The horrible reasons the teachers union just endorsed Zohran Mamdani

It’s easy to see why the United Federation of Teachers just threw its support to Zohran Mamdani: He’s already said he wants to end mayoral control of the public schools — which translates to putting the city’s teachers’ union in charge.

Per his platform, Mamdani “supports an end to mayoral control” as we know it in favor of something it calls “co-governance”; he’s elsewhere vowed “to give more say to educators and parents.”

Let’s be clear here: Before mayoral control, no one could hold anyone in particular to account for the public schools, as ever-changing political alliances determined who controlled the city Board of Education.

That left the UFT as easily the system’s most powerful player — with no effective voice for the kids.

Remember: Unions exist solely to serve their members’ interests, however much they pretend otherwise; that’s why COVID fears kept US schools closed the longest in areas with the most powerful teacher unions.

That Mamdani would give up power over the Department of Education’s $40 billion-a-year budget makes sense only if he also wants to avoid responsibility for the system’s 900,000 students.

Of course, the Democratic Socialist firebrand himself attended expensive private schools until he tested well enough to win entry to elite Bronx Science; he has no clue what non-privileged parents seek from the system.

Under a similar dynamic, New York’s governor has no control of the State Education Department; it’s bossed by a Board of Regents chosen in another complex process that again leaves no one to hold accountable.

So the state’s teachers unions set the agenda — and SED routinely waters down educational standards where it can’t eliminate them; the goal is always more spending on schools and fewer demands on teachers; nothing about improving outcomes for the kids.

You get plenty of sweet talk about “supporting all children” and so on, but zero real action.

That’s the future for most city schools if the unholy alliance prospers.

Heck, even Bronx Science and the other elite high schools (Brooklyn Tech, Stuvesant, plus the handful added after Mike Bloomberg gained mayoral control) will be at risk, though Mamdani has waffled on whether he’d seek to end race-blind admissions testing for those institutions.

It’s funny: The UFT’s record on mayoral endorsements is a long string of misfires, but the union still manages to keep coming out on top.

One more time: The city still employs a lot of first-rate teachers, who have no choice but to join the UFT — but those educators aren’t the ones the union mostly serves.

The state of public education in city schools should be a central issue, since the frontrunner has embraced the worst possible prescription.

Voters who care about the future of the city’s children need to rally behind someone other than teachers’ union pet Zohran Mamdani.