NYC Mayor-Elect Mamdani Sidesteps Charter School Leaders, Raising Alarms About Education Policy
New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is facing renewed scrutiny after declining to engage with charter school leaders who sought dialogue on educating the city’s most vulnerable students. According to the New York Post, Mamdani did not respond to a formal request from 19 charter school operators who invited him to discuss collaboration and support for his affordability agenda.
In a Dec. 1 letter, the group emphasized the link between education quality and cost-of-living pressures facing families across the city. “Equity and affordability are inseparable,” the leaders wrote, according to The Post, proposing a Dec. 12 meeting at Ember Charter School for Mindful Education.
“When a family can count on an excellent public school near home, life gets less expensive: fewer hours on buses, fewer tutoring bills, fewer impossible choices between rent and opportunity,” the letter continued, per The Post. “In short, when equity rises, fewer people, especially black and brown families, feel compelled to leave our great city.”
Despite the outreach, the mayor-elect never replied, the outlet reported.
“So far there’s been radio silence,” said Eva Moskowitz, founder of the city’s largest charter school network, the 59-school Success Academy, and a co-signer of the letter, according to The Post.
Moskowitz added that she remains “optimistic” about working with the incoming administration, noting that Mamdani is navigating the holiday season while assembling his team and has yet to appoint a schools chancellor. “Let’s put petty politics aside,” she told The Post. “I’m patient.”
Charter school leaders contrasted the current silence with their experience under Mayor Eric Adams, with whom they maintained a generally cooperative relationship. That stood in sharp contrast to their frequent clashes with former left-wing Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose administration often took an adversarial stance toward charter schools.
In the letter, the charter leaders pledged to support Mamdani’s priorities, including his proposed universal child care initiative. “To be clear: our hands are raised sir, and we stand ready to do more. This includes helping to deliver on universal childcare AND more high-quality charter schools,” the representatives wrote. The letter was co-written and co-signed by Rafiq Kalam Id-Din II, founder of Ember Charter, The Post reported.
Charter schools play a significant role in New York City’s education system, serving more than 150,000 students across 285 schools—more than one in six students attending publicly funded schools in the five boroughs. Yet Mamdani did not appoint a single charter school representative to his transition Committee on Youth and Education, one of 17 transition teams totaling roughly 400 members, according to the outlet.
During the campaign, Mamdani openly opposed charter school expansion, rejecting proposals to raise the state cap on new schools or to allow charters to share space in city-owned school buildings.
Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated by nonprofit organizations, with most staff not represented by unions. Students are admitted through lottery systems, and the schools often feature longer school days and academic years. Their students typically outperform peers in traditional public schools on state math and English language arts exams, The Post noted.
The New York Post’s editorial board was sharply critical of Mamdani’s apparent dismissal.
“You’d expect Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, to want all kids to have access to high-quality schools that facilitate upward mobility,” the board wrote. “Yet he just dissed leaders from 19 city charter-school networks who offered to help provide just that access.
“Clearly, he’d rather side with ideologues and special interests that oppose charters,” the editorial continued.
“Truth is, charters — which are free, privately run and publicly funded — can contribute enormously to Mamdani’s goal of ‘affordability,’” the board added. “[B]lowing off these excellent schools would not only hurt kids; it would be a missed opportunity to advance his own ‘affordability’ agenda.”