Mayor Bill

NYC’s education chiefs just don’t care about teaching kids to read

New York City public schools are promoting most students to the next grade even if they have not learned enough. In the last school year, only 0.4% of students in grades 3 to 8 were held back, while about 40% did not reach the state reading standard. This low hold‑back rate is a big drop from 2014, when the policy changed under Mayor Bill de Blasio. Critics say the practice, called social promotion, hurts children’s reading skills.