Mayor Eric Adams’ so-called “friends” in Albany are doing him, and the city’s schoolchildren, dirty with the Legislature’s proposal to grant him only a two-year renewal of mayoral control of city schools — with poison-pill strings attached.

As we feared, this bill badly undermines mayoral control.

It expands the Panel for Education Policy, the Department of Education’s governing board, to a bloated 23 members (up from 15). The mayor still picks a majority (13), but it’s harder for him to fire members who vote against his policies. That’s an open invitation for special interests to “turn” the board majority.

Putting hyperprogressive and -ambitious city Comptroller Brad Lander on the PEP, even as a non-voting member, invites more trouble.

The bill also mandates class sizes below 25, without offering funds to pay for it. As Adams warns, that could force schools to cut guidance counselors, social workers, art programs, school trips, after-school tutoring and dyslexia screenings. The real point isn’t to serve the kids, but to maximize the number of employed United Federation of Teachers members.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who vowed to go to bat alongside Adams, has a clear duty if this bill is sent for her signature: Veto it, and call the Legislature back into session to pass a true renewal of mayoral control.