Zahran Mamdani’s incoherent education policies will destroy New York City’s fragile progress

For more than 20 years, New York City schools have operated on a simple idea: If one person is in charge, someone else is in charge.

Now the most likely candidate for mayor is Zahran Mamdani He wants to break this connection.

Municipal control works in the same way as any strong organization, with clear leadership.

When one person ultimately takes charge of a sprawling entity like the city’s Department of Education, with 815,000 students and 1,600 schools, decisions move faster, reforms can be evaluated and voters know who to blame when things go wrong.

In 2002, when Mayor Mike Bloomberg first convinced the state Legislature to move the city schools under mayoral control, the goal was simple: to end the chaos of the 32 local school boards and give one leader the power, responsibility and accountability to run the nation’s largest school system.

It’s the same model used by the world’s highest-performing school systems, such as the one in Singapore.

Mayoral control has enabled reforms to be moved quickly, such as citywide literacy reform under Mayor Eric Adams.

In 2023, it is New York City launched ReadsRequiring every elementary school to adopt one of three reading curricula.

By this school year, the plan had reached nearly 500,000 primary school students, with full implementation in just two years.

Compare that with Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest metropolitan area, which is not under the control of its mayor.

Los Angeles began encouraging the same shift to science-based reading in 2022, but three years later, only half of its schools have adopted it.

Under the mayor’s control, New York City’s graduation rate rose from 53% in 2003 to 83% in 2024, one of the largest increases in the country.

Two decades ago, only one in five students in New York City scored proficient in reading, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Today it is closer to one in three, a steady increase that has narrowed the gap with the national average.

Before the mayor’s takeover, New York City’s eighth graders were 12 points behind the New York state average in reading. By 2015, this gap had narrowed, and by 2019 the city had moved forward, where it remains today.

The gains were strongest for black and Hispanic students, who now outperform their peers statewide for the first time.

New York City is now outpacing other large districts like Houston, where years of mismanagement have prompted the state to replace its elected school board with a state-appointed one in 2023.

This is the record that Zahran Mamdani wants to back down.

Mamdani said he supports “impeaching the mayor” in Wednesday’s debate, but that is ridiculous. No one can be held accountable for failure if no one is responsible.

He says he believes in accountability but rejects the system that created it.

Instead, he proposes “co-management” of the school, a vague power-sharing arrangement between the mayor, parents and local community groups.

In practice, this means that the buck stops there no one – And the heavyweight United Political Union of Teachers will have influence.

New York City has tried this model before, but it failed.

Beyond that, Mamdani’s educational vision is unclear and scattered.

The few ideas he mentioned – expanding restorative justice, Cutting gifted and talented programs and Reject the growth of charter schools -Everything is moving in the wrong direction.

These are not plans to raise achievement or close gaps; It is based on ideology, not evidence.

Enrollment in city schools has already dropped by more than 100,000 students since 2019, a sign that families are losing confidence in the system.

The problem does not lie in controlling municipalities per se, but in how they are used, and the solution does not lie in abandoning them, but in using them more wisely.

We have already seen what happens when leadership uses its power to follow ideology rather than evidence.

In the name of restorative justice, Mayor Bill de Blasio It spent nearly $100 million On initiatives to make schools safer and more inclusive.

Instead, it made the classroom chaotic, Remove borders that children need in order to learn, and the disciplinary measures that allow teachers to teach.

When no one enforces expectations, chaos fills the gap.

We know New York has a long way to go.

After two decades of tangible progress — higher graduation rates, stronger reading scores, encouraging test scores — the city can’t afford to go backwards.

New York City schools don’t need to be part of another experiment.

They need someone who is willing to take responsibility, accept responsibility and deliver results.

Accountability has helped build educational progress in New York. Mamdani will throw it away.

Jennifer Weber is an associate fellow at the Manhattan Institute.