{"id":310313,"date":"2026-07-31T00:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/310313\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T00:04:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:04:22","slug":"nycs-education-chiefs-just-dont-care-about-teaching-kids-to-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/310313\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC&#8217;s education chiefs just don&#8217;t care about teaching kids to read"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New York City public schools have fallen completely back to the discredited practice of \u201csocial promotion\u201d \u2014 moving students on the next grade no matter what \u2014 even as the evidence grows that it\u2019s a terrible mistake.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Department of Education schools <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/25\/us-news\/city-promotes-nearly-100-of-students-in-grades-3-8\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">held back just 0.4% of students in grades 3 through 8<\/a> \u2014 though 40% failed to meet proficiency standards on state tests, and 3% didn\u2019t meet the most minimal requirements for promotion.<\/p>\n<p>The number of students held back has plummeted since 2014, when Mayor Bill de Blasio started letting schools rely on \u201cholistic\u201d measures instead of standardized test scores.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"40131283\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/904013-135980592.jpg\" alt=\"Kids working in classroom. \" class=\"wp-image-40131283\"  \/>Mother and fathers online agreed that children should not be forced to continue learning at home after they\u2019ve spent hours working at school. WavebreakMediaMicro \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>About the same time, Mississippi started taking the exact opposite approach \u2014 part of a huge success.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/09\/30\/opinion\/mississippi-is-no-miracle-its-the-future-of-education\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">the state passed the Literacy-Based Promotion Act<\/a>, which ended social promotion and required third graders to show reading proficiency before advancing to fourth grade.<\/p>\n<p>Schools notify families when a child is at risk of being held back and create a reading plan to help them catch up.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n<p>The results speak for themselves: Today, Mississippi fourth graders read <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/05\/16\/opinion\/nyc-should-look-to-the-mississippi-miracle-to-learn-how-to-teach-reading\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">nearly a full school year ahead<\/a> of their NYC peers, though the city spends <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/01\/17\/opinion\/new-york-spending-36293-per-public-school-student-as-special-interests-rub-the-public\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">three times as much per pupil<\/a>; the Magnolia State now leads the nation in teaching black kids to read.<\/p>\n<p>Mississippi also pays for every elementary teacher to complete a two-year course in evidence-based reading instruction; New York\u2019s effort to move in that direction <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/16\/opinion\/gov-kathy-hochuls-pathetic-science-of-reading-fiasco\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">proved a complete debacle<\/a> as the state teachers union instead pushed the discredited \u201cbalanced literacy\u201d approach.<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line: The folks running education policy in New York refuse to take the obvious steps to ensure our kids learn to read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City public schools have fallen completely back to the discredited practice of \u201csocial promotion\u201d \u2014 moving&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9894,4337,304,208,16880,9,56,63,65,64,299,209],"class_list":["post-310313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bill-de-blasio","tag-department-of-education","tag-editorial","tag-literacy","tag-mississippi","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-opinion","tag-public-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310313","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=310313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}