Both CNN and MSNBC owe Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) a guest-appearance fee for her excellent, instant post-election analysis of New York City’s mayoral campaign. She said something essential that none of the “in-house” regular commentators would—or perhaps could—say. Paraphrasing her point: Mr. Mamdani’s win, unlike any other Democratic candidate’s victory that evening, was achieved even as he was forced to fight on two fronts throughout his entire campaign.
There’s a very good reason military strategists have long advised against waging a two-front war, and the history of global conflicts supports their caution. The new mayor, Mr. Mamdani, indeed faced fierce opposition from right-wing Republican forces who barely concealed their anti-Islamic and racial animus toward him. But the other front—the one more adept at disguising its Islamophobia and bigotry—was made up of the familiar figures every organizational leader recognizes: the passive-aggressive insiders. In this case, they were Democratic Party leaders, politicians, and candidates who refused to endorse Mr. Mamdani, even though he had won the primary fair and square.
Some offered slow, tepid, and perfunctory endorsements—what can only be described as “wimpy support.” This double-standard hypocrisy, the idea that “voting blue is good for you, but not always for me,” is a betrayal all too familiar to African Americans, including Brother Kwame Mamdani himself.
Now, I am convinced that those two anti-Zohran antagonistic forces—though severely wounded on November 4—are far from dead. In fact, I believe they are already regrouping and developing plans to ensure that Mr. Mamdani’s tenure as mayor ends in failure.
I know what you’re thinking: “But many of those oppositional people are ‘liberal,’ professional Democrats, and people of color.” It doesn’t matter. I learned that lesson painfully during my tenure as superintendent of Community School District 29 in Queens (CSD29Q) from 2000 to 2003.
It didn’t matter that we sought only to do what was right and good for our citizens—in our case, to dramatically and sustainably raise academic achievement in every school, for every student cohort across the district. It didn’t matter that our intentions were noble or our goals equitable. An alliance quickly formed among those wounded by my appointment. They were injured, yes—but not dead. And soon, I found myself fighting on two fronts: one against white racist indifference, and the other against Black leaders, many of them elected officials, who wanted to restore the corrupted status quo that had necessitated my assignment to the district in the first place.
One of the NYCDOE administrators assigned to brief me on the district compassionately went off script, warning me—something I would later hear echoed by several senior officials—that Community School District 29 in Queens (CSD29Q) was “pound for pound, the most underachieving district in the city, given its large Black middle-class homeownership and strong, often two-parent working families.”
When I moved to Southeast Queens, I quickly understood that assertion. On my block in Cambria Heights, every Black family lived in a well-kept home, with both parents often holding solid city, state, or federal civil service jobs. So, the natural and haunting question emerged: Why aren’t these children doing better academically?
Over the next three years, I learned that my block was no exception. The pattern repeated itself across the district. Complaining about socio-economic obstacles—accurate as such complaints may be—has unfortunately risen to an art form in my profession. But as I often reminded the CSD29Q staff: “If we can’t get these Southeast Queens children to succeed academically, then what are we doing as public educators?”
So, like me, Mr. Mamdani will need to continue waging a two-front war if he truly intends to serve and protect our most disinherited and disenfranchised New York City citizens. But unlike me, I hope he remains in office long enough to enact irreversible positive change.
We will soon know whether the new mayor truly plans to fight for our most educationally vulnerable children—those condemned by their zip codes to live in a learning-rich city that too often provides them with an inferior, second-class education.
Much will depend on whom Mr. Mamdani appoints as Schools Chancellor. Will it be someone from the “go-along-to-get-along” leadership side of the table—a professional educator fluent in bold rhetorical flourishes and the latest slogan-filled pedagogical sound bites, yet firmly committed to maintaining the educational status quo?
If so, thousands of Black and Latino children, and their families, will remain trapped—denied the beauty of generational-leap improvement, which is one of the true moral missions of public education. And if that happens, the new mayor may as well keep Rikers Island open, because he will surely need the space.
In the end, every leader who dares to confront entrenched systems of inequity must learn to fight on two fronts: against the obvious adversaries outside the gates and the quieter, more insidious forces within.
Mr. Mamdani’s true test will not be in his campaign slogans or early policy speeches, but in his willingness to stand firm when the comfortable, the connected, and the complicit push back. If he can hold that line—fighting both battles with integrity, courage, and love for those children whom this city too easily forgets—then perhaps New York will finally live up to its promise of being not just a great city, but an educationally just one.
Michael A. Johnson is a former New York City public school teacher, principal, and superintendent (Community School District 29, Queens), a district STEM education program director, and a former adjunct college professor of science education. He is the author of two books on school leadership, designed to prepare the next generation of Assistant Principals and Principals. Johnson writes frequently on educational equity, leadership ethics, and real systemic reform in public education.
