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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.
Music
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.
