The Bigger Apple: Education Special

Stuyvesant High School, NYC. (Photo by Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

For decades, politicians across party lines prioritized academic achievement. Today, bipartisan educational goals have given way to ideological battles. The right increasingly frames education around parental choice, while Democrats emphasize social supports, unions, and infrastructure—often neglecting academic rigor—even The New York Times (free link) agrees.

New York City’s recent Community Education Council (CEC) elections highlight this troubling shift. Originally intended to amplify parent voices, CECs have descended into partisan conflicts over merit-based admissions, transgender policies, and book bans. Advocates for rigorous education like Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education (PLACE NYC) encounter fierce opposition from progressive critics. Emotions run high. Recently, PLACE NYC sent a cease-and-desist letter to Council Member Tiffany Cabán, a Democratic Socialist, refuting allegations of ties to conservative groups like Moms for Liberty and support for book bans.

Parental frustration goes deeper: middling test scores and concerns about educational quality are increasingly cited as reasons families leave the city’s public schools. Few parents opt to engage with a system perceived as dysfunctional. Despite the city spending $4.3 million on the 2023 CEC elections, voter turnout was only 2-3%. Administrative failures – ballot errors, technical glitches, and confusion over voter eligibility – further erode trust, fueling disengagement and allowing vocal factions to dominate.

Meanwhile, the mayor-controlled Panel for Educational Policy (PEP), another platform for parental input, remains largely inaccessible, exacerbating parents’ frustrations.

New York City’s schools face critical challenges. To truly support students, the city must ensure transparent elections, foster meaningful collaboration, and actively engage all parents, not just the loudest voices. Without these steps, polarization and dysfunction will persist, sidelining the majority of families who want and deserve better.

From Left: Andrew Cuomo, Adrienne Adams, Brad Lander, Scott Stringer, Zellnor Myrie, Jessica Ramos, Zohran Mamdani, Michael Blake, Whitey Tilson. Photos via Getty Images. 

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo continues to dominate the Democratic primary, holding a double-digit lead over his rivals. A new Marist College poll released this week shows Cuomo as the first choice for 37% of likely Democratic primary voters, with Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani in second place at 18%. In ranked-choice voting simulations, Cuomo wins in the 5th round with 53%, with Mamdani at 29% and Comptroller Brad Lander at 18%.

The same poll found that 81% of the city’s Democrats believe it is headed in the wrong direction. This number holds solid across all age, demographic, and geographical groups, with minimal variation. 

CUOMO: U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who called for Andrew Cuomo’s resignation in 2021, endorsed the former governor for New York City mayor on Saturday, praising Cuomo as “the clear choice in the mayoral race” and citing his experience and leadership on issues like affordability, public safety, and defending communities from federal overreach (amNY, NY Post).

After last week’s warning, New York City campaign finance regulators withheld more than $600,000 in public funds from Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral campaign on Monday, citing evidence that he improperly coordinated with a super PAC supporting his bid. The board awarded Cuomo $1.5 million in public financing while investigating the alleged violations.

Ed Skyler, a Citi executive and former Bloomberg deputy mayor, has decided against an independent mayoral run, concluding that his pragmatic message would overlap too much with Andrew Cuomo’s campaign, according to a source familiar with his thinking. (POLITICO)

The UFT is the remaining large union to endorse. Given its nearly 200,000 members and ability to mobilize educators, families, and resources citywide, its endorsement is among the most coveted in New York City politics. The union is holding a mayoral forum this Saturday before its anticipated endorsement in June.

Photo via New York City Public Schools Press Office

State-Level Policy: Governor Kathy Hochul’s $254 billion budget includes $37 billion for education, introduces a “bell-to-bell” cellphone ban in schools, and relaxes oversight for yeshivas (Governor’s Office, Times of Israel ). State funding formula tweaks mean NYC schools will receive about $314 million less than they would have under the previous formula (Chalkbeat).

City-Level Policy: Adams has expanded curriculum mandates (NYC Reads and NYC Solves) to all middle schools, standardizing reading and math instruction citywide (Chalkbeat).

Most New York City mayoral candidates support keeping Mayor Eric Adams’ “NYC Reads” mandate, which requires all elementary schools to use a city-approved reading curriculum, though some want more flexibility for high-performing schools and better teacher training.  There is less support for Adams’ “NYC Solves” math mandate, especially the standardized approach to Algebra 1, with candidates concerned about a one-size-fits-all policy. The next mayor will have the power to continue, modify, or roll back these curriculum mandates as they expand to more grades. (Chalkbeat)

Academic Performance: New York City students have posted the lowest SAT scores in years, significantly trailing state and national averages, raising concerns about educational quality and equity (New York Post).

Local Governance and Elections: The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is in the spotlight as leadership elections are underway. Longtime president Michael Mulgrew is facing challenges amid a broader push for new union leadership (THE CITY). New York’s highest court heard final arguments yesterday in the Medicare Advantage saga (THE CITY, more below)

Advocacy and Reform: Danyela Souza Egorov calls for expanding school choice in New York, arguing that empowering families to direct education funding and challenging the influence of teachers’ unions could help address systemic issues in public education (City Journal).

