m

mayor, I will. I’m running for mayor because I want a New York City where every family has a

home they can afford to rent or buy, where we don’t have homeless people sleeping on our

streets and subways and where every school is a great one. Both my kids, Marek and Rosa went to New York City public schools from pre-K to 12th grade.

My mom was a public elementary school guidance counselor, so I know we need them in every school. The pandemic and these frigging phones —

JoJo and Roberto: *Laughing*

Brand Lander video: — Have wreaked havoc with our mental health. All of us, and especially in our schools, we’ve got to do better.

Roberto: We’ve got to ban our phones.

Brand Lander video: So here’s my big idea…

JoJo: Do you have like a phone, um, ban your, in your school?

Roberto: They’re banning phones next year. It’s state law. Actually,

JoJo: I think it’s stupid.

Roberto: I mean, I think that he’s kind of talking at us, but I’m not getting any clear policy positions. He’s just saying all the things he would do and that he’ll keep our budget.

JoJo: I mean he’s giving principal core right now. I mean he’s gonna tell us about his big idea.

Roberto: Let’s hear his big idea.

JoJo: All right, let’s rate it one out of 10.

Brand Lander video: Instead of measuring schools only by test scores, we’ve gotta focus on your wellbeing and your tools for the future. That means more arts and sports and extracurriculars. It means getting out and learning from the city. It means financial literacy and real life skills, more internships and job opportunities, and college and career. Here’s a secret, I’m happy to tell you while reading and math are important, most of life, thankfully, is not reading and math tests. Your schools should show you lots of ways to thrive. New York City schools should help every student find what they’re passionate about. If that sounds good to you. And if you’re 18, come out and vote for me on June 24th.

JoJo: Eh

Roberto: I mean, his idea is like—

JoJo: I like the philosophy behind it.

Roberto: We should be holistic, like we shouldn’t just focus on test scores. But again, like. Is he gonna allocate more funding towards like extracurricular programs in schools? Like what is he going to do? Where is this money gonna go? Like I think it’d be great to have more arts programs, for example, but I guess I wish he would say more about how he’s gonna guarantee that that happens.

JoJo: Most definitely. And um. I don’t know. I feel like, I feel like it is like a, I feel like it’s too general? But overall, I’m giving it a seven outta ten.

Roberto: Um, I’m giving it a five.

JoJo: A five?

Roberto: A five.

JoJo: You are brutal! *Laughs*

Roberto: Fifty percent. I wish there was more specifics. I’m not gonna give you a — I don’t know. So next we have Michael Blake.

JoJo: I’m going to cut in here for just a second and say that originally, candidate Michael Blake didn’t respond. But the Chalkbeat team was at an event where he was speaking and they chased him down. So yeah, the audio isn’t great.

Michael Blake Recording: What’s going everybody? Michael Blake, candidate for mayor. Lemme talk to the young people because I’m that kid that grew up [unintelligible] DeWitt Clinton, so I know what it’s like from the Bronx, New York. My top priority for you is that you’ll be a part of what we are building, and that’s why I say we have to have civics, financial literacy, and mental health, and every student before you graduate from high school, because then you’re gonna be a great global citizen, you’ll understand the language of money, you’re be able understand the power [unintelligible].

And the way we can make this all happen is actually collaborating with you to do it creatively because it’s different in all five boroughs. So if you want to learn more about our collective vision of how we have you at the table and how we empower you, the incredible brilliant minds you are, join us at blakefornyc.com. Plus I’m young and have the swag [unintelligible]

JoJo: He didn’t even say anything.

Roberto: Yeah it was very word salad. I didn’t get a lot of, again, like we’re not getting specifics here.

JoJo: Collaboration?

Roberto:It was, I like the ideas behind it. Like I do think that we should have financial literacy programs in school, like I do think that we should be prioritizing people being responsible with their money, that’s something that I think is left out from a lot of education. At the same time, what are you gonna do? How are you gonna make that happen? Do we move on?

JoJo and Roberto: Uh, yeah. We’re going to Scott. Scott Stringer.

