{"id":33238,"date":"2025-11-08T19:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T19:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/33238\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T19:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T19:19:09","slug":"zohran-mamdanis-options-to-nyc-schools-include-jamaal-bowman-meisha-ross-porter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/33238\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani’s options to NYC schools include Jamaal Bowman, Meisha Ross Porter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jamaal Bowman, the disgraced fire alarm-pulling former congressman <\/a>who illegally managed a middle school without a principal\u2019s license<\/a>, is \u201cpushing hard\u201d to be the city\u2019s next schools chancellor and is vowing to lead a \u201crevolution in our public schools,\u201d The Post has learned.<\/p>\n

The bombastic ex-\u201cSquad\u201d member sounded like he had already won the appointment from his socialist soulmate Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani Thursday night, when he addressed comrades at the Democratic Socialists of America\u2019s NYC chapter on Zoom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an educator, lifelong educator. When we get universal child care y\u2019all it\u2019s going to lead to a revolution in our public schools!\u201d he thundered.<\/p>\n

Disgraced fire-alarm pulling ex-Rep. Jamaal Bowman is campaigning to be Mamdani\u2019s schools chancellor. Stefano Giovannini<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s continue building power. . . . Winning this election gives us and Zohran the right to govern but it doesn\u2019t give us the power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowman, 49, who campaigned heavily for Mamdani, has been leaning on close comrade Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to lobby the incoming mayor to get him the city\u2019s top education gig, a source told The Post.<\/p>\n

Bowman did some lobbying himself this weekend \u2014 he was spotted strolling with two United Federation of Teachers officials at the SOMOS conference in Puerto Rico Friday.<\/p>\n

The powerful teachers\u2019 union endorsed Mamdani and is heavily involved in crafting his education policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been pushing for this job for a long time,\u201d the insider said of Bowman\u2019s desire to become chancellor.<\/p>\n

However, Bowman has run into opposition from another avowed Marxist, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who doesn\u2019t believe he has the necessary experience for the role.<\/p>\n

Bowman served as principal of the Bronx Cornerstone Academy for Social Action from 2009 to 2019. State records indicate Bowman was\u00a0issued<\/a>\u00a0a School Building Leader Initial Certificate on Feb. 1, 2009, The Post reported<\/a>, but he allowed the certificate to expire on Jan. 31, 2014, and did not re-establish his certification until Dec. 16, 2015.<\/p>\n

Bowman has a history of alleged antisemitism.<\/p>\n

In other words, for a period of nearly two years, Bowman operated a public school without a license \u2014 a violation of New York law.<\/p>\n

Bowman has been a vocal supporter of the opt-out movement, which encourages parents to block their kids from taking state exams, calling it necessary \u201ccivil disobedience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Westchester pol has been hounded by other controversies.<\/p>\n

He was censured after infamously pulling a fire alarm in 2023 to delay a House spending vote. Bowman also has denied that Hamas raped Israeli women on Oct. 7 and once touted 9\/11 conspiracy theories, <\/a>claiming on his personal blog that Osama Bin Laden was blamed for the terrorist attack to justify war in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Bowman was censured after pulling the Capitol Hill fire alarm. USCP<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is beyond evil, all New Yorkers have something to worry about here, but especially Jews,\u201d City University trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld told The Post of the prospect of a Chancellor Bowman.<\/p>\n

Bowman is only of at least four other chancellor candidates, all of whom carry baggage. <\/p>\n

Mamdani has not shown his hand so far in who will lead the nation\u2019s biggest school system \u2014 which faces plummeting student enrollment, chronic absenteeism and lackluster test scores on reading and math.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to be making appointments over the course of the next 50 days,\u201d he said Saturday.<\/p>\n

Other candidates include: <\/p>\n

Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos<\/p>\n

The current schools chancellor wants to stay on the job, sources told The Post.<\/p>\n

At SOMOS, she joined a Mamdani transition event at a San Juan mosque.<\/p>\n

Current schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos wants to remain on the job under incoming Mayor Mamdani. Stephen Yang for the New York Post<\/p>\n

She told The Post that she and the mayor-elect have not discussed whether she\u2019ll stay in her role, but touted her background.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a New Yorker, I\u2019m a New York City public school mom. It\u2019s important to me that the system runs well,\u201d Aviles-Ramos said. <\/p>\n

