Queens GOP Leaders Warn of Failing Schools, Rising Costs
By MOHAMED FARGHALY
mfarghaly@queensledger.com
Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa marked the first day of school by blasting the city’s Department of Education as bloated, mismanaged, and failing students, vowing to overhaul the system if elected.
Sliwa, joined on Sept 4 outside PS/IS 128 in Middle Village by City Council Member Robert Holden, council candidate Alicia Vaichunas, and Queens GOP Chair Tony Nunziato, laid out his education plan while pointing to what he called chronic failures inside the DOE.
“By fourth grade, two thirds of the students cannot read, write or do math at grade level,” Sliwa said. “And yet we keep pouring more and more money into a dysfunctional system with 13 deputy chancellors, 50 department heads. Teachers are still reaching into their pockets and having to buy day to day supplies for the children with a budget of $41 billion.”
Holden, who is term-limited after two terms on the Council, described systemic failures ranging from special education to attendance. “We have problems with special needs kids. Alicia, my Deputy Chief of Staff, has been dealing with this year in, year out and it continues. But the bigger issue is with DOE and the standards that each year seem to be dropping,” Holden said.
He criticized what he called a culture of automatic promotion. “Years ago, we used to have kids that were left back. Remember that? Well, that doesn’t happen anymore. People get promoted. The students get promoted automatically, if you happen to not even show up,” Holden said. He pointed to past grade-fixing scandals and principals who, despite misconduct, “still [collect] full salary… wasting taxpayers’ money.”
Discipline policies also came under fire. Sliwa criticized the city’s reliance on restorative justice, arguing it fails to hold disruptive or violent students accountable. He said past policies allowed for suspensions, expulsions, or transfers to alternative schools, but now students who assault teachers or classmates are simply sent to counseling sessions and then returned to class. Sliwa called this unfair to victims and dangerous for teachers, saying it only puts troublemakers back into the same classrooms they disrupted. He pledged to use mayoral control to restore stronger disciplinary measures and remove violent students to protect both teachers and other children. “If I assault a teacher, I am not subject to arrest… All it does is restore the troublemakers into the classroom,” he said, pledging that under his leadership, mayoral control of the DOE would mean a return to suspensions, expulsions, and transfers for violent students.”
Vaichunas, who is running to succeed Holden in the Council, said her phone had been ringing with parent complaints even as students returned for the first day. “People have been saying my children don’t even have a teacher in the classroom. Where’s the money going? The money’s there for the teachers. Why aren’t we hiring more?” she said. “Children that do hit a teacher or have a fight with a student, they’re not the ones removed… So things need to change. And I promise, if I’m elected, and when I’m elected, I will definitely make changes.”
Sliwa recalled his own experience in Brooklyn public schools, where campuses stayed open after hours for arts, music, sports, and English classes for immigrants, giving students safe, constructive outlets and teachers extra income. He argued that schools should once again serve as round-the-clock community hubs, open on evenings and weekends to keep kids engaged and out of harm’s way while also offering cultural and educational opportunities. Sliwa said that as mayor he would push to revive these programs, criticizing the current practice of closing school facilities after 5 p.m. and on weekends.
“The schools should be used round the clock as much as possible for the pursuit of keeping children out of harm’s way.”
Nunziato, who also heads the Juniper Park Civic Association, framed the issue as a choice between investing in schools or fueling future incarceration. “The next step from $42,000 a year for school is $72,000 a year for jail. And that’s what we don’t want to see,” he said. “We want these children to come out of our schools, proud, educated, and not into gang related or destructive of our neighborhoods.”
Sliwa said he would rely on Holden’s 40 years of teaching experience and on parents like Vaichunas to shape his plan, while promising to trim bureaucracy and keep schools open to the community.
“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Sliwa said. “It seems to be taking more money out of our pockets for education, but providing little in return.”
