Mayor Eric Adams fumed Wednesday about some state lawmakers he says are preventing him from improving the Big Apple’s public school system, labeling them “professional naysayers.”
Adams’ response came after state legislators introduced a new bill Monday that would grant him control of the city’s public schools system for just two years — rather than the three-years discussed last week and four promised by Gov. Kathy Hochul — along with bridling the mayor’s power.
“We know that our children had two years of real learning loss and we need to give some stability, and that’s why mayoral accountability is important. But it appears as though there’s some in Albany — some — that’s not aware of that,” Adams said in response to a question on the topic following an unrelated speech during an Association for a Better New York event.
“We have good partners in Albany who are fighting hard for us. We also have professional naysayers that, I believe, a small number of people there — we need to be clear on this, a small number — they’re not on Team New York and getting things done,” he said. “We have to get this done and it’s crucial.”
The mayor argued that not granting him supervision of the city public schools would harm young students’ long-term futures.
“We need mayoral accountability, we need it. We need it to stabilize the school system that’s dysfunctional,” he said. “How do you spend $38 billion a year on an educational system where 65% of black and brown children never reach proficiency in the city of New York? That’s unacceptable.
“But if you want to water it down, if you take away the tools that we need, if you don’t give us the opportunity to do so, then we are failing our children again and we’re going to have another generation of children who are not prepared to fill the jobs and be able to deal with the crisis that we’re facing.”
Adams also encouraged attendees of the business event to lobby their state representatives to give Adams him dominion over the Department of Education.
“We need your help to make sure that whomever represents you, to reach out and say let’s give [Schools] Chancellor [David] Banks, his team, the mayor of the city of New York mayoral accountability,” he said. “I want to be held accountable for educating our children.”
During budget negotiations earlier this year, Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed a four-year extension of mayor control, without changes to school governance structures. But that measure was left out of the new fiscal year spending plan finalized in April.
After the budget was finalized, Hochul promised Adams would receive mayoral control by the end of the legislative session and the mayor continued to publicly and privately make his case for the policy.
Last week, Democratic Assembly members spoke about a three-year extension of mayoral control at a closed-door meeting.
But legislation introduced late Monday — three ahead of the scheduled end of the session on June 2 — reduced the extension of what Adams calls “mayor accountability” to half of what the governor originally sought.
Along with an extension through 2024, the teachers’ union-friendly legislation adds an expansion of the Panel for Educational Policy, the city’s pseudo-school board, to 23 voting members next school year.
The United Federation of Teachers — whose members did not attend a recent rally to renew mayoral control — has advocated for more checks and balances on Adams’ power.
Asked by The Post Wednesday morning about if state lawmakers are taking their cues from the UFT, Adams side-stepped the question.
“I am not in the heads of Albany lawmakers. We have had great conversations over the weekend,” he told reporters after the ABNY event. “I communicated with the speaker and the majority leader as well as some of my colleagues, my former colleagues, up there and so we presented our case.”
The draft legislation also comes alongside a bill to reduce class sizes in the five boroughs under 25 students per class, with exemptions. The Post previously reported such a bill could be tied into passing mayoral-control legislation.
Currently, the PEP has slots for 15 members.
Under the proposal, five of the PEP members would still be appointed by borough presidents. An additional five members, one from each borough, would be voted in by parent-led Community Education Council presidents.
Members will be appointed for one-year terms, and the new bill includes language that protects them from being removed from their post for voting against the mayor or borough president who appointed them. During prior administrations, mayors had the authority — and at times, would follow through — to ax appointees who voted against their policies.
Adams on Wednesday expressed frustration about the potential outcome of him not receiving the same influence on school policy that previous Big Apple mayors have been afforded by Albany politicians.
“If a Boston fan can get mayoral accountability, then a Mets and Yankees fan should be able to get it also,’” he said, in reference to former Mayors Bill de Blasio and Michael Bloomberg, both Massachusetts natives.
“We deserve to have mayoral accountability. I want to be held accountable for turning around our school system.”
Jacqueline Martell — state director for Democrats for Education Reform, a pro-charter school group — blasted members of the state’s legislative chambers for proposing the two-year extension.
“It’s disappointing that leaders in Albany are only willing to give New York City’s Black mayor and his Black chancellor just a two year extension,” she told The Post in an email late Tuesday.
“This is a mayor who not only has first-hand experience as a student in the NYC public schools system, but who is serious about including parents in the decision-making process. Mayoral control and accountability has boosted academic results for Black and Brown students for nearly two decades. Why would we limit that growth to only two more years?”
The potential blow to Adams came as City Hall’s outreach to state lawmakers has come under intense scrutiny in the closing weeks of the legislative sessions as his team has struggled to earn support for components of his agenda.
More than a dozen lawmakers, lobbyists and veteran operatives previously told The Post that Adams and officials in his administration have attempted prompt action through news conferences or rallies, but often didn’t follow through directly with members of the State Senate and Assembly.
On Wednesday, the mayor defended his Albany lobbying efforts.
“My job — and I say this over and over again — my job is to present my case to Albany. I don’t control the lawmakers,” Adams told reporters.
“They will come back after I present my case. I did a good job in doing so throughout the weekend. We talked about the various reasons why we should have the control that is needed so we are gonna find out what they’re going to do in the outcome, and we are going to rock ‘n’ roll no matter what the outcome is.”
Additional reporting by Cayla Bamberger