She is highest paid city employee,<\/a> making even more than the mayor, with a salary of $414,799 a year.<\/p>\n

Aviles-Ramos, 43, plans to \u201cride\u201d recent modest gains in city test scores<\/a>, the source said.<\/p>\n

But state officials lowered the threshold<\/a> for some students to get a passing grade, and a stunning two-thirds of city students are still not proficient in reading or math.<\/a><\/p>\n

Keeping Aviles-Ramos would bring continuity in curriculum initiatives, but she hasn\u2019t yet announced \u201ca long-term vision for the schools,\u201d David Bloomfield, a Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad School education professor, told The Post.<\/p>\n

She is relying on State Sen. Luis Sepulveda, UFT President Mike Mulgrew and Bronx State Assemblywoman Chantel Jackson to advocate for her, an insider said.<\/p>\n

City Councilwoman Rita Joseph<\/p>\n

Longtime educator and Brooklyn City Councilwoman Rita Joseph also joined the SOMOS conference in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

Joseph, whose district includes Windsor Terrace and Crown Heights, taught at PS 6 in Flatbush for 23 years and chairs the Council\u2019s education committee.<\/p>\n

Rita Joseph, city councilwoman and eucation committee chair, joined fellow political figures at SOMOS in Puerto Rico. Stefan Jeremiah for New York Post<\/p>\n

Joseph lacks the necessary credentials to serve in the position \u2014 a chancellor needs either a state School District Administrator or School District Leader certification \u2014 but she could easily get a waiver from Albany, Bloomfield said.<\/p>\n

Joseph was criticized after she \u201cregretfully abstained<\/a>\u201d from voting for a measure declaring April 29 \u201cEnd Jew Hatred Day\u201d in April 2023.<\/p>\n

Queens Councilman Robert Holden trashed the idea of Joseph serving as chancellor, saying she would just be \u201cmore of the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe would not break up or challenge the DOE bureaucracy. She always votes with the majority,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meisha Ross Porter<\/p>\n

Meisha Ross Porter (left) \u2014 at her $45,000 gala \u2014 served briefly as chancellor under ex-Mayor de Blasio and is vying to return to the post.. Facebook<\/p>\n

Meisha Ross Porter was the first black woman<\/a> to serve as schools chancellor after de Blasio tapped her to succeed scandal-plagued Richard Carranza, who abruptly resigned in 2021.<\/p>\n

De Blasio is pushing Mamdani to reinstall her because she has served as a teacher, principal and superintendent as well as chancellor, an insider aid.<\/p>\n

While in SOMOS, news broke <\/a>that she is under consideration to become CEO of Chicago Public Schools, and will interview with the mayor and the Chicago Board of Education next week.<\/p>\n

However, a source told The Post that she may be using the Chicago gig as leverage to sway Mamdani.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not a fan of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson,\u201d a source said.<\/p>\n

Ross Porter also boasted of hiring based on race and sex. Robert Miller<\/p>\n

Porter, 51, made news in 2015 when she celebrated her ascension<\/a> to Bronx superintendent with a lavish $45,000 gala that cost attendees \u2014 including her subordinates \u2014 $110 a head. <\/p>\n

She came to the party clad in a sparkling dress and tiara.<\/p>\n

As superintendent, she boasted<\/a> of hiring educators based on race and gender in a 2018 speech at Fordham University. <\/p>\n

In 2021, she proposed eliminating the SHSAT \u2014 the exam that determines admission into eight elite NYC high schools \u2014 charging that it denies entry to many black and Hispanic students.<\/p>\n

Kamar Samuels<\/p>\n

The-Chancellor David Banks appointed Samuels superintendent of District 3 on the Upper West Side in 2022, saying he would \u201cbring a spirit of innovation and out-of-the-box thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Insiders trashed Samuels\u2019 record. District3Supt\/ X<\/p>\n

However, insiders familiar with Samuels\u2019 tenure trashed his record and said they couldn\u2019t understand why he was being considered for the role.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s completely useless, no work ethic, always delegates responsibility, never takes any for himself. Tells everyone whatever he thinks they want to hear, and inevitably the lies blow up in his face,\u201d one insider told The Post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jamaal Bowman, the disgraced fire alarm-pulling former congressman who illegally managed a middle school without a principal\u2019s license,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4337,879,57,9,24,55,54,56,5271,58,82],"class_list":["post-33238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-department-of-education","tag-jamaal-bowman","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-schools","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}