Scott Stringer Video: My top priority for New York City students is giving them what every child deserves, not just during the school day, but after it ends. That’s why I’m proposing two changes, the extended school day hours and the NYC try share childcare program. We’ll keep schools open later with free or low cost afterschool programs for all children. We need kids to explore a step, we need tutoring, we need after school, we need kids to do the very best they can with the resources we give them.

Scott Stringer Video: That’s my plan as the next mayor. This is how we meet the needs of young people by supporting their families, closing the opportunity gap, and reimagining schools as hubs of care, learning, making a difference in the lives of parents, teachers, and our children. I have kids in the public schools. I have kids in [unintelligible] the job of mayor is to help the kids we’re never gonna meet. Every child is special, we need a mayor who thinks this way. Someone who can break down the bureaucracy. Somebody who’s not afraid to stand up and fight like hell for our children. This is what my mayoralty is gonna be all about.

JoJo: I didn’t hate it. I actually liked it.

Roberto: I didn’t love that there were typos in the captions. Um, but I like that it was specific. He talked about his programs and I think the afterschool thing is very, very true. Like cheap or free afterschool programs are something that can allow parents to work a full day. They’re lifesavers.

JoJo: They’re lifesavers. I think that’s a really great idea and I’m glad that he isolated that as kind of his main education or one of his main education kind of goals, rather than talking very abstractly about all these different things. What about you?

JoJo: Um, you know what? Same boat as you. I think it’s green, I think it’s a green flag, that, you know, he like centered on, you know, and he wasn’t using buzz words, you know, he was just like hey I think, um, child affordability and like, child like aftercare, um, especially after hours is like really cool. I’m giving it an eight point five out of ten.

Roberto: I’d give it an eight.

JoJo: Okay. Alright. Next is Whitney Tilson.

Whitney Tilson Video: Despite spending roughly $40,000 per student, more than double the national average of 17,000, our school system is failing to properly educate far too many of our children, half of whom are struggling readers.I don’t blame the children for this. I blame the system in which there’s no accountability. Fortunately, there’s an exception to this. Fifteen percent of our public school students are in schools that have high standards and real accountability charter schools. Every five years, every charter school is fully evaluated by its authorizer, and if it can’t demonstrate that it’s delivering for kids, it can be put on probation or even closed. This is as it should be. My question is, why aren’t the other eighty percent of New York City public schools also evaluated and held accountable? I. Not necessarily closing schools, but how about replacing school leaders and teachers who aren’t getting the job done? When I’m mayor, the school system’s gonna stop being run for the benefit of adults and start being run for the benefit of students, starting with evaluations for every school, and accountability for every educator.

JoJo: Wow. Come on. Give it to me.

Roberto: I really. I just, I think charter schools, I have complicated thoughts about them. Um, isolating the problem as just being that there’s not accountability, like schools just don’t care, they’re not accountable, so they’re not gonna try— I think that’s a massive oversimplification.

JoJo: One more, Zellnor Myrie

Zellnor Myrie Video: What’s up guys? My name is Zellnor and I’m running to be the next mayor of New York City. I would not be who I am today, if not for public schools. I went to PS 161 in Crown Heights, and then I went to Brooklyn Tech for high school. Now there was some challenges and it was hard. But I didn’t go to school during a once in a century pandemic like a lot of y’all did. So big props to y’all. Now both of my parents are from Costa Rica, they were working class New Yorkers came here for opportunity, but they couldn’t afford extra tutoring or support for me. Mm-hmm.

Zellnor Myrie Video: So I was really lucky. I had a middle school teacher that said, I’m gonna scrap the curriculum and I’m gonna help you prepare for the specialized high school exam, and I also had an affordable afterschool program called the Crown Heights Youth Collective, a place where I could go and get help with my homework, but I also had fun too. I was the only boy on the step team. But it shouldn’t be based on luck or your zip code. Every kid should have the same access to the resources they need so that they can excel in school and beyond. That’s why when I’m mayor, I’m gonna institute free universal afterschool for everybody from three-K all the way to grade 12, and for pre-K and three-k, I want to extend from 2:30 PM to 6:00 PM because most New Yorkers do not get off at 2:30 PM.

