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Pressure mounts on Mamdani to detail NYC schools plan after Hannah-Jones article
By
Jessica Gould
Published Oct 1, 2026
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By
Jessica Gould
Published Oct 1, 2026
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A journalist's public reckoning over how to balance giving her own daughter a good education while fighting for a better, more equal public school system in New York City immediately became a hot topic on playgrounds and online forums across the five boroughs.
It's also put new pressure on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to present a more expansive vision for how to fix the city's schools, which are among the most segregated in the country.
"We haven’t seen a strong education platform in general,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a member of the group New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools.
Since Mamdani took office in January, his pledges to improve mass transit and expand free childcare have boosted his popularity and made him one of the most talked-about politicians in the country.
But details about his proposals for improving New York City's public schools have been scant, parents and education experts said in interviews.
As a candidate for mayor, Mamdani focused on early childhood education, but largely avoided contentious questions surrounding public schools. He advocated ending mayoral control of schools, but then reversed his position the day before he took office.
After opposing the specialized high school admissions test, the SHSAT, he pledged to maintain it, disappointing integration advocates who consider it a barrier for Black and Latino students. Only three Black students got into Stuyvesant last spring.
New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, the author of the New York Times piece published last month, has taken Mamdani to task for that directly.
“We already know what the solutions are. We just don't have the political will to enact them. So I would like the mayor to answer, when are we going to actually see a real and substantial plan,” Hannah-Jones said.
And Mamdani appears to be listening.
Mamdani called it a “devastating piece” on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.”
“It is an articulation in many ways of the systemic nature of the way that the public school system in our city failed her child. And the sad truth is that she is not alone in that,” he said.
But asked to offer a specific plan to address integration, he referred to efforts underway as “building blocks that we're using to develop a plan to deliver a rigorous and high-quality education.”
Former Schools Chancellor David Banks criticized Mamdani’s response to Hannah-Jones’ article as a vague “word salad.”
“He didn't really say anything. He said it's an urgency, it's a priority, but I don't know what that actually means without a plan,” he said.
He noted that the school system's demographics have shifted over the past decade. The number of Black students is now equivalent to the number of Asian students, at about 19%, with white students at 16%. Latino students make up the largest group, at over 40%.
Banks said it’s time for Mamdani to put forward a clearer vision for the school system as a whole. “The mayor's not given any big speech yet in respect to K-12 education, and I think the time has come,” he said.
Banks acknowledged that promoting integration was not a priority during his tenure. He said he continues to believe reforming reading instruction and boosting literacy is more impactful for a larger number of city students.
“At the end of the day, the challenges that are involved with trying to fully integrate a system are fraught with politics,” he said. “ It will also be something that will impact a small percentage of kids. But most kids, most kids who go to school in Brownsville are going to go to school in Brownsville. There's not gonna be an integration plan that's going to bring white kids to schools in Brownsville. … So I don't have time to waste on efforts like that when I have a much more fundamental issue that's sitting right in front of me, which is the fact that our kids can't read.”
Banks resigned as previous Mayor Eric Adams’ schools chancellor shortly after the FBI seized his and his brothers’ phones as part of a corruption investigation into the Adams administration. Banks and his brothers have denied any wrongdoing and no charges were brought.
Banks was chancellor for part of the period covered in Hannah-Jones' piece, which grapples with her decision to send her daughter to a high-poverty elementary school where more than 90% of students are Black and Latino. She said she made the decision because she believes “it is the choices of individual parents that uphold the [segregated] system.” She put her decision in the context of generations of Black families that advanced the cause of integration by sending their kids to schools where they were the minority and, at times, literally under threat.
But in doing so, she enrolled her daughter, Najya, in classrooms where key concepts weren’t taught, and where cafeterias and hallways were alarmingly chaotic. Her daughter recognized that she wasn’t getting a good education — and told her mother she made the wrong choice.
The essay describes the deterioration of Najya’s elementary school under a new principal, with teachers failing to grade assignments and chaos in the cafeteria.
In one shocking episode, Hannah-Jones’ describes the moment she realized Najya’s teachers had been marking her answers to math questions as correct when in fact they were wrong.
David Bloomfield, education professor emeritus at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, noted Chancellor Kamar Samuels was superintendent of Hannah-Jones’ school district when her daughter attended school there.
“That’s simply a failure of nuts and bolts of leadership,” he said of the lapses she experienced.
He agreed that Mamdani has not presented a clear vision for the nation’s largest public school system.
“He should have been working on this as a candidate,” he said. “We’re already nine months into the year.”
Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones' deeply personal article about her daughter's experience in city schools has sparked urgent conversations among parents.
Paras Griffin/Getty Images
Salas Ramirez’s group New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools has laid out a roadmap of policies to increase integration and boost equity.
She said the Mamdani administration could start by repealing some Adams-era policies – like getting rid of middle school admissions screens and removing the priority for Manhattan students at a swath of high-demand high schools in the borough. She also called on the administration to adopt the recommendations of a de Blasio-era diversity task force – a list that included replacing Gifted & Talented programs and redrawing school zones. She said she would also like to see the reading and math curricula replaced with materials that better reflect the diversity of the school system.
“I think our mayor and our chancellor have an opportunity to do something about our segregated schools today,” she said.
Mamdani has touted the rollout of free childcare for 2-year-olds, new preschool programs for students with disabilities, and new limits on screentime and artificial intelligence.
On "The Brian Lehrer Show," Mamdani said the work of addressing segregation is underway, but he believes it must be community-driven.
In June, Samuels convened working groups in five districts, with the goal of addressing "structural and instructional inequities” and advancing “academically rigorous, safe and integrated schools.”
“We have a chancellor who has not only already begun this work with district working groups and engaging directly with school communities on how to build this kind of a school system, but also someone who I picked for this role precisely because his vision for our school system was one that understood the importance of this work,” Mamdani said.
NeQuan McLean, president of the community education council in District 16 and a member of the working group there, said he agrees that officials have to work with local communities on solutions, but he’d like to see a faster pace.
“We know where the gaps are, and we need a meaningful role in shaping the solutions. Those conversations must lead to a clear education plan from 3-K through 12th grade, with a timeline for action and accountability for results. Our children get one childhood. They cannot keep waiting while administration after administration promises better,” he said.
This story has been corrected to note NeQuan McLean is president of CEC 16.
Tagged
Politics
education
new york city
Jessica Gould
Jessica is the education reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jessica reported on the shutdown and reopening of the nation’s largest school system, highlighting the unprecedented impacts on learning, health and mental health for students, staff and families. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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