NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani is moving forward with an expansion of New York City’s curriculum reforms started under ex-Mayor Eric Adams, including changes to how math is taught in elementary schools and reading in high schools, he said Thursday.

Mamdani and his schools chancellor, Kamar Samuels, announced the next phase of the two initiatives, called NYC Reads and NYC Solves, during a math competition against middle schoolers on Thursday at the public schools’ downtown Manhattan headquarters. The price tag is $17.3 million.

“This administration is investing in what works: rigorous instruction, strong support for teachers and a public school system that doesn’t give up on anyone,” Mamdani said in a statement. “This expansion will help make sure every student, in every neighborhood, succeeds.”

NYC Solves is launching in elementary schools across four school districts this fall: Manhattan’s District 5, the Bronx’s Districts 11 and 12, and Queens’ District 25. It’s also expanding to middle schools across 10 more districts: Manhattan’s District 3, the Bronx’s District 9, Brooklyn’s Districts 16, 21, 22 and 23, and Queens’ Districts 24, 27, 28 and 30.

NYC Reads, meanwhile, is starting in high schools across four school districts: Queens North, the South Bronx, New Visions, and CUNY and Urban Assembly. It’s also growing to middle schools across 11 additional districts: Manhattan’s Districts 2 and 4 , the Bronx’s Districts 8 and 10, Brooklyn’s Districts 14, 18, 20 and 32, Queens’ Districts 26 and 29, and District 75 for students with disabilities citywide.

NYC Reads is already in elementary schools and preschools, and NYC Solves in high schools. If Mamdani follows through on the plan set in motion by Adams, both initiatives will be fully implemented in middle schools by the 2027-28 school year.

The reforms are designed to ensure all schools are using high-quality curriculum, in an effort to boost lagging test scores that show slightly more than half of students are considered proficient in reading and math.

In both initiatives, local superintendents select curricula from pre-approved lists for all schools in their districts, including Illustrative Math, i-Ready and Amplify Desmos in math, and HMH, Wit & Wisdom and EL Education in phonics. Teachers in the district then receive coaching and learn from each other through several professional development sessions throughout the school year.

While Adams’ literacy reforms that started in elementary schools were widely praised, the math initiative, which launched in high schools under the ex-mayor, has faced resistance over concerns it assumes students enter the classroom with a grasp of foundational concepts.

“The DOE has not solved the problems of NYC Solves,” Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said in a statement. “Changes that educators have called for from the beginning have not been made, and the holes in the curricula have not been filled.” The teachers union president was not at Thursday’s competition.

The math curricula selected by Adams share an emphasis on talking through arithmetic problems and real-life applications of the subject.

“The way we learned math, we relied a lot on memorization. Trying to be fast, let’s say, with your (multiplication) times tables,” said Samuels, who started his education career as a middle school math teacher in the Bronx.

The chancellor maintained the initiative’s original emphasis on reforming how students learn to do math was important, but said the next steps involve ensuring students are fluent in basic arithmetic.

“We came out of the gate — and it was the right thing to do — we were focused on conceptual understanding: Do kids understand the ‘why’ behind the math? Do they understand how to make sense of the math, before they’re just computing?” Samuels said. “Now we are layering on an idea of fluency: Are kids fluent in the math?”

“Because if our kids don’t have … the basic understanding,” the chancellor added, “they won’t be able to solve more complicated math.”

At the math competition, teams of students from P.S./M.S. 194 in the Bronx and of Mamdani, Samuels and City Council members were presented with four numbers, using the digits and the four operations to equal the number 24. When a team had the answer, a representative ran up to a podium and rang a bell, and they were eligible to win a point.

“Maybe one day, you can teach us how to play this game,” Mamdani told the students.

The student team cruised to victory, with city and Department of Education officials only earning one point.

“My class is more of a discussion-based math. We share out our ideas about how to solve problems,” Kenny Germosen, an eighth-grader at P.S./M.S. 194, said after the competition.

“You saw the adults doing the memorization,” Samuels said. “We lost.”

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