Zohran Mamdani is calling for a new approach to how New York City’s public schools are governed, challenging the decades-old system of mayoral control that concentrates power in City Hall. Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, co-executive director of AQE, said the current structure was built to consolidate authority and that now is the moment to build something more democratic. She emphasized that communities, parents, and educators must have a real voice in shaping the schools their children depend on, insisting, “[w]e have to make it work and figure it out, just as they did for mayoral control.”