New York City Mayor Eric Adams will continue to have authority over city public schools, as per the agreement between Gov. Kathy Hochul and lawmakers on the state budget.
Lawmakers passed a budget bill on Saturday, including a two-year extension of mayoral control. This means that Adams, and a city mayor elected in 2025, would continue to have control over the country’s largest school system.
“In the 22 years since mayoral accountability was implemented, New York City’s public schools have transformed — increasing our students’ reading scores, math scores, and graduation rates; reducing the racial disparity gap; allowing the implementation of critical initiatives like ‘NYC Reads’ and universal dyslexia screenings, and ensuring a seamless and timely coordination with partners to welcome, enroll, and support thousands of newly-arriving students and their families on a citywide scale,” said Adams in a statement.
The mayor of New York City has had control of public schools since 2002, when then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg got the state legislature to grant him authority for seven years. With that, school boards became the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP), which is now a largely mayor-appointed board that makes decisions on contracts and policies in New York City schools.
Prior to that, local school boards had control over the approximately 1,800 schools. In addition to the extension, the PEP will grow by one member — with the chair of the board appointed from a set of nominees selected by state officials. Senate and Assembly leaders, as well as the state Board of Regents chancellor, will nominate candidates to oversee the panel. The mayor will then select the chair from those nominees.
The city Department of Education will also be required to make more strict commitments to meet the state’s class size mandate, including building new schools. United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew stated that more work needs to be done on mayoral control.
“… The introduction of independent leadership to the Panel for Educational Policy provides more checks and balances in school governance,” said Mulgrew.
The two-year extension comes after New York State Education Department released a report that reviewed the effectiveness of mayoral control as the two-year extension expires on June 30. In the report, the state did not advocate for extending or removing mayoral control of city public schools. Instead, it outlined findings and recommendations for mayoral control.
