Education experts are asking what’s next for the city’s schools chancellor, and the priorities she pursued, on the heels of Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to exit the mayor’s race.
Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos Monday, during the annual “state of our schools” address,, touted the strides that the city’s public school system has made under her leadership, including increases in reading and math scores on the most recent state tests and positive reviews from a recent principal survey.
In her remarks delivered at Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in East Harlem, Aviles-Ramos noted more than 92% of school leaders in the survey said they “trust me at my word.”
Aviles-Ramos didn’t comment on what November’s mayoral election might mean for her, but to onlookers, the chancellor was making her pitch to stay in the role.
“With today’s speech, Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos defended her record of the past year and auditioned to continue the job under a new mayor,” said David Bloomfield, an education and law professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center.
The speech was planned ahead of the mayor’s announcement, and Aviles-Ramos rejected questions about whether her speech sought to outline priorities for a new administration.
“I just want to be clear, we're talking about children and schools. We are talking about the work that I have been in charge of doing by the mayor, and we’re not looking or talking about anything else,” she said.
Aviles-Ramos took the reins of the school system a year ago, when former Schools Chancellor David Banks stepped down. Banks announced he would “retire” just weeks after federal investigators seized his phone as part of its probe into the Adams Administration. Aviles Ramos promised to build on Banks’ and Adams’ priorities.
While the Adams administration has been dogged by corruption allegations, education experts have called his literacy overhaul a bright spot. The administration has been at the forefront of a movement to align reading instruction with the research on what works best for students, including a focus on phonics, vocabulary and comprehension. The rollout has been bumpy at times, but advocates and experts have said the city is on the right track.
“We definitely want to see the shifts around curriculum stay,” said Sarah Part, senior policy analyst at Advocates for Children of New York. She said the effort to reform literacy instruction must be given a long runway to net results. “We were clear from the beginning this had to be long term,” she said.
Aviles-Ramos has also led the administration’s efforts to reform math instruction, starting with algebra, and expand the math reforms to middle schools.
In her address, Aviles-Ramos announced a few new initiatives. She said the education department will expand a program that assigns school staff to keep close contact with homeless students and their families, building on a pilot embraced by mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. It will strengthen support for struggling readers, and pilot new curricula for English Language Learners. she said.
The chancellor also offered hints of a policy around artificial intelligence, including teaching students and staff to “use AI responsibly” and “mitigate bias” when using AI. The school system has not yet articulated rules around when students and teachers are allowed to use AI, and some educators criticize the education department for being slow to respond to the speeding train of the new technology.
She said details of the plan are forthcoming.
The administration has also faced withering criticism from parents for proposed cuts to early education, chaos in school bus service and problems with special education.
Education has not been a top focus of the mayoral campaign so far, but candidates have offered some insights into their views.
Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa all said they generally support the literacy overhaul, but might consider tweaks in implementation.
Cuomo, who is running for mayor as an independent after losing to Mamdani in the Democratic primary, and Republican Sliwa said they support mayoral control of the schools. Mamdani has said he wants to replace mayoral control with another model that gives parents and educators more influence. He has not detailed what that would look like.
United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew said he has been impressed with Aviles-Ramos, and thinks the next mayor should consider keeping her.
“She absolutely should be up for consideration for the work she has done,” he said.
