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Back-to-school in Mamdani’s NYC means back to the same old failure — it’s all in the plan

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It’s back-to-school time in New York City — and while the names at the top this year have changed, the path to improvement has not.

Last fall, the city Department of Education wasn’t ready.

Student performance was appalling, as the National Assessment of Educational Progress made clear, and the plan to fix it? Absent.

One year later, under a new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and new Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels, it’s the same plan.

Official results released in August show that on the state’s 2026 standardized tests for grades 3-8, citywide English Language Arts proficiency fell to 50.3% — a six-point drop from the 56.3% scored in 2025.

Math scores were flat, up a meaningless 0.1 point to 57%.

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Third-grade reading cratered 13.8 points, to 44.2%; fifth-grade reading scores fell 13.1 points, to 46.6%.

In class, 65% is passing — but when only half the kids achieve state “proficiency,” the system earns a big F.

And the state’s assessments are inflated when compared to NAEP results, the test that measures performance across the country.

The NAEP show just 29% of NYC eighth-grade students proficient in English and 23% in math — a huge gap compared to the........

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