NYC Mayor-Elect Mamdani Stuns Supporters With Charter School Decision
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani declined to respond to a written request from 19 New York City charter school leaders seeking a meeting to explore collaboration on educating disadvantaged students—an apparent snub that has drawn criticism from education advocates and city leaders alike.
In a Dec. 1 invitation, the charter school operators told Mamdani they were eager to work with him and argued that charter schools could help advance his stated affordability agenda. Rather than engage, the democratic socialist simply ignored the outreach, the New York Post reported.
“Equity and affordability are inseparable,” the leaders wrote in the letter, according to The Post. They proposed Dec. 12 as a potential date for a meet-and-greet 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 respectful tone and concrete offer, Mamdani never replied.
“So far there’s been radio silence,” Eva Moskowitz, founder and CEO of the city’s largest charter school network—the 59-school Success Academy—and a co-signer of the letter, told The Post.
Moskowitz nevertheless struck a conciliatory note, saying she remains “optimistic” about building a constructive relationship with the Mamdani administration. She suggested the mayor-elect deserves some patience as he navigates the holiday season and works to assemble his team, noting that he has not yet named a schools chancellor.
“Let’s put petty politics aside,” Moskowitz told The Post. “I’m patient.”
Charter school leaders contrasted Mamdani’s silence with their experience under Mayor Eric Adams, whose administration maintained a generally cooperative relationship with the sector. They also recalled frequent clashes with former Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose left-wing administration took an openly adversarial stance toward charter schools.
Despite Mamdani’s past opposition to charters, the school leaders reiterated their willingness to work with his incoming administration. In their letter, they pledged to support 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 charter representatives wrote in the letter, which was co-written and co-signed by Rafiq Kalam Id-Din II, founder of Ember Charter, according to The Post.
Charter schools educate more than 150,000 students across 285 schools citywide—accounting for more than one in six students enrolled in publicly funded schools in New York’s five boroughs. Yet Mamdani did not appoint a single charter school official to his transition Committee on Youth and Education, one of 17 transition teams totaling roughly 400 members, the outlet reported.
During the campaign, Mamdani opposed charter school expansion, rejecting proposals to raise the state cap on charter schools or allow additional charters to operate within city-owned school buildings.
Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated by nonprofit organizations. Most staff are not unionized, and students are admitted through a lottery system. These schools typically operate with longer school days and extended academic years, and their students often outperform peers in traditional public schools on state math and English language arts exams, according to The Post.
The New York Post editorial board was far less forgiving of Mamdani’s decision to ignore the charter leaders.
“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.”
For critics, the episode raises early questions about Mamdani’s willingness to engage with successful, results-driven education models—or whether ideological rigidity will override opportunities to expand choice and improve outcomes for New York City families.