New York City's public school students lost significant ground in reading proficiency this year, and the city's most powerful teachers' union leader is placing the blame squarely on Mayor Zohran Mamdani's flagship literacy initiative.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew went public with pointed criticism of NYC Reads after preliminary state test results, released August 5 by the New York State Education Department, showed that only about half of city students in grades 3 through 8 met the state's English language arts proficiency standard, a drop of roughly six percentage points from the prior year. Newsmax reported that Mulgrew blamed supplemental programs layered on top of the city's core literacy curriculum, saying flatly that they had failed.
The numbers landed like a rebuke to an administration that had doubled down on NYC Reads just months earlier. In May, Mamdani and Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels announced a $17.3 million expansion of the program, extending it to 11 additional middle school districts and, for the first time, into high schools in four districts. City Hall said the expansion would reach more than 104,000 additional students.
Three months later, the test data moved in the wrong direction.
Mulgrew did not hold back about what he wants from the Department of Education going forward. He called for streamlined instruction and less bureaucratic clutter in the classroom.
"The DOE needs to make sure each school has a clear instructional plan. That means streamlining what schools are doing, making sure programs align, and eliminating unnecessary paperwork and assessments."
He went further, issuing a direct warning that the UFT would not back a repeat of the program's rollout from the past school year.
"We're not going to support it if they want to implement it the way they did this past school year."
That is not a minor threat. The UFT represents the vast majority of New York City's public school teachers. Without union cooperation, any systemwide curriculum initiative faces enormous practical obstacles, teachers who resist training mandates, grievances over workload, and public friction that makes parents uneasy.
The Department of Education disputed Mulgrew's characterization that the supplemental programs had failed, though the specific details of that rebuttal were not made public in the reporting.
Mayor Mamdani defended the initiative, expressing continued faith in the program's design. He framed NYC Reads as grounded in evidence-based literacy methods used across the country.
"I continue to be confident in NYC Reads. And it is developed with the real findings of what's been effective across the country in mind."
He added that he looked forward to working with the UFT "to not only build upon the successes of the last few years, but to go beyond that." The difficulty with that framing is that the latest data do not show success, they show a measurable decline. Calling a six-point proficiency drop something to "build upon" asks parents and taxpayers to take a lot on faith.
NYC Reads launched during the 2023-24 school year under former Mayor Eric Adams as a systemwide approach rooted in what educators call the "science of reading." Elementary schools use one of three approved curricula under the program. Mamdani inherited the initiative and chose to expand it aggressively, a decision that now looks premature given the results.
This is not the first time Mamdani has faced scrutiny for how his administration uses city resources. His office previously drew criticism for spending taxpayer money on a tenant-organizing documentary featuring an aide with a history of radical statements about private property.
The problem is not confined to New York City. Statewide, preliminary data from the New York State Education Department showed ELA proficiency among students in grades 3 through 8 fell to 48 percent. Math proficiency statewide came in at 57 percent. The state cautioned that the results are preliminary and subject to district review, with final figures expected in early November.
One complicating factor: the 2025-26 school year was the first time all students in grades 3 through 8 took the state tests on computers rather than on paper. Whether that shift affected scores, and if so, by how much, remains an open question the data alone cannot answer.
But the shift to computer-based testing does not explain why the city's decline was so steep, or why the administration poured $17.3 million into expanding a program whose first full cycle of results now looks worse than the year before. Taxpayers funding that expansion deserve a clearer accounting than vague assurances about national best practices.
Mamdani has faced a pattern of backlash over his policy choices. The MTA's own chief publicly stated that Mamdani's fare-free bus push was driving riders to stop paying, another case where an ambitious initiative produced consequences the administration seemed unwilling to confront.
Mulgrew did not limit his criticism to the literacy program. He raised a separate but related alarm about staffing shortages among paraprofessionals, the classroom aides who provide legally mandated services to students with special needs.
"The school system can't hire enough paraprofessionals; so our special needs students are not getting the services they are legally entitled to. This is costing city taxpayers more than a billion dollars a year in lawsuits. We need to fix this, and we can."
A billion dollars a year in litigation costs because the city cannot staff its own classrooms is a staggering figure. If accurate, it dwarfs the $17.3 million the administration spent expanding NYC Reads and raises an obvious question about whether the city's education priorities are in the right order.
The New York City Council moved to address the paraprofessional crisis directly. On July 16, the Council approved a bill providing eligible school paraprofessionals with nonpensionable workforce stabilization payments of up to $10,000 for the 2026-27 school year. The bill was sent to the mayor on July 20.
Mamdani's response has been complicated. During his 2025 mayoral campaign, he backed a similar proposal. But his administration has since argued that paraprofessional compensation should be set through collective bargaining and claimed the legislation conflicts with state labor law. Whether he will sign, veto, or let the bill become law without his signature remains unclear.
The mayor's shifting position on paraprofessional pay fits a broader pattern. His administration has repeatedly drawn criticism for saying one thing and doing another, including staying silent for hours after suspected antisemitic stabbings while posting about housing taxes, a moment that raised pointed questions about his priorities.
Final proficiency data will not arrive until early November. That means parents, teachers, and city officials will spend the entire fall semester operating under preliminary numbers that already look discouraging. Schools will reopen, curricula will be taught, and the $17.3 million expansion will proceed, all before anyone knows the final score.
Mulgrew's public challenge puts the Mamdani administration in an uncomfortable position. The UFT president is not a Republican critic or a conservative commentator. He leads the union that represents the very teachers tasked with carrying out NYC Reads in their classrooms every day. When the people implementing a program say it was rolled out poorly and produced bad results, that carries weight no press conference can wave away.
Mamdani has also faced scrutiny on other fronts, including when his pied-à-terre tax list exposed the names and addresses of celebrity backers to the public, another episode that raised questions about competence and oversight within his administration.
The open questions pile up. Which supplemental programs does Mulgrew believe failed? What is the DOE's specific defense? Will Mamdani sign the paraprofessional payment bill he once supported? And most fundamentally: if a six-point decline in reading proficiency does not prompt a course correction, what would?
Half of New York City's public school kids cannot read at grade level. The administration spent millions expanding the program that was supposed to fix that, and the numbers got worse. At some point, confidence in a plan has to be earned by results, not just declared from a podium.
