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New York has a crisis, and it's not just a local emergency: Too many of our young people, particularly young people in Black and brown communities, are not reading at age-appropriate levels.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, fewer than 40% of New York’s fourth-graders are proficient in both math and reading. Among New York’s eighth- graders, the average Black student scored 26% lower than the average white student in math.

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While the pandemic certainly exacerbated learning loss in New York and across the country, we also know that this crisis in educational achievement started far before COVID hit. New York spends more on education funding than any state in the country, but our students are still woefully behind. With the federal government

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