New York City mayoral candidate and state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is facing criticism from parents after pledging to oppose charter school expansion if elected, as reported by The Gateway Pundit.
According to The New York Post, Mamdani stated in a pre-primary survey that he would “fight efforts to open more charters” and oppose allowing them to share space in city-owned buildings. In a questionnaire for the Staten Island Advance, he wrote:
“I oppose efforts by the state to mandate an expansion of charter school operations in New York City.”
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Arlene Rosado, a Bronx mother whose son attends Nuasin Next Generation, a K-12 charter school, said she was surprised by Mamdani’s position.
“I don’t understand why Mamdani would be hostile to charter schools,” Rosado said. She explained that she transferred her son to a charter school after he was bullied in public school, and his situation has since improved. “
Charter schools are helping kids in the community,” she added. “You should always have a choice. Taking that choice away is not cool.”
Mamdani has argued that charter schools divert resources from public schools and primarily serve wealthier families, a claim reported by The Hill last month.
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He has also pledged to audit charter schools that operate inside Department of Education (DOE) buildings, stating in his survey response:
“I also oppose the co-locating of charter schools inside DOE school buildings, but for those already co-located my administration would undertake a comprehensive review of charter school funding to address the unevenness of our system.”
He said the audit would examine “matching funds, overcharged rent, and Foundation Aid funding” to determine how to handle co-located schools under legal requirements.
James Merriman, CEO of the NYC Charter School Center, criticized Mamdani’s stance, telling The New York Post:
“As a member of the Assembly, Mr. Mamdani has made clear that he was not supportive of charter schools or even the families that chose them, but he has recently and repeatedly said he would be a mayor for all New Yorkers — and that, of course, has to include the nearly 150,000 charter school students and their families.”
New York City’s charter schools serve a large number of minority and working-class students, and the debate over their future has been a recurring point of contention in the city’s education policy.
Mamdani’s comments have sparked renewed discussion about school choice and the role of charter schools in the city’s education system.
Mamdani’s war on charter schools is pure hypocrisy from a guy who got his start at Bank Street—a $60K-a-year private school. He’d rather trap low-income Black and Hispanic kids in failing DOE schools than let them thrive at charters like Success Academy, where 98% of students are…
— CityDeskNYC (@CityDeskNYC) August 8, 2025
The mayoral race continues as education policy emerges as a key dividing issue among candidates.
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