Zellnor Myrie Video: There will be tutors to help you with your homework, but also activities so maybe you could learn how to step like I did so we could all have fun. I also want to add 50,000 more slots to the Summer Youth employment program.

JoJo: Mmmm! That’s what’s up.

Zellnor Myrie Video: That was my first job, and that’s where I got a lot of the skills that I still use to this day. I wanna provide that same opportunity for all of the young people in the city.

JoJo: I like that he gave a number too.

Zellnor Myrie Video: And speaking about young people, a lot of our politicians like to say that they care about what you think about, but I wanna make that a reality. And I’ve started already on my campaign. I have a bunch of youth fellows that work directly from [unintelligible] right now, and they talk to me about what they want to see me do as the next mayor. So if you wanna find out more, go to Zelnor.nyc. Z-E-L-L-N-O r.nyc, and looking forward to seeing you soon.

JoJo:That might be our first perfect score.

Roberto: Yeah. I would not go that far.

JoJo: Okay. *Laughs*

Roberto: Um, I did like it. I did. I think that, again, it’s like, you know, we’re gonna have universal after school. How do you do that? Because that is expensive, difficult to implement. I agree with the premise. I love that he recognizes the needs of working class families, and I love that he talks to like, this is something that’s supposed to be targeted towards young people, Um, these videos for chalk B and he talked to us, you know what I mean?

Roberto: I felt like I didn’t feel pandered to, and I didn’t feel infantilized. I felt like he was actually presenting policy positions that are youth focused. The adding 50,000 spots to the summer Youth employment program, I really liked that, cause that is not that hard to do.

JoJo: I agree. I think summer youth employment is like one of those opportunities, especially if you’re from like an underfunded high school where like let’s say, you know, you don’t go to high school in Manhattan and summer youth employment is like that big like equalizer, and the fact that it’s like, you know, it’s a lottery. So there’s like a good chance that you could like not get in. Yeah. And you know, especially in this day and age where the college admissions process, where you kind of need to like solve cancer to like even like have a, like a spot is so important.

JoJo: So I really like that he like specifically added on that and these afterschool programs, he gave names. Um, you know, and I think what sold it to me is that, you know, he mentioned that he had youth fellows working with him. Yeah, overall, I, I’m gonna give it a 10 personally.

Roberto: Okay. I’m giving it eight point five

JoJo: Eight point five

Roberto: Eight point five because I still think that there can be more about implementation.

Roberto: Ok so those were our unfiltered, unprocessed, un…anything’d responses.

Coming up after the break, we’ll actually sit down with Chalkbeat New York’s bureau Chief Amy Zimmer and reporter Alex Zimmerman to take a little more nuanced look at the candidates, even the ones that didn’t respond - including our current mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent.

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Amy Zimmer Midroll: We hope you enjoy listening to PS Weekly as much as we enjoy making it. I’m Amy Zimmer with Chalkbeat New York. We spend a lot of time planning each episode, setting up and conducting interviews, cutting the tape, writing scripts. It’s a long process and totally worth it. But here’s the thing, we don’t have a bunch of money or millions of followers, so we’re counting on you, loyal listener. To help us get the word out, take a few seconds and send this link wherever you’re listening to. Three friends so they too can enjoy P.S. weekly. Thanks for your support.

Roberto: Welcome back to P.S. Weekly, my name is Roberto Bailey,

JoJo: …and I’m Jojo Fofana. We’re talking about the upcoming mayoral election, and especially the primary that is coming up on June 24th. But early voting has already started and that goes until June 22nd. So, we sat down with Amy Zimmer and Alex Zimmerman from Chalkbeat New York a few days after the first televised debate in early June about the candidates, where they stand on education issues, and why so many young people aren’t tuning in.

Roberto: Before the break, you heard our unfiltered reactions to one minute videos that five candidates sent. But…there are actually TWELVE candidates. Ten primary candidates, nine Democrats, one Republican and two Independents. Current mayor Eric Adams is on that independent line so he won’t be on the ballot until the general election on November 4.

