Commentary

As it appears on his website, it's 171 words in all, most of which don't have to do with what goes on in the classroom. And it's strikingly devoid of planks addressing deep-rooted problems. How will Mamdani fill in the blanks?

On Primary Day, you want to know "who is winning?" Leading up to the general election, "What will the candidate be able to accomplish or block" needs to be among the questions posed. That means taking the Council into account.

What was striking last night was how many candidates didn't have the substance to fill even 30 seconds, or revealed in that time an under-appreciation of the problems that are going on. I remain convinced that candidates still treat a host of school-related issues as taboo.

There's a lot that doesn't add up, at least if voters want to be able to make informed choices. Many substantive issues remain unexplored or underexplored, and the rhetoric often doesn't match what the winning candidate would be able to do as mayor.

Most of the candidates running for mayor of New York City have explicitly described the Trump administration as creating an emergency for the city, including in their assessments the prospect of reduced federal funding. But it is unclear how much they appreciate fully the impact of what is likely coming. They do, however, appear to be united in not admitting that emergencies require sacrifice.

Well, 50 actually (not including subparts). With a bunch of "why?" and "why nots?" Taboo breakers, too. Don't worry, though: I've thrown in some easy ones!

How hard should it be to get broad agreement on “unless and until you get the rules changed, follow them”? Not very. But achieving that consensus sometimes seems an impossible dream in New York City, a place where you’re generally not doing your rule-breaking in splendid isolation but rather in ways that have real impacts on others.

She has blocked a critical fair-housing enforcement bill that would bring transparency and accountability to the coop admissions process.

Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw, writing in The New York Times, wants you to believe that a worker's acceptance of a job for no more than minimum wage and a person's acceptance of a pre-ACA, bare bones insurance policy reflect voluntary arrangements. Even a moment's consideration shows there is nothing genuinely voluntary about either of these arrangements.

American Farm Bureau Federation study confirms agricultural sector's deep reliance on wildly underpaid workers. It warns that shrinking labor supply would spark "large-scale restructuring" of farm sector. But don't we need that if current system only survives by relying so heavily on unfree labor?