(Photo by: Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

For years, New York City has promised its retired municipal workers—teachers, police officers, and other public servants—comprehensive healthcare coverage as part of their retirement benefits. Traditionally, this has meant access to federal Medicare, supplemented by city-funded plans that help cover out-of-pocket costs.

In 2023, city officials proposed a significant change: shifting retirees from traditional Medicare to a privately managed Medicare Advantage plan to ease budget pressures. City leaders argued that this move, which would affect about 250,000 individuals, would save the city hundreds of millions of dollars annually that would be used for raises for current members. But the proposal quickly sparked fierce opposition from retirees and many union members, who feared the new plan would limit their choice of doctors, increase red tape, and reduce the quality of care they had been promised.

This backlash culminated in a major upset during the 2024 Retired Teachers Chapter election, when the Retiree Advocate slate, running explicitly against Medicare Advantage, defeated the incumbent Unity Caucus by a wide margin. UFT President Michael Mulgrew reversed his position and withdrew support for Medicare Advantage; the electoral rebuke from retirees influenced a shift he acknowledged.

The Retiree Advocate group, now part of a coalition called ARISE, is campaigning in the current UFT elections on a platform that prioritizes protecting retiree healthcare and opposing any future attempts to privatize benefits. The issue remains front and center in the union’s politics, with candidates and caucuses staking out positions on Medicare Advantage as a litmus test for leadership and endorsements, ensuring that healthcare policy will continue to shape the direction of the UFT and its relationship with City Hall.

I asked my colleague Ken Girardin, an expert on budget and labor issues, to explain.  

LZ: What’s driving the union battle over Medicare Advantage versus traditional Medicare—and why has it become such a critical issue for NYC labor politics right now?

KG: Medicare Advantage would be different from the current “Medigap” coverage the city provides, where it basically picks up the individual cost associated with Medicare coverage. The approval process for certain benefits would be different. The bulk of the concern is among retirees worried that they won’t (in the future) be able to get coverage at the same level. Most wouldn’t notice the change.

Mulgrew sanctioned a move by the Municipal Labor Committee (which UFT and DC37 together dominate) to shift retirees to Medicare Advantage plans as a cost-savings measure. Retiree health care costs have grown in recent years (they are close to $4 billion per year, approaching half of total healthcare costs) because people are living longer after retirement and hospital/provider/drug costs in general are rising.

LZ: Looking ahead to 2026, what are the likely budgetary impacts for NYC if unions resist transitioning to Medicare Advantage—could the city realistically sustain existing retiree healthcare promises without raising taxes or cutting other spending?

KG: The city is in a tangled mess because retiree benefits are controlled by a mix of city statute and union agreements. The unions signed off on the Medicare Advantage move, but when some retirees challenged it in court, the city got tripped up trying to define the minimum value of benefit it needed to provide.

The City Council is going to come under enormous pressure to preserve the status quo, but the numbers don’t add up. The city was counting on savings from the Medicare Advantage transition, and those aren’t materializing.

LZ: Given this dispute, how might the internal dynamics and leadership struggles within powerful unions like the UFT shape city policy negotiations and labor relations under the next mayoral administration?

KG: The MA fight is blowing out in the open the fact that some of these unions are trying to serve two masters: the active employees and the retirees. Retiree health coverage competes with the funds for hiring and raises.

Remember, NYC has no-cost coverage for current employees, retirees and their dependents. That’s very different from NYS (where employees kick in as much as 31 percent toward family coverage) and even the MTA.

(Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

“Asian-American parents of gifted students have not traditionally been an activist constituency. But Mayor Bill de Blasio’s attempts to remove merit from the equation for New York City’s specialized high schools and gifted programs brought a forceful response from those whose children would be affected. Beginning in 2018, many parents—especially, but not exclusively, Asian-Americans—entered the political arena for the first time,”  Wai Wah Chin, the founding president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York wrote for the City Journal back in 2021.

“For universal school choice to work, there must be a diverse set of participating schools—and enough of them to serve families. Parents differ in their educational preferences, and individual students vary in terms of their own educational interests and needs. A market-based system should serve as an incubator for innovation in ways that traditional top-down school districts might not. There should be diversity and innovation in the instructional method as well as in the instructional content and values, within broad limits defined by the state,”  Ray Domanico writes in A Reformation in Public Education: School Choice in Theory and Practice, a Manhattan Institute issue brief from last year.

Cafe Lafayette. Photo by Liena Zagare

Lafayette, a French grand café and bakery in NoHo, is a stylish and welcoming spot that’s perfect for meeting someone over coffee, lunch or dinner. The large, light-filled cafe offers a relaxed yet elegant atmosphere, ideal for conversation. The menu features everything from artisanal pastries and their famous spiral croissants to fresh salads, sandwiches, and classic French fare, all complemented by excellent coffee and attentive service. 380 Lafayette, corner of Great Jones Street. Open daily 8 am-9 pm. 

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