A year ago, after the first phase of curriculum mandates, test scores across the city were down. Now, with all elementary schools using one of three mandated reading curricula, city leaders are claiming test scores have shot up. What changed? Our breakdown of the DOE's desperate push to make curriculum mandates work, and what we should do about it.

Earlier this summer, schools chancellor Melissa Aviles Ramos and Mayor Adams celebrated the release of state exam scores. These slight (and falsified) increases in NYS test scores don’t tell the full story of the newly mandated curriculum in NYC Math and ELA classrooms. Absent from the reporting and headlines are the voices of the actual educators who have been tasked with making sense of a confusing rollout that has both undermined their professional autonomy and done damage to progressive education throughout city classrooms. As we sit at the dawn of another school year, when school administrators and city leadership will no doubt affirm that curriculum mandates are working, it is important that NYCPS teachers have clarity about these mandates and their damaging impact on our profession, students, and schools, so that we can protect our pedagogy and students from harmful curriculum mandates.

Under the direction of Mayor Eric Adams’ Schools Chancellor David Banks, NYC Reads and NYC Solves sought to address longstanding inequity in Black and Latine student literacies by forcing all elementary schools to adopt one of three reading curricula in 2024, as well as mandating Creative Curriculum in 3K and PreK classrooms city wide, replacing the Units of Study curriculum that was free and developed by NYC teachers for NYC teachers. Twenty two out of 32 districts selected HMH Into Reading which has been criticized for not being culturally responsive or utilizing evidence-based teaching practices, which was the main objective of NYC Reads. To get ahead of expansion or out of fear of retaliation, some district superintendents and principals chose to move their middle schools to these curriculum ahead of any system-wide mandate. City leaders have set a goal that by the 2027 - 2028 school year, all elementary and middle schools will implement mandated math and ELA curricular programs. This means that by 2028, teacher-generated materials, designed with our specific students in mind, will be discouraged in favor of curricula produced for a nation-wide audience, written to appease the most conservative politicians in the country. 

After the first year of NYC Reads, city schools saw a decline in ELA test scores.The results indicated that elementary schools that were required to implement one of the three mandated programs saw a larger decline than schools that were not. This did not bode well for the success of NYC Reads as the city was planning to expand the curriculum mandate to all elementary schools in the city later that fall. After investing $35 million dollars into NYC Reads, city leaders had a lot to lose if test scores did not improve – especially for Mayor Adams, who fought to retain control over the school system despite much criticism and whose approval rating was at an all-time low leading into his mayoral re-election campaign. 

Moving into the 2024 - 2025 school year, city officials doubled down on their efforts to raise test scores and prove the efficacy of curriculum mandates. Educators were subjected to increased inter-visitations, walkthroughs, and observations with teaching consultants and district administrators seeking to ensure fidelity. Teachers worked countless hours making sense of the new, clunky curriculum with minimal training, throwing out lesson plans and systems they had spent years cultivating. District administrators required additional testing, data collection, and reporting to monitor student learning until the UFT intervened in December. Teachers were also told midway through the year they could and should alter the curriculum to meet student needs instead of upholding fidelity. To fit in all the components of these new literacy programs, little time was left to teach science, social studies, and other subjects that make school engaging. Some of the mandated curricula claim to cover social studies within the reading curricula, so some administrators have supported the loss of stand-alone social studies classes – nevermind that the reading curricula are not aligned to grade-level social studies standards. City administrators also pushed a test prep “sprint” forcing students to log into digital test prep programs before, after school and on the weekends in an effort to boost test scores. Across the city, teachers were penalized if students did not complete a specific number of minutes on an online learning platform (whose efficacy is not scientifically established), which took time away from other subject classes, including math. 

Now, city leaders want us to believe that their efforts have paid off, that whittling away teacher autonomy and turning schools into test prep factories was worth it to get the higher scores they wanted. However, it turns out the numbers were fudged which accounts for the increase in proficiency rates.The state lowered the threshold for proficiency for both ELA and Math, across multiple grade levels which the mayor and chancellor failed to mention. Further, inequities persist in our school system: 43.5% of Latino children and 47% of Black students were considered proficient in reading as compared to 75% of Asian American students and 73% of white students. 

So the city actually failed all its objectives set forth by the NYC Reads initiative. Where does that leave us?