Amy: Eric Adams campaign said they declined to participate because they said he’s not part of the primary, so they just said we’re out. Okay. So then we’re down to 11. And then we have sent so many emails to the folks who haven’t responded. And you know, it’s disappointing, right? Cuomo’s campaign, they responded fairly quickly to us for the print part, for the seven questions, they met the deadline and everything. I have emailed them several times about the video— crickets. Like they didn’t even acknowledge the question, which makes me think, is it that they just, they don’t have time, they’re not organized, or they don’t care? If you’re gonna run this gigantic city, you have to care about everyone and everything and manage a huge bureaucracy.

Amy: Uh, Adrienne Adams, her team didn’t respond at all. For a very long time. And finally, we put out our first piece of our seven questions and sent it to them. And then after we published, they sent us all the responses, but they still haven’t responded to the video. Mamdani, like his office, they kept him promising, oh, we’re gonna get you something. And then it was Albany legislative season. Oh, it’s so busy, but we’ll get you something. And then finally, they’ve been answering one question at a time, right before the deadline. But again, like that kind of response by his campaign, it just makes you wonder how organized that campaign is and like what does that mean when you think about someone’s managerial experience? You know, apart from the actual substance of his platform.

Alex: It also plays to his strength. That’s what was kind of interesting to me. Right? Liike Mamdani is kind of well known for like having sharp videos that are engaging and like he’s very good at that and like, so you’d think it would play to a strength of his.

Amy: Uh, so Jessica Ramos also, we were having difficulties. Getting her response, but then I chased her at an event as well, and then they did finally respond to our questions, but they never sent the video even though they said they would. And I, I will say like, you know, in some ways the people who responded and you know, you’re critiquing them and the people who haven’t responded get almost a pass because you can’t respond because who knows what they would say and how you would appreciate or not appreciate what their video would say. So in some ways they’re getting off easier and, and that’s not really fair because we gave them plenty of time to respond and, and I really do wish that they had taken this more seriously.

Alex: One other, I mean, I guess two other things. One, I guess we haven’t really talked about, like Mamdani or Cuomo’s education platforms, like in a substantive way. Like, Mamdani’s youth focused agenda item is like universal childcare. Um, so not like a K 12 education policy idea. Um, during the debate, I thought it was really interesting that the main point Cuomo wanted to make about what he wants to do to improve the system is to hire more paraprofessionals, um, which are like classroom aides who often work with students with disabilities. Um, it’s interesting because there is a shortage of paraprofessionals and that poses really significant problems for kids with disabilities. Um, but it’s also interesting because it’s been a major priority of the teacher’s union.

Amy: You know, the tricky thing is, so for instance, again, going back to the videos, right? We asked the candidates to do a sixty second video. Some of them did longer. But the point is to really be informed. You do have to do legwork, right? You do have to look at their campaign websites and their platforms because there’s so much more than just a sixty second soundbite.

And you know, frankly, like you were talking to your friends at school and they said things like, I’m just focused on school, I’m focused on graduation, I’m focused on other things, right? And so a lot of people don’t do that and don’t have time to inform themselves. And so, and I think that’s really tricky, right?

Jojo: You know, like recently I was talking to people about the election and the biggest thing that came up, especially when I came, like when we were doing, like in the Bronx, the biggest thing that came up is that, um, is that, there’s a, you know, era of being apolitical. I think it might be because we’ve attached this idea of um, being politically engaged into a luxury, like reserved for the rich. Biggest reason I got was, hey, like I don’t have time for this man. I’ve got stuff to do. I have stuff to do as well. I didn’t really care about this until like two months ago when I started reporting on it. And, you know, internally, I’ve always thought, to worry about, this must be a luxury of the rich,

Roberto: I mean I think it is a luxury in many ways to be able to do the kind of like in depth, I guess, research on candidates. So even if someone might align with my maybe more these kind of more like far left values of candidates like Mamdani, um, they might end up voting for Cuomo basically based off the name. And we’ve seen that as something that’s kind of emerged in polling it’s name recognition that’s really important.

