Today is the first day of class for New York City public school kids, an exciting moment for students, parents, and all New Yorkers who value what our school system — the largest in the nation by a long shot — does for us. But what’s different about today is that this will be the first full school year in which Mayor Mamdani and his schools chancellor, Kamar Samuels, will be in charge from start to finish, as the last school year began under Mayor Eric Adams and his chosen chancellor.

It is decidedly not going to be a year of coasting along. Mamdani and Samuels will be faced with issues that have plagued our system for years or decades, including lagging reading scores, persistent racial segregation in schools, the ever-evolving conversation around specialized high schools admissions, an inability to provide proper services to students with disabilities,........

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