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Mamdani S Plan To Ruin Public Education In New York

Leo Migdal
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mamdani s plan to ruin public education in new york

For more than 20 years, New York City schools have operated under a simple idea: If one person is in charge, one person is accountable. Now mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani wants to break that link. Mayoral control works the same way any strong organization works, with clear leadership. When one person is ultimately responsible for a sprawling entity like the city Department of Education, with its 815,000 students and 1,600 schools, decisions move faster, reforms can be evaluated and voters know who... In 2002, when Mayor Mike Bloomberg first convinced the state Legislature to move city schools under mayoral control, the goal was simple: end the chaos of 32 local school boards and give one leader... New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani recently announced that if elected, he intends to continue former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plans to abolish the gifted and talented program for kindergartners in public schools.

Mamdani’s comments are not shocking. As a self-described democratic socialist, his proposal reflects a broader trend in education: trading merit for equity. As the process stands today, incoming kindergarteners hoping for one of the coveted 2,500 gifted and talented seats are evaluated through teacher recommendations. While the testing requirement to enter the program has been eliminated, admission remains highly competitive, with thousands of families applying each year. Under Mamdani’s plan, students currently in the program would remain unaffected, at least for the time being. However, his comments sparked concern and added fuel to a fire that had been burning long before this election season began.

In 2021, de Blasio and his education chancellor, Richard Carranza, proposed a policy that removed standardized tests given to incoming kindergartners applying for the program. Under their “Brilliant NYC” plan, accelerated instruction was expected to take on a more inclusive role, taught in every classroom. The plan was met with backlash, and ultimately, de Blasio’s term was up before it could be fully realized. Critics of the gifted and talented program argue that merit-based screening perpetuates inequality by unfairly dividing students based on their race and economic status. They view entrance exams not as neutral tools for assessing cognitive ability but as a form of “privilege,” benefiting only those students who grew up in English-speaking households or had family support and other... November 5, 2025 / 7:25 PM EST / CBS New York

Of all the New York City agencies Zohran Mamdani will soon be in charge of, the largest, by a wide margin, is the public school system. Yet, the mayor-elect did not signal comprehensive plans for it during the campaign. Many are wondering if the status quo will remain or if major shake-ups are coming. The public school system is in the midst of an ongoing bus contract dispute and has an enrollment that shrunk by 20,000 students this year, according to the Department of Education's preliminary data. On Thursday, just hours after he won the election, Mamdani held a press conference detailing his transition. Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has proposed phasing out the successful and popular Gifted and Talented (G&T) program in New York City elementary schools, starting with eliminating kindergarten admissions next fall.

If implemented, his decision would drag New York City back to the failed policies of the de Blasio administration. Groups advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, such as the School Diversity Advisory Group that Mamdani pledges to support, have long called G&T racist and sought to terminate it because its students are disproportionately White... Claiming racism and cutting gifted and talented programming, however, merely diverts attention from New York public schools’ critical problems. The New York City Department of Education (DOE) performs dismally by every objective metric, from state assessment and NAEP scores to violent incidents and truancy. An end to G&T would only worsen these problems. Scrapping G&T entry at kindergarten, eventually leading to a full phase-out across all elementary grades, would deprive eager young learners of vital nurturing and stimulation, forcing them into one-size-fits-all classrooms—where boredom breeds disengagement—while doing...

Mamdani’s current proposal keeps the third-grade entry point for now. But without kindergarten admissions, G&T programs will wither. Their disappearance will likely widen the inequities Mamdani decries. A University of Pennsylvania study shows G&T’s proven results: students in the programs outperform their peers by 20 percent to 30 percent in math and reading by middle school, with low-income and Black and... Phasing out G&T will hurt these students most of all, as they will lose the rigorous academic preparation that can lead them to better high schools and colleges. Reviewing de Blasio’s dismal educational record is valuable because his “equity” advocates are resurfacing in Mamdani’s campaign.