Jojo: Take, take, um, the debate for example, right? We got to the end, what are you gonna do about NYC schools and crickets. In my opinion, crickets. Um, from what I remember from my notes, I didn’t really hear much, especially from our top candidates. So right now pretty much Cuomo and Mamdani I didn’t hear much from them. Zellnor gave a stellar response as usual. Everyone else, it was just afterthoughts, It was ideas, it was principles, but it wasn’t plans. Brad Lander, he actually, you know, he had like a ten step plan or somewhere, but he didn’t really say it. He said it’s on his website, which is cool, and I believe him. I haven’t had the chance to check it out myself, and I believe him. I’m sure it’s detailed, but he could have articulated that better. It wasn’t really like a thought for them. And I know that whoever gets in office, I know that, um, you know, it’s not gonna be a thought for them.

Alex: Um, I thought it was also really interesting that the candidates did not seem prepared with like elevator pitches about their education policies, right? Like. It is fully reasonable to expect that you’re gonna get a question about managing the nation’s largest school system and so you really should have a pretty polished, like thirty second answer that’s like clear and ticks off some of your top objectives there. And like even candidates like Brad Lander who really do have like their ten point plan sitting on their website, like I, I did think it was interesting that he didn’t quite have like a super polished response to that question. Um. And yeah, I mean, we were talking about this after the debate, just like when we were chit chatting that like a bunch of the candidates spent more time talking about like which public schools they, their kids went to than actually like answering the question.

JoJo: Yeah

Alex: Yeah. so they were like very eager to show their, like public school bonafides, but not as prepared to sort of like talk about their ideas for the system.

Amy: And, and let’s just be clear about 30% of New York City’s budget goes to the education department, so it’s pretty huge.

Alex: Yeah, it’s the largest city agency, larger than the police department and health department and other departments combined, like its quite large.

Amy: So it’s shocking how little attention it is getting during this. Merrill race.

Roberto: I think it’s just not like a big ticket issue as much as it might’ve been in prior races. I mean like most of the coverage of the debate as well as like a lot of the focus of the questions themselves were on mainly like affordability and housing. Um, but mainly just that New York has become so expensive and I think that that’s the issue that they care about most rather than education. Because even the education initiatives all went back to like affordability, like. Zellnor Myrie, for example, his policy of like universal afterschool is about primarily like working families and giving, not people not having to pay for things like babysitting or afterschool programs.

Amy: Um, but just one more thing about that affordability and all of that, like poverty, that all intersects with schools quite a bit. So, you know, if you can’t eat, if you don’t have a place to live it, it affects education as well. It affects how you show up in school and whether you show up in school and, and so much more.

Alex: And Brad, and this didn’t get that much airtime during debate, but like one of the things Brad Lander did say he wanted to do was like, make every school a community school, which are sort of part like when schools partner with social service providers, um, to provide things like dental clinics and food pantries and, um, you know, other forms of outreach to families. And so that was sort of another, he didn’t quite frame it that way, but, you know, one could sort of like think about that through an affordability lens too. Um, one question I wanted to ask you guys about your perceptions of the debate was like, what were the issues they weren’t talking about In terms of education that like you wish they were?

Jojo: Teacher turnover was a big one. That was something that I like really wanted them to touch on ‘cause we have a really big problem, um, in my high school, like four to five new teachers leave every year. Two of them, like left this year in the middle of the year. We had an AP teacher, um, who was doing AP music theory and also was the instrumental teacher. And like he left in the middle of the year, he was teaching an AP class and if you were in that AP class, you’d either self-study or had to drop it, um, which sucked if you were like really passionate about music theory. Um, I was in that class and I had to drop it because music theory is actually surprisingly really hard.

Jojo: It’s like really hard actually. I know, uh, what’s his name again, Whitney? Whitney, he gave us like a solution, but actually in my opinion, I thought it would’ve made it a lot worse, which was he wanted to like crack down on and start punishing the teachers. Um, he wanted to crack down on why these schools aren’t, and I was like, oh, that’s, that’s actually really bad ‘cause these teachers need help and we need to start, you know, talking about the workplace environment and giving more incentives and pay raises potentially and overtime pay. So that’s something I would’ve liked. Um, Roberto, what about you?

