NYC schools chancellor isn’t giving up on NYC Reads

New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels pledged to double down on the city’s reading curriculum after the release of preliminary state test results showing that reading proficiency fell dramatically among students last school year. 

“We do need to focus,” Samuels said during the keynote address at City & State’s Education in New York Summit Thursday morning. “We continue to have a lot of work to do to make sure that our kids are literate.”

The data, which was released by the state Education Department late last week, revealed that just 50.3% of New York City public school students in grades three through eight scored proficient in English Language Arts. That’s a steep drop from the 56% who scored proficient in the year prior. Alarmingly, younger students’ scores took the sharpest decline, plummeting 14% among third graders. Math scores, meanwhile, remained relatively flat at about 57%. 

While Samuels said it’s typical to see some incremental progress or decline year to year, he acknowledged that this level of fluctuation is unusual. The downswing essentially eliminated the 7% increase seen during the 2023-24 school year, which followed the initial implementation of the NYC Reads program under then-Mayor Eric Adams in 2023. The program was a major overhaul of the city’s reading curriculum based on phonics. Rollout to middle schoolers is currently in process. 

“It’s pretty unprecedented,” Samuels said. “We believe that requires a deeper analysis from us and from the state, and so we’re going to continue to look at that.” 

The downswing has spurred the concern of the United Federation of Teachers, a key supporter when the city announced that it would be shaking up its reading curriculum with NYC Reads. In light of the recent test results, UFT President Michael Mulgrew has threatened to drop the union’s support of the program. “The Department of Ed. is completely incompetent and irresponsible in its implementation, and we are not going to stand by,” he told Chalkbeat New York, slamming the city for not providing teachers with enough support to properly roll out the program. 

Samuels has continued to defend NYC Reads. “We are going to double down on that next year with our NYC Reads program, which is evidence and research-based,” he said. “We are committed to what works, and we’re going to continue to look at our screener data and make sure that informs our instruction every day,” he added, referring to the city’s own data on reading scores.

The coming school year, which looms just 28 days away, will be an important one for Samuels and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who appointed him. It’s the first full-length school year of the new administration, and much attention will be given to whether they can improve test scores and boost attendance rates amid soaring chronic absentee rates, how they’ll support immigrant children and the more than 154,000 students experiencing homelessness, and of course, the rollout of 2-K. 

Challenges aside, Samuels is excited. 

“I’m probably the only person in this room who wishes the first day of school was tomorrow,” he  said, drawing a swell of laughter from the crowd. “It’s my favorite day of the year.”