Mamdani doesn’t care about ‘upward mobility’, and his charter school snub proves it

You’d expect Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, to want all kids to have access to high-quality schools that facilitate upward mobility.

Yet he just dissed leaders from 19 city charter-school networks who offered to help provide just that access.

Clearly, he’d rather side with ideologues and special interests that oppose charters.

In a Dec. 1 letter, as The Post’s Carl Campanile reported, the charter leaders invited Mamdani to meet them at an Ember Charter School on Dec. 12.

The incoming mayor should’ve jumped at the chance.

Alas, he never even bothered to respond.

Truth is, charters — which are free, privately run and publicly funded — can contribute enormously to Mamdani’s goal of “affordability.”

How? By giving kids from low-income families the same top-notch education that wealthy kids get at fancy private schools. That’s the very definition of “affordability.”

The charter leaders also note that “when a family can count on an excellent public school near home, life gets less expensive: fewer hours on buses, fewer tutoring bills, fewer impossible choices between rent and opportunity.”

“Equity and affordability,” they argue, “are inseparable.” Indeed.

They also pledged to help Mamdani deliver on his promise of universal child care. Why ignore them?

In fact, he shouldn’t need new arguments about equity and affordability: Despite getting far less public funding than traditional public schools, they offer longer school days and years, and their students consistently score higher on standardized tests.

Last year, 68% of the charters’ third- through eighth-graders were deemed proficient in reading, vs. just 56% at traditional schools. In math, charters outpaced regular schools 69% to 57%.

Yet charters’ staffs usually don’t belong to a union, and Mamdani puts adults in the labor movement before kids.

He tapped teachers union boss Michael Mulgrew and its vice president, Mary Vaccaro, to advise him as a member of his transition team’s Committee on Youth & Education. Yet not one charter leader serves on that panel.

And he’s outright opposed charter-school expansion in the city, no doubt worried students would flee worse-performing, union-dominated traditional schools if more charter seats were available.

Mamdani has been taking cues from Bill de Blasio’s woe-begotten mayoralty, and the former mayor would’ve strangled charters if he could.

But blowing off these excellent schools would not only hurt kids; it would be a missed opportunity to advance his own “affordability” agenda.

Mamdani found the guts to meet with “fascist” President Donald Trump; he can at least visit charter leaders working miracles for the city’s kids.