Mayor Should Control NYC Public Schools, Adams Says In Bayside

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — Mayor Eric Adams stood this week on the Bayside High School steps, the same ones that he used to climb as a student, and called on lawmakers to keep the city's public school system under his control.

"Our outer boroughs schools have been impacted by the failure of not having mayoral accountability," Adams said at a news conference Tuesday, citing his own educational challenges, like bussing over an hour from South Jamaica to Bayside to learn at a better-resourced school, and having a learning disability that went undiagnosed until college.

"I know firsthand the power of a public school education, and I know also the difference of mayoral accountability and why it's important for us to fight on behalf of students in our school system," he added.

New York City public schools were formerly controlled by elected members of the Board of Education and community school boards (amid which corruption ran rampant).

In 2002, following major negotiations, state lawmakers granted then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg control over the Board of Education, which, under mayoral control, mostly consists of members hand-picked by the mayor (the school chancellor included).

Adams said that his appointments have ensured that school leadership is representative of the students that it serves, pointing to School Chancellor David Banks, who was also educated at the city's public schools.

"We're two black men, and the overwhelming amount of the public schools' students are Black and brown students," added Adams. "We're going to bring the commitment and dedication and understanding of what the denial of education has brought."

The legislature, however, hasn't grant mayoral control over the nation's largest public school system in perpetuity — state lawmakers need to renew the mayor's control when it expires every couple of years, which is slated to happen on June 30th.

Adams, however, said Tuesday he'd like to see mayoral control granted in the passage of the state's budget on April 1st, a move that Governor Kathy Hochul has also said she supports.

"As a former member of the state law making body, I know that there's no desire of putting policy into the budget, but we have. And when we do it, we send a clear message on what our priorities are," said Adams in response to a question as to why he was pushing for mayoral control to be passed with the budget.

He also stressed that COVID has made mayoral control more necessary, alluding to times that former Mayor Bill de Blasio was able to make (mostly) unilateral choices about how to proceed with learning at the city's schools during the pandemic.

"COVID has created a level of academic trauma and mental trauma. We must bring stability to the educational system," said Adams. "There's nothing better we can do for parents and children right now [than say] this is what to expect in the years to come after coming out of two years of uncertainty."

Adams was joined in Bayside by educational leaders and parents who share his perspective on mayoral control, but some lawmakers feel differently.

State Senator John Liu, who chairs the Senate Committee on NYC Education and represents Bayside, said he believes stakeholders are dissatisfied with the existing system, and that he's exploring other ways school control could work.

"There remain legitimate questions about whether or not the current system of mayoral accountability that has been so widely criticized, should be continued, changed, or abandoned," he said in a statement after a public hearing with officials, parents, educators, and the public on March 4th.

"We encourage the public to continue sharing their insights about what changes, if any, they want to see in the future of school governance and mayoral accountability," he said.