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All New York City middle schools will be required to use city-approved curriculums for reading and math by fall 2027, Mayor Eric Adams and Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos announced Monday.

As the mandates are phased in, 102 middle schools across eight districts will be required this September to use a city-approved reading program selected by their superintendent, building on a in elementary schools.

And in math, officials are continuing a planned , adding 84 schools in six local districts this fall. Just over 100 middle schools are already part of the math curriculum requirement. (There are 529 middle schools across the city鈥檚 32 local districts.)

Adams鈥� education agenda has been defined by curriculum mandates to improve reading and math proficiency. Monday鈥檚 announcement indicates Adams is following through on plans to deepen those efforts. Proponents of the curriculum overhaul contend that it can take years for the changes to bear fruit, likely leaving it up to Adams鈥� successor to see the effort through as the mayor faces an .

Adams and his first chancellor, David Banks, argued that schools have had too much leeway to pick their own curriculums, leading to uneven academic results. Under half of students in grades 3-8 are proficient in reading while about 53% are proficient in math, .

鈥淲e can鈥檛 continue to do the same things that we have been always doing and expecting to get better results,鈥� Adams said during a press conference at Brooklyn鈥檚 Dock Street School for STEAM Studies.

The reading and math curriculum mandates, known respectively as NYC Reads and NYC Solves, are meant to guarantee that schools are using high-quality programs. Principals have traditionally been allowed to cobble together their own approaches. Many about how children learn to read. Additionally, using one curriculum in each district makes it easier to scale up teacher training and may be less disruptive for students who switch schools.

The mandates have won mixed reactions from parents and educators. Some have raised concerns about the specific curriculums city officials chose and others said the city鈥檚 . All of the city鈥檚 elementary schools are now required to use one of three reading programs, and nearly all high schools have .

Teachers union chief Michael Mulgrew, a key supporter of the literacy mandate and , did not appear at Monday鈥檚 press conference. Alison Gendar, a union spokesperson, criticized the decision to expand the math mandate to middle schools.

鈥淭he DOE rollout of the new math curriculum in the high schools was dreadful,鈥� she wrote. 鈥淚t makes no sense for the DOE to expand the math curriculum to middle schools when its work in high schools is unfinished.鈥�

The principals union has been more concerned about curriculum mandates, and a spokesperson did not say whether the union supports the addition of middle schools. Both unions have .

The city has not yet seen clear-cut gains from the new curriculums. State reading scores dropped last school year, with , though officials pointed to other assessment data that they said is more encouraging.

Aviles-Ramos said some test score drops are expected as teachers learn how to use the new programs. 鈥淲e are truly listening to what鈥檚 happening on the ground so we can address any issues,鈥� she said. She also predicted gains in student proficiency.

鈥淚鈥檓 super confident as we embark on sthat we are going to see improvements,鈥� Aviles-Ramos said. City officials have inor students at the cusp of passing the reading tests.

Educators at schools covered by the expanded reading and math curriculum mandates will begin to receive training this spring in addition to 12 days of 鈥渏ob-embedded coaching鈥� this fall.

All but one of the districts in the first wave of the middle school reading curriculum mandate will use a program called , including Manhattan Districts 1 and 3; Districts 7, 9, 11, and 12 in the Bronx; and District 13 in Brooklyn. District 19 in Brooklyn will use a curriculum called .

In three of those districts 鈥� 3, 9, and 12 鈥� the superintendents chose to mandate different reading programs in their middle and elementary schools. Education Department officials said superintendents made choices about which program to mandate based in part on how many schools were already using them. They did not immediately say how many middle schools are already using the curriculums mandated by their superintendent.

Notably, none of the superintendents in the initial wave chose the middle school version of Into Reading, the . That program has who contend that it is not culturally responsive, is too reliant on text excerpts rather than full books, and is not focused enough on building students鈥� content knowledge. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the company behind the program, has previously disputed those claims.

A different set of districts are mandating middle school math programs for the first time. Four districts 鈥� District 8 in the Bronx, District 17 in Brooklyn, District 25 in Queens, and Staten Island鈥檚 District 31 鈥� will all use a curriculum called Amplify Desmos. District 5 in Manhattan will use i-Ready Mathematics, and District 6 selected Illustrative Mathematics.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

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