Like many urban reform strategies, mayoral leadership in education has both proponents and skeptics. On the one hand, proponents argue that mayor-led initiatives have the potential to transform low-performing schools and to hold schools and students accountable to systemwide standards. On the other hand, skeptics see mayoral involvement as compromising the tradition of local democratic control, which has long been articulated in terms of a directly elected school board. Given these competing perspectives on mayoral leadership, this article examines two questions: First, what can cities gain from mayoral involvement in public education? Second, how do mayoral politics interact with school politics? Mayors know that good schools yield political benefits. When mayors are willing to spend their political capital on public education, schoolchildren are likely to benefit from broader public support. Mayoral leadership can reduce the institutional insulation of public schools, sharpen the focus on accountability, and improve organizational and fiscal conditions to support teaching and learning. When mayors are committed to lead public schools, the entire school system can benefit.