New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has appointed Kamar Samuels as chancellor of the city's public schools.
Chalkbeat New York reports that Mamdani chose Samuels to lead the nation's largest public school system because “this moment demands a new generation of leadership” that “understands our schools” and has a “transformative vision” on how to lead them.
Samuels has served as superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3 and Brooklyn’s District 13. He started out as a teacher and principal in the Bronx.
Samuels’ work overseeing the school district's literacy curriculum mandate, NYC Reads, led to an increase in test scores, Mamdani pointed out. Samuels also secured more than $10 million in grants to advance integration efforts through admissions policies, mergers, and rezonings.
Mamdani also has reversed course on one of his main K-12 campaign pledges: He no longer plans to end mayoral control of the school system.
Instead, he will ask state lawmakers to extend the governance model when it comes up for renewal in June.
“I will be asking the legislature for a continuation of mayoral control,” Mamdani said, “and I will also be committed with my incoming schools chancellor to ensure that the mayoral control we preside over is not the same one that New Yorkers see today.”
Under the existing governance model, the mayor unilaterally selects the schools chancellor and appoints the majority of the Panel for Educational Policy, a board that votes on school closures, contracts, and other major changes to Education Department regulations.
Mamdani pledged to incorporate community involvement in a way that will not be “ceremonial or procedural, but tangible and actionable.”
Mamdani also promised to “improve the parent coordinator role to be a meaningful organizer of parents, rather than an administrative coordinator reporting to a principal.” The responsibilities of parent coordinators, a role created in the initial deal allowing for mayoral control, vary widely from school to school.
