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As lawmakers head back to Albany this month for the state’s new legislative session, several big ticket education issues are expected on the agenda, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s push to bring universal child care to New York City.
It remains to be seen what kind of reception Mamdani, himself a former state assemblyman, will get in Albany for his child care plans as well as other education priorities, including extending mayoral control, a policy on which the new mayor recently reversed his stance.
Passed over three years ago, the class size law remains a challenge for overcrowded schools in New York City. As the city enters the second half of the implementation period to reduce class sizes, lawmakers may continue discussions on how to reach the finish line. Some lawmakers are also pushing — again — for changes to Foundation Aid, the funding formula that provides a big chunk of money to local districts.
Here’s a preview on major education issues Albany may take on this year.
Universal child care expected to dominate discussions
Mamdani campaigned on making the city more affordable, including a promise to provide universal child care.
The average cost of home-based care was $18,200 in 2024, according to a report by the New York City’s Comptroller’s Office. That is a 78% increase since 2019. For center-based care, the average cost was $26,000, a 43% increase.
Mamdani said his team has been having conversations internally as well as with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office on child care. The new mayor estimated the plan would cost about $6 billion a year for New York City. Statewide, it could cost an estimated $15 billion.
“We truly believe that the absence of this is something that poses a great risk to our city and our state in terms of the ability for working class, middle class families to afford to stay here,” Mamdani recently told reporters.
It is an issue that Hochul has long supported. Last year, Hochul signed a bill that invested $2.2 billion in child care across the state, including $350 million for child care vouchers in New York City — but that funding was not nearly enough to meet demand.
An added wrench: The Trump administration recently froze $10 billion in funding for child care and other social services for New York and a handful of other Democratic states. Hochul said the state hadn’t been notified of the plans as of Tuesday, but she would fight back in court.
A (new) push to renew mayoral control
One of the few major education policies Mamdani offered on the campaign trail was to end mayoral control. But the day before his inauguration, Mamdani admitted he planned to scrap that idea and would instead ask Albany to extend mayoral control when it’s up in June.
“Though I have concerns about mayoral control, I also acknowledge that New Yorkers need to know where the buck stops with me,” Mamdani recently told reporters.
Ever since the state gave the mayor power over New York City schools more than two decades ago, every mayor has appealed to Albany lawmakers to keep it — and state officials invariably have extended the governance system, with tweaks here and there to chip away at the mayor’s power.
Under the current governance model, the mayor unilaterally selects the schools chancellor and appoints the majority of the members to the Panel for Educational Policy, the board that votes on major contracts, school closures, and major changes to Education Department regulations. The panel is often considered a rubber stamp for the mayor, though under Mayor Eric Adams, he did not have a majority of appointees due to vacancies, resulting in the board’s rejection or pushback of some city priorities.
Mamdani has pledged that his version of mayoral control will look different, particularly when it comes to community involvement.
Continued discussion on class size law
Limited funding may also provide challenges for New York City to continue making progress toward reaching the class size reduction law passed in 2022. By 2028, the law requires all high school classes to have no more than 25 students, classes in grades 4-8 to have no more than 23 students, and classes in grades K-3 to have no more than 20 students.
Teachers who are already teaching smaller classes are raving about the improvements they’ve seen in their students as well as their work environments, but over 40% of New York City classes have yet to see reductions.
“The most difficult stages are yet to come,” said David Bloomfield, a professor of education and policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, who believes that Adams “slow-walked” implementation.
To reach compliance, the city needs to hire more teachers and create more classroom space, both of which are costly, and lawmakers might revise the mandate this legislative session, Bloomfield said.
Revisions might include not only allocating more funds to hire teachers, but also increasing teacher salaries to attract more teachers. Lawmakers might also consider exempting specialized high schools with competitive admissions, where parents may be willing to accept larger class sizes, Bloomfield said.
“We are committed to implementing the class size mandate,” Mamdani recently said. “It is something that I was proud to be a part of in Albany, and when we return to Albany for this upcoming legislative session, we will also make clear the kind of support that’s necessary for the full implementation.”
He added: “We have to set teachers up for excellence if we want to demand excellence.”
Possible changes to Foundation Aid
Last year’s legislative session tackled how to update the metrics used in the two decades-old Foundation Aid formula. The formula takes student needs into account, providing more money, for instance, to districts that serve higher populations of students in poverty. In New York City, where more than 70% of students live in poverty, needs are typically high. Roughly 154,000 students, or 1 in 7, were homeless last year, living in shelters or doubled up with family or friends.
Hochul pushed to change how student poverty is measured, but many advocates felt the tweak didn’t go far enough, especially when accounting for the needs of students in temporary housing or foster care. Officials estimated that the city would have gotten over $300 million more under the old formula.
State Sen. John Liu, of Queens,, along with state Rep. Jo Anne Simon, of Brooklyn, introduced bills to further tweak Foundation Aid. They want to update the regional differences in cost of living, saying that the Regional Cost Index for the city and Long Island is still outdated by more than two decades, and they want the formula to better account for students in foster care or those experiencing homelessness.
“The cost to run our schools in New York City is significantly higher, and that is not addressed,” said Liu.
Other education-related laws
Lawmakers have introduced several other education-related bills in Albany. Here are a handful that might come up for discussion.
- “Alexandra’s law” requiring schools to teach students how to recognize and react to rip currents, rip tides, and undertows
- Directing the state education commissioner to come up with recommendations to incorporate instruction of “artificial intelligence system literacy” into K-12 schools
- Requiring computer science for graduation
- Providing specific requirements for instruction related to the Holocaust and genocide
- Implementing requirements and guidelines to reduce chronic absenteeism, including attendance reporting, attendance review teams, and early warning strategies
- Requiring the state Education Department provide districts resources and instructional materials on media literacy
- Requires at least two hours a week of civics instruction for grades K-12
- Requires comprehensive sex ed for grades K-12
Jessica Shuran Yu is a New York City-based journalist.
Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.
