Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.New York City will soon require elementary schools in four local districts to use city-approved math curriculums, one of the first education initiatives under Mayor Zohran Mamdani outside of early childhood.The announcement Thursday marks the first time elementary school math teachers will be required to shift their instruction as part of the city’s broader curriculum mandate. Schools in Manhattan District 5, Bronx Districts 11 and 12, and Queens District 25 will be required to make the shift by this fall.Elementary schools across all of the city’s 32 local districts will eventually be required to use approved math curriculums, though officials did not lay out a timeline. Officials also revealed the latest wave of middle schools that will be required to use approved reading and math curriculums.The new elementary school curriculum mandate will use versions of the same curriculums the city mandated in middle schools.The $17.3 million effort represents an expansion of a major initiative to overhaul reading and math instruction that began under former Mayor Eric Adams and which Mamdani signaled he would continue on the campaign trail. The mayor has yet to unveil a more detailed education agenda.School leaders have long been allowed to choose their own materials, leading to variation in instructional approaches from school to school. On some campuses, teachers write their own curriculums. City officials argue that created uneven quality in instruction and complicated efforts to train teachers at scale. Now, Education Department leaders contend they are ensuring schools are using materials that are rigorous. Chancellor Kamar Samuels, who got his start as a middle school math teacher, has hinted for months that changes were on the horizon to the city’s curriculum overhauls, known as NYC Reads and NYC Solves.“We absolutely need to get elementary school math teachers into the conversation,” Samuels told educators affiliated with the advocacy group Educators for Excellence, at a meeting in March where they pressed him on expanding the curriculum overhaul. “Undergirding our system is a lot of fear in math.”The Education Department has previously pointed to standardized test scores as a reason to rethink the way schools teach reading and math. Roughly 57% of New York City public school students were considered proficient in math and 56% in reading in grades 3-8, according to last year’s state tests. Curriculum overhauls have sparked debateSome educators and parents have embraced the curriculum changes while others have pushed back, arguing that a one-size-fits-all approach can stifle innovative approaches to instruction that attract families to their schools. There have also been complaints about the specific curriculums city officials have mandated and concern that there hasn’t been enough public input in selecting them. The city’s most widely used reading program, for instance, favors excerpts over whole books.The city’s teachers union, which supported the reading curriculum mandate, has been more wary of the math changes and criticized the decision to make changes to elementary school math.“The DOE has not solved the problems of NYC Solves,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement. “Changes that educators have called for from the beginning have not been made, and the holes in the curricula have not been filled.”All middle schools are in the process of transitioning to approved reading and math curriculums, which officials previously said would happen by fall 2027. High schools are already required to use a common Algebra 1 curriculum called Illustrative Mathematics, which has garnered mixed reactions from teachers. Beginning this fall, elementary schools in District 5 will use i-Ready Mathematics Classroom; Districts 11 and 12 will use Illustrative Mathematics; and District 25 will use Amplify Desmos Mathematics.The decision to approve i-Ready as the primary math curriculum across many elementary and middle schools may raise eyebrows. The private equity-backed education technology platform, widely used in New York City and across the country, has faced criticism from some families and educators amid a wider backlash over tech in schools. Asked about potential concerns with selecting i-Ready, First Deputy Chancellor Danielle Giunta said that “has not [been] flagged as an implication to the core program and implementation, but should something arise, we will respond accordingly.”Unlike the elementary school reading changes, which were made in part because hundreds of schools used curriculums that were discredited, Giunta said the math overhaul was prompted by successful rollout of common curriculum materials in other parts of the system. “There is so much energy from our superintendents, our principals,” she said. Officials are also considering expanding the curriculum mandate to include high school English classes, Giunta said, though there is not yet a timeline for that. For now, city officials are focusing on beefing up targeted instruction for students who are behind in reading in four of the city’s 11 high school districts. Questions resurface about parent engagementSome parent leaders said they were unaware elementary school math curriculum changes were in the works, despite promises from Mamdani to incorporate parent and educator feedback in education policy decisions. One member of the community education council in Manhattan’s District 5, which includes Harlem, said they had not been consulted about the elementary school math curriculum changes. (The council member spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions.)Jonathan Collins, another District 5 parent and member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, said he had also not heard community discussion about elementary school math overhaul. “I think there are questions as to whether or not this engagement process really reached the street level,” Collins said. Still, he said is “cautiously optimistic” about the elementary school math changes.Advocates who have pushed the city to require more schools to adopt common curriculum materials cheered the move to expand to elementary school math. Elementary school math instruction is “fractured and fragmented across the system,” said Evan Stone, the CEO of Educators for Excellence. He added: “If we actually want to build coherence in a system, we need to be training teachers on a core set of curriculum materials.”Thursday’s announcement also included expansions to reading and math mandates at the middle school level in a slew of districts, which have been incrementally rolling out over multiple years. Manhattan District 2 and Brooklyn District 18 will use the Wit & Wisdom reading curriculum.Middle schools in the following districts will be required to use a city-approved math curriculum: Manhattan District 3; Bronx District 9; Brooklyn Districts 16, 21, 22, and 23; and Queens Districts 24, 27, 28, and 30. Officials did not respond to a question about which curriculums those districts will use.Educators and families: Let us know what you think of the curriculum changes by emailing us at ny.tips@chalkbeat.org. Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
