The New York City (NYC) Reads school initiative is a major undertaking that Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks promised would be transformational in terms of literacy, reading, and basic algebra instruction. Most teachers seemed to agree, but are a little unsure about the rollout so far.

“The most basic thing we can do at our schools is ensure that all our students learn how to read and have the resources to thrive, but with more than half of our city’s public-school students reading below grade level, now is the time to act—and that is exactly what we are doing today,” said Adams in a statement. 

This year, 15 selected ‘phase one’ school districts will begin implementing the new curriculum and the remaining 17 school districts of ‘phase two’ will start next year.

Deputy Chancellor of Teaching and Learning at the Department of Education (DOE) Carolyne Quintana is confident that the NYC Reads program will be a singular city-wide curriculum that’s research-based curricula, supported by intensive coaching and professional learning for educators, and culturally responsive. Quintana said, at a recent town hall with NYC educators, that this spring teachers were offered training and there were make-up trainings held this summer for those that missed out or were new hires. Every teacher should have at least eight coaching sessions in addition to several professional hours of training on NYC Reads programming and materials before and during the school year. 

There will be a set reading curriculum for every grade level, said Quintana. 

Early childhood programs will use the ‘Creative Curriculum’ alongside ‘Teaching Strategies GOLD’ and ‘Ages & Stages’––a developmental “screener” that’s tailored to each child’s strengths, interests, and needs. Elementary English Language Arts (ELA) classes will have a choice between three curricula options: ‘Wit and Wisdom’, ‘Into Reading’, and ‘Expeditionary Learning.’

Kate Gutwillig is an elementary ELA teacher in Manhattan. She has been teaching for over 20 years. Previously, she said, city schools were using a theory-based approach to teaching reading designed by Lucy Calkins, a leading literacy expert at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University. Calkins created this “balanced literacy” curriculum with independent study components decades ago, which city public schools chose to adopt in 2003.

“If you were really lucky and learned to read on your own and didn’t need any extra help and it just came to you, then this curriculum would work for you,” said Gutwillig. “But many, many children are not like that, especially working class in New York City. Their parents are working many jobs. Maybe there’s trauma. Maybe there’s a learning disability. Maybe you just immigrated here. There’s so many unique populations.” 

Gutwillig said that people were too “enamored” with Calkins to realize that the curriculum wasn’t inclusive enough. “What would happen is that certain children would get stuck and there was no assistance in the curriculum,” said Gutwillig.

The new curriculum options will be more about the “science” of reading and phonics-based, she said, speaking from her experience teaching both styles.  

Schools will also increase their focus on algebra with illustrative math, center students with disabilities and multilingual learners, and aim to incorporate more culturally diverse learning materials under the ‘Hidden Voices’ initiative. Hidden Voices spotlights narratives within the Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders (AAPI), LGBTQIA+, African diaspora, and Black American communities, said Quintana.

“Reading is a social justice and racial equity issue,” said Quintana. 

About two-thirds of Black and brown students in NYC schools are not reading at grade level, she said.

According to national trends in a survey conducted by Educators for Excellence (E4E-NY), schools have “significant” staffing shortages across all positions, a constant need for teachers to give up their planning periods to cover classes, report having little say in selecting curriculum, and find curriculum doesn’t meet the academic or social-emotional needs of their students. Teachers of color, in particular, are far less likely to stay in education. 

Teachers polled in the town hall by E4E-NY said that they thought the NYC Reads curriculum was critical. However, they also said that the implementation of the program could use more collaboration with teachers, timely data releases, year round coaching, more transparency, and a clearer timeline. 

Gutwillig pointed out that the NYC Reads materials she’s seen could also be more culturally responsive and carefully include more figures and narratives of color that reflect students in the city. 

April Rose is an elementary ELA teacher in Queens with over 20 years of experience. Her school pivoted during COVID to adopt a new reading curriculum. The school piloted the program in two classrooms and saw improvements in students. Rose said that the texts were insightful and rich, and cut down on the need for supplemental materials.

“The only thorn, which goes to the fact that no curriculum is perfect and that you have to do what’s in the best interest for students, is that we had to try out the writing part and found that it was a little too disjointed,” said Rose.

Jeta Donovan is a partner at The New Teacher Project (TNTP) and a former educator in New York City. She oversaw the implementation of a new reading and instruction curriculum statewide in Tennessee in 2019. Despite challenges with such a massive undertaking, Donovan said after a few years of staying the course and shifting mindsets, students showed marked improvements. She advised that new course materials are not enough and that teachers would need immense support from DOE. 

“I think New York City is making a really historic investment in teacher professional learning and coaching as a part of this initiative and I can’t understate how important that will be to the success of this project,” said Donovan. “And I say this as a former DOE teacher myself, I know it’s important that teachers not only feel supported but will see the impact on student learning as a result of that ongoing professional coaching.” 

Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.

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The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to outlaw affirmative action in higher education is a cruel, racist, and deeply harmful attack on people of color in this country.  Affirmative action has, over four decades, made a significant positive impact on the diversity of college campuses, allowing many Black and Brown students to overcome systemic barriers which restrict access to higher education.

We’ve already witnessed the dreadful consequences of various states eliminating affirmative action programs in years’ past—case studies which paint a dark picture of what may now happen nationwide, absent a major overhaul of how colleges conduct their admissions process. 

