Should the Mayor Control N.Y.C. Schools? Mamdani and Cuomo Don't Agree.
It is an eight-word question that hovers over the future of more than 900,000 children. Who should run New York City’s school system?
Across the United States, most districts rely on an elected school board to shape education policy, approve textbooks and hire superintendents. In New York City, the mayor wields nearly unrestricted control over those decisions.
But mayoral control of the city’s schools, and whether that system should be preserved or overhauled, has quietly emerged as a source of pronounced disagreement between the two leading candidates in the final stretch of the mayor’s race.
To Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, mayoral control has produced an undemocratic school system and must be changed, a position that he has maintained even as he moderates some of his views on other issues. His stance aligns with those of progressive families and the city’s influential teachers’ union, which endorsed him after the June primary.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/nyregion/new-york-city-schools-mayoral-control.html
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