A former chancellor and an assemblyman say Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa haven't been talking nearly enough about one of the mayor’s core responsibilities.
Over 90 minutes. That’s how long it took in the first of two general-election mayoral debates before anyone mentioned education. We heard about foreign policy, 311 and personal shopping habits well before the word “schools” was even mentioned.
There are more than 900,000 children in New York City public schools, and the next mayor will shape their future. If this city wants a new generation of New Yorkers who can thrive, education can’t keep being treated like the-issue-that-must-not-be-named.
Some will say education isn’t polling as a top issue. But that’s a symptom of a larger problem. Public conversation follows the questions debate moderators, reporters and everyday New Yorkers ask — and increasingly, the questions are about issues the mayor has no power over. Consider the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which dominated the first half of the debate. While New Yorkers may hold strong personal views on it, the mayor has no role in foreign policy. Contrast that with the delayed, muted whispers about the future of our schools, where the mayor has direct authority.
Even worse, the only substantive education discussion so far has centered on the kindergarten gifted-and-talented program — an issue affecting about 2,500 children. This alone cannot be the entirety of our discussion of education in a mayoral election where the winner will run the largest school system in the country. There are myriad issues that are complex, difficult and must be discussed — ranging from teacher quality to charter schools, truancy and more.
One issue in particular is at the foundation of them all: literacy. And it's an issue where New York City is in a serious emergency. More than 70% of our fourth graders are struggling to read, according to the NAEP. For students with learning disabilities, this is especially perilous, and an estimated one in 10 students has dyslexia. But reading hasn’t been discussed. Dyslexia hasn’t been discussed.
When questions on literacy don’t get asked, serious plans to improve literacy don’t get written. Education plans for our children’s future become sparse. We should want every candidate competing to ensure that every child is a strong reader. But it’s up to the media in particular to ask for that vision. If we don’t, we risk a return to the status quo where reading is ignored in the midst of a literacy crisis.
Teaching children to read is the baseline by which any school system should be judged. New York City has made real progress through NYC Reads — the initiative we advocated for, which was implemented by the Adams administration, to remove broken whole language reading curriculum and replace it with exclusively evidence-based literacy practices. But that was the beginning, not a victory lap. If the next mayor isn’t committed to continuing this work, those gains can easily slip away.
When schools adopt structured literacy rooted in the science of reading, students make gains. When they don’t, children fall behind. This isn’t ideology. It’s evidence. Other states like Connecticut, Mississippi and Wisconsin have deliberately chosen to prioritize replacing whole language with structured literacy and seen impressive results. Mississippi went from second to last in the nation to seventh in reading proficiency in just a few short years.
Silence has consequences. When education isn’t a campaign issue, it risks being overlooked as a governing priority. While education may not poll as high as affordability and crime, for many parents, the quality of their children’s education — their chance to succeed — is the issue, and one deeply wrapped up with questions of affordability. Many families aren’t just leaving New York because of housing costs. The effectiveness of their local schools is also part of their consideration. If you can live more affordably elsewhere and the schools there are a priority of state and local government, why wouldn’t you move?
Education is also one of the few issues in this race where candidates have genuinely different visions. Curtis Sliwa wants to rely more on trade schools. Andrew Cuomo wants to expand the gifted and talented program. Zohran Mamdani is focused on reducing class size by bringing more teachers into our schools. Understanding those differences matters. So does whether the next mayor will choose a chancellor with real literacy expertise and keep proven reforms in place, requiring evidence-based instruction in every classroom.
This election will determine whether New York continues to move forward on literacy or slides back to the era when most kids were taught to guess at words rather than read them. It will determine whether we build on progress or squander it.
Candidates, campaigns and the media should consider what’s lost when education isn’t given the platform it deserves. If it’s an afterthought on the campaign trail, it will be an afterthought in City Hall.
The second debate is scheduled for tonight, October 22. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait an hour-and-a-half to hear about reading, writing and the next mayor’s vision for our schools. Because that debate will likely be the last real moment to ask the next mayor what they’ll do for nearly a million New York City students.