Who is responsible for the failure of New York City’s public school system? With less than two months until the start of school, New Yorkers lack a clear answer to that question, which could become a hot one given the potential disaster for the 760,000 students in the country’s largest school district. The city’s education budget is in the midst of a judicial appeals process, raising the question: Will the courts have power over the schools or will the policymakers?

In June, the answer seemed to be Mayor Adams and his education chancellor, David Banks. After a protracted battle in the legislature, the Adams administration received a diluted mayoral mandate, continuing what has been the state’s policy since 2009. In the last moments of the legislative session at Albany, the Senate and House passed a bill that preserved the mayor’s majority appointment power over the city’s school board.

The bill was shaped heavily by union demands. The legislature created all sorts of conditions for the mayor’s appointees to the Panel for Education. Legislators also apparently made the passage of the legislation contingent on another bill to cap class sizes, increasing the number of teaching positions across the city, and boosting the size of the union. The mayor, however, retained control over the city’s education policy — supposedly.

Now, a city judge has issued an injunction against the education budget. The judge sided with activist parents who are upset about $215 million in budget cuts. The mayor and chancellor argue that such cuts are necessary given the school system’s decline in enrollment. This coming year, student enrollment is expected to be more than 100,000 youngsters less than that of 2020. 

The judge temporarily enjoined the budget on procedural grounds — it was passed by the city council before the school board approved it. State law mandates the reverse order. The education department will try to appeal the order. “I am gravely concerned about our ability to assure the orderly opening of schools this September,” Mr. Banks said in the filings. “I cannot overstate how consequential, and even disastrous this is for our city.”

If the mayor is responsible for the city’s budget, there’s no reason why the education budget should be the exception to the rule. The Adams administration could certainly use some luck in its appeal, but it’s hard to be entirely sympathetic, even for those of us who generally support for mayoral control of the city’s public schools. Messrs. Adams and Banks deserve a portion of the blame for a bungled educational policy.

Their missteps began when mayoral control sat before the state senate. The mayor lost good will with legislators after tuning in only briefly to a hearing, via his phone from the back of a car, in March. “I’m a little bit appreciative that the mayor showed up for a few minutes at the beginning of our hearing — disappointed that he’s not here to answer questions from our fellow legislators,” a state senator, John Liu, said at the time.

The Department of Education also waited until the last moment — the day of its first meeting — to appoint school board members.  After an appointment was withdrawn, months passed before a replacement was announced. This absence was a blow to the mayor, whose agenda lost in two votes — practically unheard of since the implementation of mayoral control. Now, the mayor’s office faces a lawsuit because of its failure to follow procedure.

The mayor’s office has also seemingly put little thought into the most pressing education issue facing schools today: How will students catch up on the learning lost due to the Covid pandemic? Facing heat from teachers unions over the school budget cuts, the Department of Education decided to sacrifice funding for post-pandemic student learning programs at the altar of the teachers union personnel funding demands.

The Adams administration just announced the release of $100 million of federal Covid relief funding to the discretion of schools. These funds were previously reserved for “specific academic purposes, like after-school tutoring,” the mayor’s office said in a press release. Now, these funds can be used for “general staffing in order to give schools the option to retain staff who otherwise were being excessed to other schools, or hire other staff.” 

Instead of building programs to close the pandemic-induced achievement gap, Messrs. Adams and Banks have focused their attention on growing gifted and talented programs — by marginal numbers — as well as creating an under-defined dyslexia support program and establishing an Asian-American history curriculum. These three items are far from being the most important issues facing New York City’s children. 

Of all the figures in this mixup, Governor Hochul emerges as the most clear-sighted. The Empire State’s executive branch is the only one that has understood its mandate. Ms. Hochul first tried to push for mayoral responsibility in the state budget negotiations. After the legislature passed a diluted mayoral control bill, she delayed signing it — reportedly trying to renegotiate its conditions. She also has not yet signed the teachers union class-size mandate into law. 

Still, the mayor, the legislature, the unions, and the courts have done everything in their power to frustrate Ms. Hochul’s attempts. New York’s schools lack a budget with 40 days until classes begin. If figuring out how to spend taxpayer dollars on education is too onerous for city and state officials, perhaps legislators should look to Arizona  — and consider releasing school funds to families, who can choose the best options for their children.