Roberto: Yeah, I mean like this controversy over the efficacy of charter schools because they’ve taken on such a big role in New York City. I mean, you see them everywhere. They’re getting larger and larger. There’s like Kipps, Success Academy. Um, so I thought that was something more candidates would talk about. Um, and then I was also surprised no one talked about specialized schools just ‘cause it’s another kind of controversial point, um, like whether they should even exist in the first place, whether the S-H-S-A-T is effective, what it means for educational equity in the city. I was just surprised that it wasn’t something that came up

Jojo: And I was always wondering. Are we still incorporating DEI in our public educational? How are we gonna deal with that? With Trump cracking down on DEI. I would’ve loved them to go into more about how we’re gonna keep incorporating DEI into our public schools.

Alex: Yeah, I think that’s a really smart observation. Like school segregation, just as a topic more broadly, has really fallen out of the conversation. And you know, obviously the specialized high schools are kind of the starkest example of that. Um, but by no means, the only example of that, um, you know, under Mayor de Blasio, he put forward a plan that was an effort to diversify the specialized high schools and faced enormous backlash. And that didn’t end up coming to pass. And we seen a lot of the candidates’ proposals for how they would deal with, deal with you know, screened schools which pick students based on, you know, their grades and prior academic performance, which are, um, highly correlated with race and class. And like, what’s really interesting is like a lot of the candidates even on the left, um, are proposing opening more screened schools and like sort of framing that as like creating opportunity for more students and not totally grappling with some of the potentially segregating elements of that. Um, and so I think it’s just like a really good observation, but also reflects a real turn that’s happened since the last mayoral administration,

JoJo: That was reporter Alex Zimmerman along with Bureau Chief Amy Zimmer from Chalkbeat New York.

Music

Roberto: A couple notes actually - after our conversation we did get two more responses - from Jim Walden who is running as an independent and audio from Curtis Sliwa who is running on the Republican line. But…it was after the deadline. You can find all candidate videos and those additional written responses Amy mentioned at the links in our show notes.

JoJo: And by the way, there actually ARE resources out there for young people to get engaged in your local election. The first thing is to register to vote and in New York you can do that up to 10 days before the election. It’s too late by now to vote in the primary on June 24th, but you can still register before the November 4th general election. So go to vote.org, click on New York and it’ll guide you through the process.

Roberto: If you’re already registered and want to vote in the primary but don’t know who to vote for? Here’s something that is actually really great. Search for “Meet Your Mayor 2025” and you’ll find an interactive quiz from two non-profit news organizations, The City and Gothamist, that will match you with the candidate who best represents your views.

This especially helps with the ranked choice voting system here in the city. Which means you choose your top 5 candidates in order of preference.

JoJo: And lastly, if you really want to get involved…check out Yvote.org. That’s Yvote with the letter Y. It’s an organization that has tons of ways for young people to get civically engaged.

Roberto: And with that… That’s a WRAP on season two of P.S. Weekly. Producers for this episode were me, Roberto Bailey.

JoJo: …and me Jojo Fofana with reporting help from Amy Zimmer and Alex Zimmerman at Chalkbeat.

Roberto: Our executive producer for the show is Ave Carrillo and executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw.

JoJo: Additional production and reporting support was provided by Mira Gordon, Sabrina DuQuesnay, and our friends at Chalkbeat. Our engagement editor is Carolina Hidalgo.

Roberto: This episode was made using Hindenberg Pro. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions, and the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by Erica Huang.

JoJo: And special thanks to our mentor, Mark Pagan. Have a great summer everyone! See you all in season three of PS Weekly. The voice of the New York City school system.

We make transcripts available for our episodes as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.

NYC mayoral candidates on education: Your guide to their plans for nation’s largest school system

2025-06-13T18:04:29+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

This is part of a series in which Chalkbeat asked the mayoral candidates questions about important education issues that will likely define the next four years. The primary is June 24, with early voting from June 14-22.

The candidates running for New York City mayor have not made education a central issue, yet operating the nation’s largest school system is one of the top responsibilities for the chief executive of the Big Apple — and it commands the most resources.

The mayor controls the Education Department, appointing a chancellor who oversees its $40 billion budget, roughly 150,000 employees, and 1,600 schools serving nearly 911,000 students.

