For the past 20 years, mayors from opposing parties with vastly different education agendas have agreed on one pivotal policy: mayoral control of New York City’s public schools. But Zohran Mamdani, who declared victory in last month’s Democratic primary,
On his campaign website, Mamdani said he supports “an end to mayoral control” — the long-running system where the mayor directs education policy and appoints a schools chancellor to run the department.
But so far, Mamdani hasn’t detailed his plans for an alternative. On his site, he said he’d strengthen “co-governance” through the Panel for Educational Policy, an oversight body that replaced the city’s old school board but mostly exercises power over contracts, and other advisory bodies like community education councils. Under the current governance structure, the mayor appoints most of the Panel for Educational Policy’s members. It would ultimately be up to the state legislature to change mayoral control, but it would be a political sea change for a mayor to advocate against it.
Still, Mamdani’s message reflects a growing sentiment among parents and educators who criticize mayoral control as a top-down approach that diminishes parent input, devalues educators’ expertise and causes chaos when new administrations abruptly shift course.
In a mayoral forum hosted by the United Federation of Teachers in May, Mamdani said he’d work with the teachers’ union and other stakeholders to formulate a new governance model and “chart a new course in this city that is less about understanding the mayor as a monarch and more about understanding the mayor as a leader who partners with the very people who keep the system running.”
His campaign did not respond to a request for more details about his vision for a new governance structure for the city’s schools, and he hasn’t elaborated further on the structure he has in mind at public forums.
Many education experts warn that abolishing mayoral control risks returning the city’s vast school system to what they consider the bad old days of corruption and fragmented policies.
“Part of what this demonstrates is a lack of historical perspective on policy in New York,” said Ester Fuchs, a professor of political science at Columbia University who helped spearhead mayoral control during the Bloomberg administration.
NYC’s road to mayoral control
Starting in the late 1960s, Black and brown parents frustrated by segregation and inequality fought for more local control of schools, prompting the creation of 32 community-based school boards with power over hiring and budgets in local school districts that governed alongside the Board of Education.
But over the years, as some school board members became embroiled in corruption scandals, reformers started calling for change. In the 1990s, big cities including Boston, Chicago and Baltimore shifted power over schools to their mayors.
In 2002, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg successfully lobbied state lawmakers for control of New York City’s system, establishing a new model where the mayor appointed a chancellor to implement unified policies across the system. He said the goal was to boost performance, reduce corruption and enhance accountability.
Since then, his predecessors have consistently lobbied state lawmakers to extend mayoral control, which the state legislature must regularly renew. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who assailed many Bloomberg-era education policies, called it “critical” for children’s futures. Adams said mayoral control is necessary to enact reforms, including his effort to address a literacy crisis among students.
“Mayoral accountability allows us to make much needed systematic changes quickly, efficiently and equitably,” Adams said in testimony to state lawmakers last year. The Adams campaign did not respond to a request for further comment on mayoral control.
But the vast majority of speakers at public hearings on the subject last year were critical. Some teachers complained about the massive shifts in priorities every four to eight years, with even the basics of reading and math instruction in flux from administration to administration.
Multiple parents said the oversight body for the school system, the Panel Educational Policy, where a majority of members are appointed by the mayor, is toothless.
Mayoral control will be up for renewal by the legislature again in 2026.
Prospects for change
State Sen. John Liu, who chairs the Legislature’s New York City education committee and endorsed Mamdani, said he expects robust discussion ahead of any change.
“The school governance system in NYC requires improvement,” he said. “People often distill it to mayoral control, not mayoral control. People who want mayoral control say we don’t want to go back to the way things were pre-2002. I don’t think anyone envisions that. … The question is what if anything would serve the students and families of NYC better than the current system.
“If Mamdani does win the general election and becomes the next mayor I expect there will be significant ideas and discussion on how the school governance system would change.”
Liu said he’d like to see more consistency in policy and governance. “It’s not a good thing to keep revisiting this every couple years,” he said of mayoral control. And he said the shifting priorities from administration to administration leads to policy “whiplash” among teachers.
Liu said New York City should learn from other models. Last year, the state education department released a nearly 300-page report on mayoral control across the country. It found New York City’s mayor has the most control over education policy of any city, while other municipalities grant more authority to a city council or school board. Additionally, some cities that championed mayoral control early on have started moving away from it, citing the need for more representation and transparency. Chicago, once at the forefront of mayoral control, will have a fully elected school board by 2027.
Jonathan Collins, assistant professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, said he favors more local control over schools.
“The idea of making policy for the folks in your backyard has always been the best approach,” he said. “But you don’t just do it on your own, you need checks and balances.” He said one challenge facing New York City is that so few parents tend to vote for community education councils, the advisory councils composed of parents Less than 2% of eligible voters have participated in past elections, and some parents say that’s led to minority views dominating certain councils.
But, Fuchs said, in a system of 1,600 schools and more than 900,000 students, there has to be “strong leadership” from the mayor. She said the city has already experienced the problems that came from decentralization, including “tremendous corruption.”
“We’ve been there, we’ve done that, and it’s not the answer for NYC Public Schools,” she said. “The history of education in New York City fluctuates between centralization and decentralization.” She said Mamdani “needs to sit down and talk to people who have been through this cycle.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
