NYC Schools chancellor announces new mandatory literacy curriculum

NYC public schools' phonics-based curriculum

Chancellor David Banks, head of the city’s Department of Education, announced Tuesday that NYC schools will switch to the "science of reading" to help students learn to read. Banks talks to Good Day NY on how schools will implement the new curriculum.

NEW YORK CITY - New York City Public schools will soon be required to implement a new phonics-based curriculum for teaching literacy. It’s a move that Mayor Eric Adams said would mark "the beginning of something new."

And according to Schools Chancellor David Banks, they’re doing it for one reason.

"Too many of our children do not know how to read," Banks said Tuesday.

He says 51% of elementary school children are not reading proficiently. But the statistics, he says, are even starker when broken up by ethnicity.

Mayor Eric Adams joins NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks to announce the "New York City Reads" campaign. PS 156 Waverly, Brooklyn. Tuesday, May 9, 2023. (Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

30% of Asian students and 33% of White students are not reading proficiently. Those numbers jump to 63% and 64% when you look at Latino and Black students, respectively.

It’s a historic announcement because – for the past 20 years—the city has relied on a method of teaching literacy known as balanced literacy, which puts an emphasis on memorization of words associated with pictures.

"In the end, it was every school was on their own," Banks said, referring to the current method. "That is no way to run a school system."

The new mandatory curriculum will be phonics-based, which teaches reading and writing based on the sounds letters make.

But not everyone is pleased with the way this is being rolled out.

In a statement, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators – the union representing school supervisors and administrators – says they "don’t agree that mandating a single curriculum across a given school district" is how to reach their objective.

They're also asking for an exemption for the schools where previous teaching methods were already working.

FOX 5 asked the DOE if that’s under consideration and is still awaiting a response.