The next mayor will face entrenched issues — from disparities in student performance to school segregation — that the candidates have largely sidestepped.

They also must address pressing questions about how to implement the state’s class size mandate — an expensive task that will require hiring thousands of new teachers. Meanwhile, they will confront a Trump administration that aims to slash federal funding and root out diversity and equity programs.

Chalkbeat asked the mayoral candidates seven questions about education issues that will likely define the next four years, including whether they would follow through on Mayor Eric Adams’ reading and math curriculum overhauls and whether they would move to close the growing number of tiny schools. (The mayor declined to participate because he is not running in the Democratic primary.)

Here are our main takeaways from their responses. You can read their full answers by clicking on each headline.

Would you continue the current administration’s curriculum mandates for literacy and math?

Eric Adams’ most prominent education initiative is a massive overhaul to reading instruction, requiring schools to use city-approved curriculums. The move is part of a national “science of reading” movement that has drawn attention to flawed approaches to reading instruction many schools have long embraced.

The mayoral candidates generally support the reading curriculum changes, though several said teachers need more support and training. Several also suggested the mandate should be less rigid.

Queens state Rep. Zohran Mamdani wants to “enable more teacher discretion” in how the curriculums are implemented. Echoing concerns from some parent leaders, city Comptroller Brad Lander and former U.S. assistant attorney Jim Walden both want schools with a track record of success to have more leeway to skirt the curriculum changes.

The candidates were much more skeptical of the city’s effort to standardize math curriculums, particularly high Algebra I courses, a change that has drawn pushback from some educators and the teachers union. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos each expressed misgivings about the math changes and Lander said he would “ask my Chancellor for a full review of the data” and consult with educators before making a decision about whether to scrap it.

How would you continue implementing the mandate to reduce class sizes?

Under a 2022 state law, New York City must sharply reduce class sizes. Meeting that mandate will require hiring thousands of additional teachers, creating more classroom space, and finding billions of dollars.

Reducing class sizes is a major priority of the city’s teachers union and nearly all of the candidates said they would comply with the law’s requirements, which mandate that classrooms shrink to 20-25 students depending on the grade level by September 2028.

The mayoral candidates generally agreed that funding is a major hurdle and vowed to press state officials to cough up more money to implement it. Former city Comptroller Scott Stringer and Mamdani said they would also cut waste and repurpose existing funding within the Education Department’s budget to help pay for it, though they did not offer specifics.

Former Bronx state Rep. Michael Blake plans to boost the teacher pipeline with apprenticeships and “grow your own” programs. Lander also indicated that he would prevent schools from shedding teachers if their enrollment declines, a common practice as funding is typically tied to student headcount. The candidates largely did not address a host of difficult tradeoffs, including whether to cap enrollment at popular campuses or which schools should receive exemptions.

Two candidates said the law should be overhauled or scrapped. Walden said it should be revised to focus on high-need schools. (Higher poverty schools already tend to have smaller class sizes, which means the law is likely to benefit more affluent campuses.)

Former hedge-fund executive Whitney Tilson said the law should be rescinded entirely. “The class-size mandate is a costly giveaway to the teachers unions that will do nothing to help kids,” he said.

What’s your take on the city’s selective school admissions as well as the Specialized High School Admissions Test?

New York City’s notoriously complicated high school application process has long created a tiered system with dozens of “selective” schools basing admissions on grades, and the eight specialized high schools using an exam for entry.

Nearly all of the candidates would keep the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT, which is enshrined in state law. Several called for expanded test prep access. It’s a sea change from four years ago when several candidates (including Stringer) called for eliminating the exam, which is often blamed for the low numbers of Black and Latino students at these schools.

Several mayoral hopefuls are also calling to increase the number of screened schools.

Blake was the only candidate calling to replace the SHSAT with “multiple measures, such as academic records and lived experience.” Mamdani, a Bronx Science alum and former standardized test tutor, said he’d support an independent analysis of the SHSAT for gender and racial bias. Lander said he’d keep the SHSAT but double the number of specialized high schools, with the new ones accepting the highest performers from middle schools across the city, a move he hopes would “alleviate the pressure families face to invest heavily in test preparation.”

