Albany budget deal gives Mamdani 2-year mayoral control extension, boosts funding for needy students

“Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox. Mayor Zohran Mamdani will maintain control of the nation’s largest school system for the next two years under state legislation unveiled on Wednesday. And the state will boost funding for homeless students, those in foster care, and English language learners, sending $143 million more to New York City’s public schools. Those measures are part of the state budget, which is seven weeks late. The agreement , reached between Gov. Kathy Hochul and the leaders of the state Senate and Assembly, is expected to win approval from state lawmakers. Here’s what we know so far about the budget deal. Extending mayoral control, no strings attached Mamdani will retain control of New York City’s public schools through June 2028, less than the four-year extension the mayor and Hochul pushed for . The governance system gives the mayor power to pick the majority of the school board, appoint the school system’s leader, and set the policy direction of the district. The extension did not come with any tweaks to the city’s school board to shift the balance of power away from the mayor — a break from prior budget deals . Previously, state lawmakers added board members who represent parents and limited the mayor’s power to remove his own appointees, among other changes. (The mayor still appoints a majority of the board.) Extending the status quo is notable because Mamdani campaigned on overhauling mayoral control to give families and educators more power, but he backtracked just before taking office and has since lobbied state lawmakers to keep the system in place. Mayoral control is often treated as a bargaining chip in negotiations between the mayor and Albany, and the two-year extension means Mamdani will have to persuade state lawmakers to extend his power halfway through his first term. That will give lawmakers an opportunity to examine the mayor’s education agenda, which has yet to come into focus. “We did not really hear anything on the campaign, and we’re still not hearing anything now” on the mayor’s K-12 education priorities, said NeQuan McLean, the president of the Community Education Council in Brooklyn District 16. McLean said he hoped for changes to mayoral control, including giving local education councils more of a say in school mergers, closures, and decisions to open new campuses. “This has been one of the most disappointing sessions that I’ve seen,” he said. Michael Mulgrew, president of the city teachers union and mayoral control critic, hopes the state makes changes to the system in the future. “Over the next two years, we will continue to work with Mayor Mamdani and the members of the state legislature to try to find ways to bring more parent and educator voices into policy decisions,” he said in a statement. More money for high-need students Updates to how the state doles out public school funding will mean more money for districts that enroll children with higher needs. Officials are adding new weights to Foundation Aid, the state’s main school funding formula, that will increase funding based on the number of students who live in temporary housing and are in foster care. It is also boosting an existing weight for English learners. That is expected to generate the $143 million in additional state funding for New York City public schools, where more than 154,000 children do not have permanent housing and about 1 in 6 are learning English as a new language. Overall, the state is planning to send New York City nearly $11 billion through the Foundation Aid formula, an increase of 5% or nearly $538 million. “We appreciate that the education budget includes long overdue updates to the State’s education funding formula, which has remained largely unchanged for almost two decades,” said Maria Odom, executive director of Advocates for Children of New York, which pushed for more funding for students with greater needs. Still, the budget deal does not include another change advocates hoped for: an update in how state officials calculate costs in New York City, which has not been changed in decades. Tweaks in last year’s budget deal resulted in the city’s public schools receiving $314 million less from the state than it might have, though the city still received more funding overall. Budget deal includes other education measures State officials will soon start nudging school districts to adopt “best practices” in elementary school math instruction that will be determined by the state’s education commissioner. By September 2027, school districts will have to verify that their approaches to K-5 math instruction meet those practices and are part of an “aligned plan designed to improve student mathematics outcomes.” New York City’s Education Department is already in the process of revamping middle school math instruction and has standardized its Algebra 1 high school curriculum , but has yet to make significant changes to elementary school math coursework. State lawmakers also extended the deadline for a state mandate to transition to electric school buses . Changes to class size law up in the air State officials have been considering a delay to a major state mandate that requires New York City to cap class sizes to between 20 to 25 students depending on the grade level. Mamdani has banked on the timeline change to help save hundreds of millions of dollars in the short term as the city faced a multi-billion dollar budget gap. State officials have yet to formally approve any changes to the class size law, which was passed in 2022 and must be fully phased in over the next two years. “Negotiations continue and may result in legislation in the next couple of weeks,” state Sen. John Liu, an architect of the class size law, said in a Wednesday press release. Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org .

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