NYC has never mandated curricula this widely before, and for good reason: in a system of close to one million students, we should not be going for a one-size-fits-all approach. Statewide, teachers in NYC are under the guidance of the NYS Culturally Responsive-Sustaining (CR-S) Education Framework, which envisions students experiencing a rigorous, welcoming, and affirming education that allows them to challenge inequitable systems of access, power, and privilege. A nationally designed, district-mandated curriculum cannot achieve that. 

These curricula are designed and written by businesses (multiple mandated curricula are tied to private equity and venture capitalist firms such as Veritas and KKR), with a national audience in mind. The curricula are a tool in the educator toolbox we use in our pedagogy. Our pedagogy is the specialized labor we bring to schools. Educators, who are required to hold graduate degrees in their field, and have built relationships with their students and school community, are ideally positioned to curate what materials are responsive, appropriate, and supportive of their students’ diverse needs and interests. When educators have each aspect of the literacy or math block dictated to the minute, it is a form of censorship– the content we teach is being controlled, and with the constriction of teacher autonomy comes restrictions on ideal practices such as project based learning and interdisciplinary educational experiences. 

Instructional time is not only being restricted by the rigid mandated curriculum lesson structure, but also by the alarming increase in assessments that these curricula entail. Weekly assessments (30-60 mins/week, x2 subjects), combined with lengthy monthly end-of-module assessments (60-200 min/month), have been phased in alongside regular “citywide screeners” (80-200 min/ 3x year). This is separate and apart from the federally-mandated statewide reading and math assessments that are implemented in grades 3-8 and their related test preparation! Students deserve engaging and positive use of instructional time. Educators have studied and trained to assess their students in a variety of ways, both formally and informally. When the city mandates excessive assessment, it is undermining our work and curtailing our time to have an instructional impact. Excessive assessment also changes the experience of school, lowering motivation and leading to test fatigue. 

These mandates are about money, not effective classroom practice. One of the periodic citywide assessments, MAP, is owned by HMH and Veritas Capital, expanding the size and value of the city’s contract with this venture capital firm through assessment and curriculum. These intrusions into our instructional time and autonomy are big business for Wall Street. Despite spending tens of millions on these curricular and assessment mandates, the DOE is hardly increasing its School Construction Authority budget while it is way off track from complying with the NY State class size reduction law. 

Education is not so mysterious; we know what works, and many private schools are proud to offer smaller class sizes, differentiated and developmentally appropriate instruction, culturally responsive and sustaining education, reduced screen time, project based learning connected to real life contexts for students, and interdisciplinary inquiry. Great schools are something the wealthy are willing to pay for, but not to pay for it for everyone. For the money we are spending on these contracts, we could provide a much higher quality of education for every child. When we have curriculum mandates, the professional development is tied to the program (rather than focusing on practice), and we pay to outsource our professional development to the same corporations we are purchasing the curriculum from. Educators deserve practice-based professional development that is not dependent on a product. 

The curricular mandates and window they open for AI to be used as a form of intervention (rather than investing in ensuring schools are staffed with the educators and support staff needed for all students to succeed) lower the quality of our schools and pave the way for further dismantling of our public school system. Private equity firms are selling us services that we are more expert in, and schools are outsourcing work to these firms that used to be done in-house. We have a very large internal bureaucracy in DOE Central, and many of the job titles include curriculum development and curriculum writing. These positions are now investing time and personnel hours into monitoring compliance and analyzing assessments across districts. The Early Childhood Curricula developed internally had won national recognition before it was summarily replaced with TSG’s Creative Curriculum. Outsourcing curriculum, assessment, and professional development to corporations with no accountability or relationship with our students bloats the education budget and wastes resources on redundant materials that are not responsive to our students. Test scores are fudged to falsely indicate progress and generate public support for the continuation of these disastrous mandates. 

Our students deserve a budget spent on fully funding academic and emotional support in all schools, materials for every teacher in every better quality professional development, including recognizing the wonderful practices and learning experiences that are already happening in so many public school classrooms. At a time when public education is under attack, the expertise, autonomy, and voice of educators should be elevated and celebrated, not silenced with compliance. 

Families and educators must come together to advocate for the practices and policies we know work for students. Let’s make schools engaging and interesting, reflective of their students and communities, and facilitating lifelong learning among all community members.