They include de Blasio’s last schools chancellor Meisha Porter and key far-left education ally Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller. Anti-merit advocate and Democratic Socialist Jamaal Bowman, viewed as a potential schools chancellor in a Mamdani administration, isn’t promising, either. Below is my column in The Hill on the pledge of Zohran Mamdani to end some of the early Gifted and Talented programs in the New York educational system. The move is part of a national campaign against such programs as racist or privileged due to the higher percentage of White and Asian students who qualify. The fear is that the Mamdani administration will return to the disastrous policies of the de Blasio administration in rolling back on the programs. Zohran Mamdani appears to have a plan for leveling the playing fields in education.

Faced with a huge number of students with comparably dismal scores in math, English, and science, Mamdani is going to bulldoze higher-achieving programs. It is a pledge that only a Soviet central planner would relish. By eliminating gifted and talented programs in lower grades, Mamdani will increase equity through mediocrity. With some on the left demanding the closure of all such programs, the concern is that New York is following the trend in other blue cities. (His opponent, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, has said that he would actually expand these programs). Even the Washington Post’s editors have objected to his plan as “damaging education in the name of equity.”

Although Mamdani is currently focusing on lower grades, these programs are under fire as racist or privileged since less than a quarter of students come from Black or Latino populations. Activists have long objected that roughly 70 percent of students in gifted classrooms were white or Asian American, even though these groups comprise only about 35 percent of the student body. With Zohran Mamdani projected to win the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, his slate of socialist-influenced policies, from city-owned grocery stores to a rent freeze, are one step closer to reality. Mamdani's socialist agenda won't stop with housing policy or the minimum wage. It will also hit America's largest public school system and aim to kill the best thing about it. While New York City schools are routinely criticized for overspending, underaccountable teachers' unions, and general dysfunction, the city's group of selective high schools is a consistent bright spot.

Eight schools, including Mamdani's alma mater, Bronx High School of Science, admit students through an exam. The schools give talented students from all over the city the ability to escape chaotic local schools and receive an education at some of the top public high schools in the country. However, the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), which is the test used to admit students, has long come under fire for what critics say is a racial bias. That's because Asian students overwhelmingly perform best on these tests. In 2023, for example, over two-thirds of the students at Stuyvesant High School (widely regarded as the best of the eight high schools) were Asian. However, this framing is reductive.

It's worth noting that Asians have the lowest median income of any racial group in New York City. And, contrary to the popular vision of magnet schools being comprised of upper-middle-class white and Asian students, New York's selective high schools are economically diverse; 50 percent of Stuyvesant students are economically disadvantaged. At Bronx Science, it's 52 percent. But that hasn't kept politicians from attacking the schools as segregated, and the SHSAT as racist. In 2018, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) called the high schools a "monumental injustice." He attempted to survert a state law protecting the SHSAT, but the admissions change has so far been tied up... Over the years, Mamdani has stated that he would also attempt to ditch the admissions test.

"As a graduate of Bronx Science, I have personally witnessed just how segregated New York City public schools are, especially our specialized high schools," he said in a 2022 interview. "I support measures to integrate our public schools and fully fund our education system, including the abolition of the SHSAT." Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox. Zohran Mamdani has not sketched out a plan to manage the nation’s largest school system. But the Queens assemblyman, who won a decisive victory for the Democratic mayoral nomination on Tuesday, has one big idea: giving himself less power. Since 2002, the state has granted the mayor of New York City almost complete authority over the public school system.

The mayor unilaterally selects the schools chancellor and appoints the majority of the Panel for Educational Policy, a board that votes on school closures, contracts, and other major changes to Education Department regulations. Most mayoral candidates this year said they support mayoral control, though some suggested tweaks. Every mayor has lobbied state lawmakers in Albany for extensions to mayoral control since it was enacted more than two decades ago. Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic socialist, has vowed to be an exception to that rule. “Zohran supports an end to mayoral control and envisions a system instead in which parents, students, educators and administrators work together,” his campaign website states. In its place, he calls for a “co-governance” model that empowers existing organizations, such as elected parent councils and local school teams that include administrators, teachers, and caregivers.

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