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.
