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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 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.
