Adams to ask Albany to extend control of schools amid budget crunch

Albany lawmakers will again weigh in on whether to strip the Big Apple of control over its schools this session as the city struggles to meet reduced class size requirements and the surge of migrant kids filling up classrooms. The issue is expected to be a topic at hand as the Mayor Eric Adams heads north to Albany for the State of the State — and his administration lobbies the state over a Big Apple wish list that also includes more funding for the migrant crisis, housing tax breaks and crackdown on illegal smoke shops.

The power over city schools is set to lapse in June after a two year extension was granted back in 2021. The city was given that extension as state lawmakers were hesitant about how the Adams administration would handle reduced class sizes despite even as Gov. Kathy Hochul pushed for four more years of control.

It seems unlikely that Albany would strip Adams and New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks of control but the question remains how many years may be granted. Adams and his schools chief will have to make their case as they implement brutal budget cuts to deal with the swelling costs of the migrant crisis which has created an influx of more than 30,000 students.

Assembly Education Committee Chair Michael Benedetto told The Post that the mayor has at least one ally in Albany and hopes to see the extension pushed to another two to six years this time around. “I want a longer time to give the mayor and the chancellor time to work their philosophy on education, to let it play out in the schools, and so that there isn’t disruption on a yearly, bi yearly basis, that, ‘who knows what’s going to happen?'” he said.

Benedetto said he trusts the city’s management of schools, even as Adams imposes $550 million in budget cuts to education, a figure so large that the state’s powerful teachers union is taking him to court. “You’ve got money that’s going out to the migrant crisis that we have right now and there’s a lot of money going to educate these kids too,” Benedetto said.

“These are unforeseen increases to the budget that he has expended so you may have to make adjustments. Well, that’s kind of reasonable.” New York State United Teacher has already issued sharp words against Adams for his handling of the schools and is calling for the state to expel Adams from control.

“It is simply not acceptable that one person has blanket authority over the country’s largest school system,” the union wrote in a December statement. The majority of asylum seekers in the Big Apple are families, with more than 30,000 kids enrolled in city schools. The DOE has also been behind on meeting requirements imposed by the state to cut class sizes mandated under state law, which City Hall argues will cost more than it wants to spend.

A series of hearings across the five boroughs is expected to inform a report being prepared by the New York State Education Department weighing in on the merits of mayoral control. The report is due to be given to Hochul and the state Legislature by March 31. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was the first to take over control of city schools in 2002 dissolving the old controversial School Board of Education.

It allows the mayor power over the city’s Department of Education, to appoint the chancellor and select members of the Panel of Education Policy. “It is easy to look back with rose colored glasses, but if we take an honest accounting, we’ll remember the truth: the prior system was dysfunctional, rife with division, indecision, and political posturing,” Banks said before one of the mayoral control hearings in Queens in December.

“Half of our students did not graduate high school, and districts were resourced inequitably, based on their connections and patronage,” Banks said. “At the end of the day, we need someone in charge, someone who can make difficult decisions and get things done—and who can be accountable to the public.

That someone is the mayor, who has charged me with providing direction and leadership.” Under Bloomberg, mayoral control lapsed twice as he battled the United Federation of Teachers. During former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure, mayoral control was often a topic on trips to Albany..