Happy Tuesday in New York City, where more elementary and middle schoolers than normal are losing video game privileges this summer.

According to data released Friday from the Department of Education, standardized test scores measuring reading proficiency among grades 3-8 declined by 6% in 2025-2026, despite a 7% jump the year before. About half of all public school students in that age group are considered reading proficient relative to their grade level, with the most pronounced reductions concentrated in grades 3 (14%), 4 (6%) and 5 (13%).

Math scores stayed steady last school year at 57% proficiency citywide.

“School leaders across New York City are seeing dramatic swings in literacy proficiency reflected in this year’s state assessment results,” said Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels in a statement. “These results raise important questions and deserve careful, rigorous analysis so we can ensure we’re measuring what students are learning.”

It’s been a turbulent few years for the city’s reading instruction. Mayor Eric Adams oversaw a major overhaul of the reading curriculum to align with research on the science of reading, which includes an increased emphasis on phonics (the relationship between sounds and letters), vocabulary and comprehension across a range of genres. 

Despite transition pains, the curriculum changes were widely lauded after last year’s dramatic improvement in test scores, but the latest results complicate this narrative. Mayor Mamdani has promised to continue the overhaul. “Across the nation, we’ve seen transformative literacy rates using the pedagogy we know works, and we will continue to pursue that same approach,” Mamdani said in a press release.

Some educators and policymakers argue the rapid fluctuations in test results and irregularities between grade levels reveal limitations or inconsistencies in the tests themselves. City officials also claim the state results diverge from their own observations, which show steady improvement in reading proficiency.

“It’s just so implausible that there would be these kind of swings, and that they would be concentrated in some grades and some subjects and not others,” Emily Oster, a testmaking researcher and professor of economics at Brown University, told Chalkbeat. “It just feels like there’s a mistake.”

But state testmakers claim that the test mechanics are carefully monitored and scrutinized. State officials conduct two independent audits of their tests each year, and say that those reviews have not flagged any problems.

“It’s uncommon but not unprecedented,” Harvard professor Andrew Ho, who advises the state on their assessments, told Chalkbeat.

With deadly heat domes and air pollution emergencies, everyday New Yorkers are living the reality that Zohran Mamdani observed on the campaign trail: “Climate and quality of life are not two separate concerns. They are, in fact, one and the same.”

Then how is it that the Mamdani Administration, fresh off struggles to close a mammoth budget gap with many worthy needs unmet, is still advancing an Adams-era backroom deal that calls for $11 million in public money to pour concrete on beloved, historic green parkland in Brooklyn — the borough with the least green space per person? How can this administration publish an Urban Forest Plan proclaiming how vital it is to protect shade trees, yet move to cut down and further endanger trees growing since mid-century in the borough with the worst tree canopy coverage?

The peril to Mount Prospect Park has sparked objections from thousands of petitioning Brooklyn park-lovers and an array of environmental health, neighborhood, historical and climate-conscious skateboarding groups united in urging officials to head off the destruction. The Rachel Carson Council decided the Mount Prospect threat warranted a policy letter to the mayor, noting, “As a national nonprofit, we believe there are times to speak up on hyperlocal issues. This is one of them.” 

Read on to learn more.

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