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All New York City middle schools will be required to use city-approved curriculums for reading and math by fall 2027, Mayor Eric Adams and Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos announced Monday.
As the mandates are phased in, 102 middle schools across eight districts will be required this September to use a city-approved reading program selected by their superintendent, building on a literacy overhaul that was launched two years ago in elementary schools.
And in math, officials are continuing a planned expansion of a middle school mandate, adding 84 schools in six local districts this fall. Just over 100 middle schools are already part of the math curriculum requirement. (There are 529 middle schools across the city’s 32 local districts.)
Adams’ education agenda has been defined by curriculum mandates to improve reading and math proficiency. Monday’s announcement indicates Adams is following through on plans to deepen those efforts. Proponents of the curriculum overhaul contend that it can take years for the changes to bear fruit, likely leaving it up to Adams’ successor to see the effort through as the mayor faces an uncertain path to re-election.
Adams and his first chancellor, David Banks, argued that schools have had too much leeway to pick their own curriculums, leading to uneven academic results. Under half of students in grades 3-8 are proficient in reading while about 53% are proficient in math, according to state tests.
“We can’t continue to do the same things that we have been always doing and expecting to get better results,” Adams said during a press conference at Brooklyn’s Dock Street School for STEAM Studies.
The reading and math curriculum mandates, known respectively as NYC Reads and NYC Solves, are meant to guarantee that schools are using high-quality programs. Principals have traditionally been allowed to cobble together their own approaches. Many used programs that do not line up with research about how children learn to read. Additionally, using one curriculum in each district makes it easier to scale up teacher training and may be less disruptive for students who switch schools.
The mandates have won mixed reactions from parents and educators. Some have raised concerns about the specific curriculums city officials chose and others said the city’s training efforts have been uneven. All of the city’s elementary schools are now required to use one of three reading programs, and nearly all high schools have adopted a common Algebra 1 curriculum.
Teachers union chief Michael Mulgrew, a key supporter of the literacy mandate and vocal critic of the high school math mandate, did not appear at Monday’s press conference. Alison Gendar, a union spokesperson, criticized the decision to expand the math mandate to middle schools.
“The DOE rollout of the new math curriculum in the high schools was dreadful,” she wrote. “It makes no sense for the DOE to expand the math curriculum to middle schools when its work in high schools is unfinished.”
The principals union has been more concerned about curriculum mandates, and a spokesperson did not say whether the union supports the addition of middle schools. Both unions have secured some changes to the existing mandates.
The city has not yet seen clear-cut gains from the new curriculums. State reading scores dropped last school year, with larger declines in districts using the mandated reading programs, though officials pointed to other assessment data that they said is more encouraging.
Aviles-Ramos said some test score drops are expected as teachers learn how to use the new programs. “We are truly listening to what’s happening on the ground so we can address any issues,” she said. She also predicted gains in student proficiency.
“I’m super confident as we embark on state exam season that we are going to see improvements,” Aviles-Ramos said. City officials have instructed schools to ramp up test prep for students at the cusp of passing the reading tests.
Educators at schools covered by the expanded reading and math curriculum mandates will begin to receive training this spring in addition to 12 days of “job-embedded coaching” this fall.
All but one of the districts in the first wave of the middle school reading curriculum mandate will use a program called EL Education, including Manhattan Districts 1 and 3; Districts 7, 9, 11, and 12 in the Bronx; and District 13 in Brooklyn. District 19 in Brooklyn will use a curriculum called Wit & Wisdom.
In three of those districts — 3, 9, and 12 — the superintendents chose to mandate different reading programs in their middle and elementary schools. Education Department officials said superintendents made choices about which program to mandate based in part on how many schools were already using them. They did not immediately say how many middle schools are already using the curriculums mandated by their superintendent.
Notably, none of the superintendents in the initial wave chose the middle school version of Into Reading, the most commonly mandated curriculum at the elementary school level. That program has faced criticism from some educators and advocates who contend that it is not culturally responsive, is too reliant on text excerpts rather than full books, and is not focused enough on building students’ content knowledge. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the company behind the program, has previously disputed those claims.
A different set of districts are mandating middle school math programs for the first time. Four districts — District 8 in the Bronx, District 17 in Brooklyn, District 25 in Queens, and Staten Island’s District 31 — will all use a curriculum called Amplify Desmos. District 5 in Manhattan will use i-Ready Mathematics, and District 6 selected Illustrative Mathematics.
Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