For example, immediately after California outlawed affirmative action through a voter referendum in 1996, the number of enrolled students from underrepresented groups plummeted by over 60% at UCLA and UC Berkeley, with a 12% overall reduction across the University of California system, according to University of California’s own study.  Fewer students of color in prestigious universities meant fewer high-earning job opportunities after graduation, and thus a long-term decline in wages after they entered the job market.

The notion promulgated by right-wing media and politicians that affirmative action somehow disadvantages white and Asian students over Black and Latino students is not based on reality.  Black and Latino students already face major obstacles to accessing higher education—a reality which affirmative action was designed to help counteract.  Students of color in low-income school districts, for example, often lack access to high school AP courses and extracurricular opportunities—elements of students’ resumes that colleges rely on when considering applicants.

The fact is, race-blind admissions do nothing to overcome racism—on the contrary, they reinforce existing inequities.

It is not just Black and Brown people who will suffer from the elimination of affirmative action programs in higher education.  Take, for example, how it could impact our nation’s healthcare system, today in dire need of additional caregivers to rebuild a workforce depleted from three years of the pandemic.

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor points out that “increasing the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds who join ‘the ranks of medical professionals’ improves ‘healthcare access and health outcomes in medically underserved communities.’”  We cannot build a healthy society if we do not create a truly diverse and representative healthcare workforce able to provide equitable and culturally-competent healthcare. In a nation where only 5.7% of physicians are Black, it is essential that medical schools do more, not less, to actively recruit a more diverse student body.

The sad fact is, the attack on affirmative action is based on a strategy as old as history itself—those in power attempting to pit working people of different backgrounds against each other to perverse their own wealth and privilege, at the expense of everyone else. We must not fall into this trap. All working people have a mutual interest in joining together, across races and ethnicities, in common struggle to build a fair and just society.  A corrupt Supreme Court must not deter us.

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Sixty years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a groundbreaking new report has laid bare the stark truth of ongoing black economic inequality in the United States.

Titled “STILL A DREAM: Over 500 Years to Black Economic Equality,” the report, co-authored by prominent experts Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Chuck Collins, Omar Ocampo, and Sally Sim, and published by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), underscores the enduring disparities faced by Black Americans and highlights the pressing need for concerted action to address these disparities.

“Sixty years ago, Dr. King observed that America has defaulted on this promissory note to Black citizens,” stated Chuck Collins, an IPS senior scholar who directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good in Washington, DC.

“Six decades later, despite incremental progress on some fronts, the check of opportunity has still come back with insufficient funds.”

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Chief of Race, Wealth, and Community for NCRC, lamented, “It is deeply troubling that, sixty years after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Black economic equality remains nothing more than a dream for most Black Americans.”

“The revelation that it would take more than 500 additional years to close the economic gap for black Americans is a stark reminder of the systemic inequities that persist,” Asante-Muhammad asserted.

Sally Sim, a senior organizer, and project specialist at NCRC, emphasized the urgency of the situation.

“The sobering projection and findings of our report sixty years after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom reinforce that the dream for economic equality for Black Americans remains unfulfilled,” Sim stated.

“On this historic anniversary, let us turn this report into a catalyst for meaningful action towards comprehensive solutions and public support for policies and initiatives that promote black economic equality.”

Some key findings from the comprehensive report were that, despite modest advancements made by African Americans since the 1960s, including reduced poverty rates, increased high school attainment, and lower unemployment rates, income disparities between Black and white Americans have only slightly improved.

The report exposes that in 2021, African Americans earn 62 cents to every dollar earned by white families.

The report’s authors said, at this rate, achieving income parity would take an astonishing 513 years.

Further, the wealth gap between Black and non-Black Americans has experienced only marginal growth, with African Americans possessing 18 cents for every dollar of non-Black wealth in 2019.

If this pace continues, it will take approximately 780 years for Black wealth to match non-Black wealth.

Median household income for African Americans has shown minimal growth, growing just 0.36% since the turn of the century.

Strikingly, it remained lower than white median family income in 1963.
Even after over six decades, the Black-white homeownership divide persists.

Black homeownership has grown from 38% in 1960 to 44% in 2021, while white homeownership surged from 64% in 1960 to 74% in 2021.

The report outlined a series of recommendations to combat black economic inequality:

1. Advocate for full employment and guaranteed jobs to ensure equal economic opportunities for all.

2. Enact a substantial land and homeownership program to address the enduring homeownership gap between Black and white Americans.

3. Commit to individual asset building, including financial education, asset matching programs, and supportive policies, to facilitate access to wealth-building opportunities for Black Americans.

4. Implement policies to reduce dynastic concentrations of wealth and power, tackling the structural barriers that impede economic progress for Black Americans.

5. Explore targeted reparations to address historical injustices and provide meaningful redress for the economic disparities Black Americans face.

The authors noted that, as the nation reflects on King’s enduring vision for equality and justice, the report serves as a sobering reminder that pursuing Black economic equality remains an unmet challenge in America.

“The findings of this report are sobering and demand immediate and comprehensive action to address the economic disparities faced by African Americans,” remarked Omar Ocampo, a researcher for the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at IPS.

“We must invest in transformative policies that address systemic racism and create an equitable society.”

View the full report here.

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