{"id":260148,"date":"2026-06-09T04:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T04:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/260148\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T04:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T04:13:07","slug":"half-of-new-york-teacher-prep-programs-fail-on-reading-instruction-report-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/260148\/","title":{"rendered":"Half of New York teacher prep programs fail on reading instruction, report finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a> to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Half of teacher preparation programs in New York are failing to properly train educators to teach students how to read, despite the state\u2019s push to overhaul literacy instruction, according to a report released Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Out of 38 New York teacher preparation programs evaluated by the National Council on Teacher Quality<\/a>, or NCTQ, just six received A grades<\/a>, meaning that they teach all five key components of scientifically-based reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.<\/p>\n

Nineteen \u2014 or half of the state\u2019s prep programs \u2014 received failing marks, including many operated by CUNY and SUNY, the city and state university systems. Nationally, just 21% of programs received an F. More than half of New York\u2019s elementary teacher prep programs declined to provide materials for review, among the highest refusal rates of any state. Those programs were not graded.<\/p>\n

NCTQ assigns failing grades if a program covers one or none of the five components of reading or teaches debunked practices, such as encouraging students to guess how to pronounce words they don\u2019t know by using pictures.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York State has one of the highest number of programs that did not meet our standards,\u201d said Heather Peske, the president of NCTQ. \u201cTo me, it means that the state is not leveraging their authority strongly enough by reviewing and holding accountable the programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Nationally, teacher preparation programs have improved dramatically, NCTQ found. Just over half of programs they assessed are using scientifically grounded practices, double the share compared with three years ago. New York has only improved slightly in that timeframe. <\/p>\n

Lack of progress could hinder efforts to improve reading proficiency, the report warns, as a growing share of New York students are struggling with reading. About 41% of the state\u2019s fourth graders were reading at the lowest level in 2024, up from 30% in 2013, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress<\/a>, which is often considered the gold standard in assessment. (Reading proficiency on state exams has ticked up over the past few years<\/a>, diverging from the federal test.)<\/p>\n

New York State Education Department officials disputed the NCTQ report\u2019s findings and emphasized several efforts to improve teacher preparation programs. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe report fails to include a substantial number of New York State teacher preparation programs, thereby presenting a limited and misleading picture of the work underway across the state,\u201d spokesperson Karen Male wrote in a statement. <\/p>\n

Teacher prep programs lag in science of reading<\/p>\n

New York leaders in recent years have embraced the science of reading, a longstanding body of evidence about how to teach students to read. But progress has been uneven. <\/p>\n

Under legislation Gov. Kathy Hochul pushed to improve reading instruction<\/a>, the state gave $10 million to the state teachers union to train 20,000 teachers in the science of reading. But the course does not fully align with the science of reading, an investigation from the Hechinger Report found<\/a>. <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the governor said the training is being reviewed by New York State United Teachers and the State Education Department.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, many of New York\u2019s public teacher prep programs fell short on NCTQ\u2019s scorecard. Eight of SUNY\u2019s 19 programs evaluated by NCTQ received failing grades. Among CUNY programs, 9 of 13 received an F. (Medgar Evers College was the only CUNY program to not provide all teaching materials for review and was not evaluated.)<\/p>\n

SUNY spokesperson Holly Liapis said the university system is working to make changes. The university\u2019s board of trustees passed a policy<\/a> in January that will require every SUNY program to be \u201cfully aligned\u201d with the science of reading by December, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSUNY is absolutely committed to ensuring our campuses all deliver high-quality Science of Reading preparation,\u201d Liapis said in a statement. <\/p>\n

CUNY spokesperson Noah Gardy disputed the NCTQ\u2019s assessment, arguing the report \u201cis not an accurate measure of CUNY\u2019s teacher training work.\u201d He did not explain why. <\/p>\n

The university system is spending $3 million in philanthropic dollars to \u201cto align curriculum and support faculty development,\u201d he said. Gardy also pointed to other efforts, including a microcredential in the science of reading available to educators and CUNY students<\/a>. <\/p>\n

State education leaders say improvements are underway<\/p>\n

The NCTQ report is nonetheless optimistic that change is on the horizon, pointing to a multi-state effort that New York education leaders joined three years ago<\/a> to overhaul teacher prep programs.<\/p>\n

That effort, organized by The Hunt Institute, a nonprofit affiliated with Duke University, includes an action plan<\/a> calling for a slew of reforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s lots of other work happening on campuses through knowledge sharing, through changes of policy,\u201d said Ruth Genn, the executive director of the Literacy Academy Collective and a leader of New York\u2019s effort. \u201cI do think it\u2019ll be reflected in the next NCTQ report.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Education Department officials indicated they are embracing the action plan by releasing a science of reading framework<\/a> for teacher prep programs, beefing up the state\u2019s review process for those programs, and creating a new teacher certification exam focused on the science of reading.<\/p>\n

Experts said it is often difficult to quickly reform teacher prep programs, in part because they are large bureaucracies. In addition faculty may be reluctant to change teaching practices they\u2019ve honed for years, and have strong protections to maintain academic freedom. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be a lag there, and that\u2019s the painful side of bureaucracy \u2014 and it\u2019s exhausting and frustrating,\u201d said Javaid Siddiqi, president and CEO of The Hunt Institute. Still, he said, \u201cNew York has made progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[45318,101158,75,9,24,11,10,56,63,101157,101159,80523,5181,101160],"class_list":["post-260148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-adults","tag-carla-murray-bolling","tag-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-p-s-84-teachers-johana-talbot","tag-phonics-training","tag-practice","tag-teachers","tag-the-stephen-gaynor-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}