Policy
Eric Adams embraces his favorite scapegoat Bill de Blasio
The two mayors touted $167 million in pre-K funding.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, center, joined Mayor Eric Adams for an early childhood education announcement. Shenal Tissera
Mayor Eric Adams teamed up with his predecessor Bill de Blasio Wednesday to announce a $167 million recurring investment into citywide expansion for 3-K and pre-K students with disabilities.
On Wednesday, Adams mentioned how he is following in the footsteps of the former mayor, who “handed off the baton.” Adams waxed poetic about de Blasio and his efforts regarding education.
“You cannot talk about the legacy of Mayor de Blasio without talking about what he did around early childhood education,” Adams said. “He just got it.”
Oftentimes, Adams has not been so kind to the city’s previous mayoral administration, taking shots at de Blasio and his administration for having “left the house in total disarray,” while also being on record referring to the city as a “mess we inherited” and claiming in an interview with the New York Post that, “when I started looking into this, I was shocked at how bad this place is,” referring to the city.
In 2014, de Blasio implemented a universal program making pre-K free for all children in the city. In its first year of full implementation “Pre-K for All,” enrollment into public Pre-K increased by 48,979 students.
De Blasio expanded the early childhood programs using temporary federal stimulus dollars that are set to expire. Up until now, Adams has taken aim at the budget for pre-K the past two years and 3-K in each year of his tenure. His sudden shift in favor of permanently expanding education for the city’s children is a welcome shift for early childhood education advocates, but they are still wary of the administration.
“You’re taking credit for something you have been cutting,” said Rebecca Bailin, executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care, an organization advocating for universal child care that was created in 2023 directly in response to Adams’ budget cuts to pre-K and 3-K programs.
“We’ll find out on May 15, when the enrollment letters go out. If parents are waitlisted or their options are only seats that are too far away from home, then that promise has been broken,” Bailin said.
A joint statement from City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Finance Chair Justin Brannan and Education Chair Rita Joseph said the mayor isn’t going far enough.
“This announcement still leaves out necessary funding for special education services required by law for children,” they said. “And leaves in place tens of millions of dollars in cuts for extended-day/extended-year seats, childcare vouchers, and outreach to help families access programs.”
De Blasio had only praise for the current mayor and his actions toward childhood education. He also took veiled shots at former governor and now mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo. He mentioned lack of support from Albany and dealing with “a door that was closed quite often,” in regards to carrying out his universal pre-K vision for the city. Cuomo was the governor for almost all of de Blasio’s time as mayor.
“I had to fight and fight and fight in Albany,” de Blasio said. “People will remember that, I believe, and I think they should remember."
He even went so far as to say Cuomo should not be the mayor of New York City after the presser concluded, although he did not give his endorsement for any mayoral candidate.