Mamdani Vowed To Lower Class Sizes. But He’s Facing Major Financial And Logistical Hurdles.

Zohran Mamdani will soon face a massive financial challenge that could imperil the democratic socialist’s ability to implement his costly and ambitious plans to remake New York City’s social safety net.

A state law capping school class sizes is expected to add billions of dollars in new hiring and construction costs and threatens to collide with Mamdani’s key campaign promises, including free child care and free bus fares. The looming financial hit is approaching as New York City is already grappling with a multibillion-dollar deficit.

Within months of being sworn in as mayor, Mamdani will have to steer public schools toward a critical deadline: 80 percent of classrooms have to meet the class size limits by next September. The state law — signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2022 — requires the city to reduce all classes to between 20 and 25 students, depending on the grade, by September 2028. The school system has projected up to $1.7 billion in costs for teacher salaries and $18 billion in school construction costs.

Further complicating matters is the politically fraught reality that a disproportionate share of that funding will likely benefit schools primarily serving students who are already high achieving.

Mamdani — who voted for the class size bill as a state lawmaker — campaigned on hiring an additional 1,000 teachers annually as part of a $12 million-a-year plan. But that level of spending would barely make a dent in the looming financial hit.

“His head seems in the right place. He seems … committed to the goal of class size reduction,” said Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, a longtime advocate for smaller class sizes. “But I haven’t heard more specifically how he’s gonna get there and I would like to.”

State Sen. John Liu — a Mamdani backer who sponsored the class size bill — contends that outgoing Mayor Eric Adams bears some responsibility for the headaches ahead.

“Mamdani’s challenge is going to be that much more pronounced because his predecessor did not take the need to reduce class sizes seriously,” said Liu, chair of the New York City Education Committee. “Barely anything was done to recruit more teachers and nothing was done to create more classroom space.”

The manner in which Mamdani reconciles the mandate with his bold agenda — implementing free buses and child care is projected to cost roughly $7 billion per year — could dictate whether his administration becomes a nationwide model for left-leaning governance or a cautionary tale about its limits. Mamdani must present his own budget by Feb. 1, just a month after taking office.

“He’s gotta balance the budget, make progress on affordability,” said Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog that promotes fiscal responsibility. “The law would require him to spend money that would not have great impact when he’s got these two other huge needs.”

Monica Klein, a spokesperson for Mamdani’s transition team, said the administration plans to prioritize the issue.

“The Mayor-elect will work to implement the class size law in collaboration with his chancellor while delivering his ‘Community to Classroom’ initiative — a citywide effort to recruit, train, certify, and hire new teachers and build a sustainable pipeline of exceptional educators,” Klein said in a statement.

Thousands of teachers needed

The final years of the class size mandate were always expected to be the hardest, in part because they will require massive teacher hiring.

The city set out to hire an additional 3,700 educators to help schools fulfill a requirement to have 60 percent of classrooms below the caps this school year, on top of the 5,000 teachers it needs to hire annually to fill vacant positions — a remarkable shift for Adams, who in the past blasted the statute as an unfunded mandate. It’s part of a program the mayor and schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos launched last year that allows principals to request money from the city’s Department of Education to help comply with the class size law.

Nearly all of the 3,700 positions have been filled, according to the DOE — close to three months into the school year.

“Our team continues to work with the transition team to build on this critical progress,” City Hall spokesperson Zachary Nosanchuk said in a statement.

Principals applied for the next round of funding to receive additional resources to meet the class size caps. Over 1,000 schools — or roughly two-thirds of the total — currently have space to reduce class sizes to fully comply with the law. But last school year half of those schools did not apply, Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, told union colleagues last month in an email shared with POLITICO.

“If your school has available space, please speak with your principal to ensure they apply for class size funding,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, the incoming administration plans to offer tuition assistance to recruits in exchange for a three-year commitment to teaching in public schools — and a mid-career track to help people who want to become teachers make the transition.

Space concerns

Even if the city hires enough teachers, hundreds of schools remain overcrowded. To address that, the city would have to find additional space or cap enrollment, a step the DOE has so far avoided because those schools are among the most highly sought after and typically packed with students as a result.

A working group launched by former schools Chancellor David Banks recommended limiting enrollment at some overcrowded schools and relocating prekindergarten programs to community-based organizations.

“We do need to cap enrollment in certain schools; it's a strategy that we have to use,” said parent leader Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, who sat on Banks’ working group. “Only so many students can fit in a classroom.”

The School Construction Authority has allocated over $6 billion to create more than 33,000 new seats in overcrowded schools, according to the DOE’s latest class size plan. The SCA has identified sites for nearly 13,000 seats — including in new school buildings as well as conversion projects — and is working to identify sites for approximately 20,000.

Some 113 schools received exemptions from the class size law this year because they are set to gain additional room onsite or nearby, the UFT said. The decision sparked controversy as the city would have fallen short of the 60 percent benchmark without those exemptions and exemptions for eight specialized high schools.

Mulgrew — a member of Mamdani’s youth and education transition committee — emphasized that exempted schools must have plans to meet the mandate moving forward and vowed to ramp up pressure on the SCA.

“In the last year, we have seen movement that we have never seen before,” he said. “They are starting to get it. We feel that we just have to get them to move even faster because we’re behind.”

Mamdani has only spoken of the need to fill vacant positions at the SCA to fast-track school construction projects, accusing Adams of not prioritizing the issue.

“My first order of business will be to exhaust every single option we have in front of us,” he said at a press conference in October.

Calls for delays or tweaks

A coalition of education advocates urged the DOE to request a pause in the class size law over equity concerns.

An analysis conducted by Chalkbeat found that the highest-poverty schools would benefit the least from the measure because they already have smaller classes. Nearly 80 percent of classes in the highest-need schools currently meet class size limits, compared to 52 percent in the lowest-need schools.

The school system concluded that a pause was not necessary given its progress. But Aviles-Ramos suggested in a call with community education council presidents at the end of November that all parties, including unions, work together to develop proposals for amendments the Mamdani administration can draw from, according to audio obtained by POLITICO.

“That way we can all be on the same page around what those amendments would look like,” she said. “Everybody needs to lobby hard in Albany.”

That idea has long been advocated for by some parent leaders.

“[It’s] all we have ever asked for … maybe start with the lower grades that benefit the most from lower class size and then we phase it in after that,” said Deborah Alexander, a member of the class size working group. “But unfortunately, they decided they were going to take the largest school system in the country and do it all at once.”

Liu, a state lawmaker, signaled openness to amendments.

"If the new mayor and his administration wants to propose something, then we're all ears,” he said. “We're not trying to make it difficult or impossible for anything to be achieved. But there has to be a plan to get to the goal.”