Mamdani proposes tuition assistance program to bring 1,000 new teachers annually to New York City schools

New York City mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani has unveiled a plan to tackle the city’s teacher shortage by offering tuition assistance to prospective educators in exchange for a three-year commitment to teach in city schools. The plan, outlined Wednesday in Astoria, Queens, would aim to hire roughly 1,000 additional teachers annually at an estimated cost of $12 million. Funding would come from savings within the Education Department’s bureaucracy, according to Mamdani. The proposal comes as New York City works to comply with the state’s 2022 class size law, which requires all classrooms to meet student caps of 20 to 25 by 2028. Meeting these targets is expected to require nearly 18,000 new teachers, according to estimates from the Independent Budget Office. This reporting is based