How would you approach school safety and security, as the city has seen the number of school safety agents dramatically drop?

During the last mayoral election, New York City schools were planning to shift the school safety division from NYPD supervision to the Education Department, and several candidates explicitly backed the idea of redirecting financial resources from the Police Department toward mental health and other student support.

The Adams administration reversed course on taking away NYPD’s authority of school safety agents, who are uniformed but unarmed police officers stationed at schools, and public conversation calling for systemic reform of school safety has receded. At the same time, however, the number of school safety agents has shrunk from 5,000 during the 2019-20 school year to 3,600 currently, a drop of roughly 28%. Many principals have concerns about the drop, but some critics of the current system see the declining headcount as an opportunity to rethink school safety.

Many candidates support staffing up the school safety agent force. Lander called for a pay increase for the job that has an annual starting salary of $36,000. He and others also called for expanding mental health support. Several called for bolstering restorative justice approaches to help address conflict resolution. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams believes that schools should get to decide their own safety approach, providing support for school communities that want more safety agents.

With a growing number of small schools, would you consider ramping up closures or mergers?

Nearly 200 schools enrolled fewer than 200 students last school year, almost double the number from about a decade ago.

And enrollment drops are expected to continue in the coming years.

With funding tied to student headcount, the next mayor will likely have to grapple with the growing number of tiny schools.They’re often costly to run, yet unable to afford a full complement of programs. Several candidates said they would support mergers or closures, with some saying they’d like to ensure community engagement in the process.

Cuomo said it would be “irresponsible” to take mergers and consolidations off the table. Mamdani said he’d consider mergers as well as capping overenrolled schools. Lander, who had issued a report on this as comptroller, favors mergers that intentionally integrate under- and over-utilized schools, through a lengthy community-involved planning process.

Adrienne Adams, however, said school closures are “not an option of particular interest,” and she would create a working group with teachers, parents, students, and city and state education officials to tackle the small schools issue.

What’s your take on mayoral control?

Under mayoral control, which became state law in 2002, New York City’s chief executive has a tremendous amount of authority over the nation’s largest school system.

Supporters of this system say that making one person responsible for the system’s performance ensures a clear line of accountability. Opponents argue that the system is anti-democratic and makes the system vulnerable to political winds with each new administration.

The state legislature will once again consider the fate of mayoral control, when it’s up for renewal in 2026, putting the onus on the next mayor to make a case for what the city’s governance model should look like.

Most of the candidates support mayoral control, but several called for greater transparency and including more parent voice.

Lander called for “municipal control,” with centralized management reporting to the mayor, but also space for parents, students, and other local elected officials to weigh in. He would, for example, “seek advice and consent” from the City Council on appointing a chancellor.

Mamdani said he opposed mayoral control “in its current iteration” and would create a more “participatory educational system” with “co-governance” from the Panel for Educational Policy, school leadership teams, and Community Education Councils. Ramos said she would consider bringing together teachers, parents, students, and experts to develop an alternative to mayoral control.

How would you respond to the Trump administration’s threats to revoke federal funding from schools?

Pushing back on the Trump administration has been front and center for many mayoral candidates.

Donald Trump has taken a particular interest in decimating the federal Department of Education, and in his efforts to root out diversity, equity, and inclusion programs from schools, Trump has threatened to withhold federal education funds. (The city gets roughly $2 billion a year in federal funding.)

Several of the candidates vowed to continue challenging the legality of Trump’s moves to withhold congressionally authorized funding. Brooklyn state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, for example, said he’d consider using the city’s financial contributions to the federal government as leverage: “New York must explore a nuclear option of withholding any state or local remittances to the federal government if Trump ignores a court order to give our city its funds.”

Cuomo said he would fight on behalf of the school system and that he had the most experience in standing up to Trump, but he also took a more conciliatory tone, saying, “I will work with the Trump administration to get the best possible treatment for the New York City school system and its students.”

Mamdani, meanwhile, claimed that Trump would have leverage with Cuomo, who he says “is backed by Trump’s donors.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.