November 26, 2025 - 9:00pm
This week, New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani released his list of the more than 400 people who will serve on his transition team. Already, Mamdani’s critics and supporters have begun to dissect the list, attempting to predict how the mayor-elect will govern.
On the Left, the World Socialist Web Site complained that Mamdani’s team was only “acceptable to the financial aristocracy.” Elsewhere, comedian Kate Willet told her followers that the mayor-elect’s housing committee list was the “equivalent of having a healthcare committee stacked w/ insurance industry and lobbyists.”
The Right, however, was far more vocal. The Washington Free Beacon quickly flagged members of the transition team it labelled antisemitic and anti-Israel. Meanwhile, the New York Post and other outlets highlighted that Alex Vitale, author of “The End of Policing,” was named to the community safety committee “along with a ragtag roster of other anti-police reformers.”
While it’s unlikely that Mamdani’s transition team has succumbed to a total DSA takeover, there is one area that may be cause for concern: youth and education.
In a written interview, Mamdani proposed ending kindergarten-level gifted and talented programmes, sparking outrage from across the political spectrum. Critics argued that, even if this programme produces unequal outcomes, eliminating these opportunities for advancement altogether is not the solution. As the Washington Post editorial board noted, “politicians tread on dangerous ground when their pursuit of equity comes at the cost of children’s opportunities.”
Several members of Mamdani’s education transition team appear to be in favour of abolishing the gifted and talented programme. Nyah Berg, executive director of Appleseed, an organisation advocating “[r]acial, ethnic, linguistic and economic diversity” in New York City schools, has outlined on the group’s website “essential steps the Mamdani administration must take in its first 100 days to build a more equitable, inclusive and integrated school system.” Among these is reviving an updated version of Bill de Blasio’s controversial “Brilliant NYC” programme, which would “replace segregated Gifted and Talented Programs,” as well as measures to “prohibit public middle schools from adding screening criteria and to actively phase out screening at middle schools.”
Berg is not the only one. Matt Gonzales of New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools and Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari of the Alliance for Quality Education both contributed to a 2021 policy plan that denounced the specialised high school admissions test and sharply criticised gifted and talented programmes.
Progressive efforts to phase out accelerated learning programmes and overhaul selective admissions could risk lowering academic standards and limiting opportunities for high-achieving students — all in the name of equity. While Mamdani has pledged to keep the specialised high school admissions test, his position on much of the K-12 platform remains unclear. This is important because New York cannot afford to undergo more unsuccessful experiments in education. The city already spends about one third of its budget on education, and more than $34,000 per pupil each year, while math and reading scores remain abysmal.
How Mamdani navigates these choices will shape the futures of the nearly one million New York City public school students. What he decides now will define the standards, expectations and opportunities available to the next generation. The stakes could not be higher.
_meagan_orourke
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