Do Socialists Care About Education?

In big cities, the rise of socialism has coincided with declining interest in public K-12.

In big cities, the rise of socialism has coincided with declining interest in public K-12. It’s not just that socialists such as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani have different views on education than Michael Bloomberg. It’s also that they seem to care less about it.

In the 2000s, a period sometimes known as the “education reform era,” numerous big city leaders vied for the title of “the education mayor.” School reformers’ agenda consisted of testing and accountability, improving teacher quality, and charter schools. K-12 had a sky-high profile reflected in the celebrity status of school leaders such as Joel Klein in New York and Michelle Rhee in DC. Barack Obama called education “the civil rights issue of our time.”

I doubt Zohran Mamdani likes that framing, but neither did Bill de Blasio. De Blasio’s education agenda was defined by (1) what it was against (Bloomberg stuff), (2) using the schools to advance non-educational goals, such as racial equity, mental health, and access to social services. Yes, de Blasio pushed Pre-K forward. But that was an economic program, meant to provide school fee relief to families, more than a serious attempt to boost academic achievement. There wasn’t much of a distinct education-as-education policy that came out of the de Blasio years.

The question is, where do you locate education in your “theory of change”?

Mamdani has a robust agenda anchored in socialist values and quite detailed in certain specifics, such as housing and “community safety.” On K-12, the details are gauzier. Liberal observer Matthew Yglesias praised Mamdani’s savviness in his determination to “avoid making any alarming moves on education…and pick[ing] a seemingly status quo chancellor.” While Mamdani’s rhetoric grandly envisions changing New York from a neoliberal hellscape to a socialist Shangri-La, with the schools, it’s all status quo all the way.

The American left has a long tradition of resenting education for distracting from more pressing objectives, such as economic regulation and redistribution. In The Promise of American Life (1909), Herbert Croly wrote dismissively of how “Americans are superstitious in respect to education…because of the social ‘uplift’ which they expect to achieve by so-called educational means.” Croly criticized “the credulity of the good American in proposing to evangelize the individual by the reading of books and by the expenditure of money and words.”

In The Other America (1962), Michael Harrington wrote:

“…the impoverished American tends to see life as a fate, an endless cycle from which there is no deliverance. Lacking hope (and he is realistic to feel this way in many cases), that famous solution to all problems—let us educate the poor—becomes less and less meaningful. A person has to feel that education will do something for him if he is to gain from it. Placing a magnificent school with a fine faculty in the middle of a slum is, I suppose, better than having a run-down building staffed by incompetents. But it will not really make a difference so long as the environment of the tenement, the family and the street counsels the children to leave as soon as they can and to disregard schooling.”

On the current scene, examples of self-identified socialists who believe fixing schools is overrated include Matt Bruenig (who has “consulted” with the Mamdani team) and Freddie de Boer.

The 2025 mayoral election was about how affordability replaced crime. Back in the early 2000s, education did. Mayors who came into office after the 90s crime decline had to settle on a new issue. Education was a natural fit: both police and school leaders at that time rejected the idea that public services couldn’t be improved until “root causes” of such poverty were fixed first. It was a great era for what Statecraft editor Santi Ruiz calls “state capacity.”

In public K-12, building state capacity has to mean an agenda aimed at academic rigor that’s distinct from a teacher’s union wish list. Other MI scholars, such as Jennfer Weber and Danyela Souza Egorov, have laid out what that could mean during the Mamdani era and why it’s important.

But if Mamdani and colleagues maintain the prevailing socialist apathy towards education, that will mean two things.

For New York, a loss of stature. Education reform strengthened the New York City government’s reputation. Much like how, following the crime decline, several lieutenants of Commissioner Bill Bratton got jobs leading other cities’ police departments, Joel Klein’s lieutenants went on to lead Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Newark. The mainstream media is happy to promote stories of the government working. Just look at the positive coverage of the “Mississippi Miracle”—a clear example of education-as-education policy success—by many liberal news outlets who would eagerly tout New York’s success were there any.

For socialism, it will stay politically marginal. If the DSA wants advance out of big cities, it will have to shake off the reputation of a movement comprised of unmarried childless twentysomethings whose political engagement stems from unhappiness over the personal choices they’ve made. Yes, families care about affordable child care. But K-12 has an undeniable Americanness that guarantees its broad appeal and timeless appeal, especially to families.

Democrats traditionally owned K-12. But popular school choice policies in red states coupled with urban socialist neglect is a recipe for realignment on the issue.