INFIDELITY TO CURRICULUM MANDATES
IN NEW YORK PUBLIC SCHOOLS:
Reclaiming Teaching and Learning

Diana Hunter

23 December 2025

I teach in an elementary NYCDOE classroom, with many new arrivals who have missed multiple years of formal education in their journey to the US (SIFE students). The mandated curriculum our school uses is HMH Into Reading. HMH is owned by Veritas Capital, a hedge fund that also owns a lot of the assessment tools that the NYC Department of Education contracts. The materials are not culturally responsive or representative of my students. Into Reading is written as a national curriculum, and designed to appease the whims of Governors Abbott and DeSantis, among other conservatives. When non-white characters feature, they are often presented through a deficit lens. The readings are neither motivating for nor reflective of the diversity of students in my class. We are expected to teach with “fidelity” to these curricula.

Like most other teachers, I take refuge in teaching with integrity through “infidelity,” being able to close the door and read the texts I know will speak to my students and inspire them to look closer at character motivation and change. From the first year of the English Language Arts curriculum mandate in the 2023–24 school year, I have continued to meet my students’ needs and bring them texts that reflect their interests and identity, whether from HMH or (as is more often the case) not. While I felt comfortable asserting my responsibility and right to use culturally responsive and relevant texts with my students, it wasn’t enough to just close my door and do my own thing. These mandates impact the very nature of our profession. An individual response doesn’t protect our work or our students’ rights to see themselves in the curriculum. It is important to take a stand for all of our students and colleagues, and that means organizing resistance to the curriculum mandates. 

Under the direction of New York Mayor Eric Adams’ Schools Chancellor David Banks, NYC Reads and NYC Solves sought to address longstanding inequity in Black and Latine student literacies by forcing all elementary schools to adopt one of three reading curricula in 2024, as well as mandating Creative Curriculum in 3K and PreK classrooms city wide, replacing the Units of Study curriculum, which was free and developed by NYC teachers for NYC teachers. Twenty-two out of 32 districts selected the “HMH Into Reading” curriculum, which has been criticized for not being culturally responsive and not utilizing evidence-based teaching practices, which was purportedly the main objective of NYC Reads. To get ahead of expansion of the mandate, or out of fear of retaliation, some district superintendents and principals chose to move their middle schools to these curricula ahead of any system-wide mandate. City leaders have set a goal that by the 2027–2028 school year, all elementary and middle schools will implement mandated math and ELA curricular programs. This means that by 2028, teacher-generated materials, designed with our specific students in mind, will be discouraged in favor of curricula produced for a nation-wide audience, written to appease the most conservative politicians in the country, with the goal of providing value to shareholders of the hedge funds that own these publishing companies.

Moving into the 2024–2025 school year, city officials doubled down on their efforts to raise test scores and prove the efficacy of curriculum mandates. Educators were subjected to increased inter-visitations, walkthroughs, and observations with teaching consultants and district administrators seeking to ensure fidelity. Teachers worked countless hours making sense of the new, clunky curriculum with minimal training, throwing out lesson plans and systems they had spent years cultivating. District administrators required additional testing, data collection, and reporting to monitor student learning until the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) intervened in December 2024. Teachers were finally told midway through the year they could and should alter the curriculum to meet student needs instead of upholding fidelity. To fit in all the components of these new literacy programs, little time was left to teach science, social studies, and other subjects that make school engaging. Some of the mandated curricula claim to cover social studies within the reading curricula, so some administrators have supported the loss of stand-alone social studies classes – nevermind that the reading curricula are not aligned to grade-level social studies standards. City administrators also pushed a test prep “sprint” forcing students to log into digital test prep programs before, after school and on the weekends in an effort to boost test scores. Across the city, teachers were penalized if students did not complete a specific number of minutes on an online learning platform (whose efficacy is not scientifically established), which took time away from other subject classes, including math. 

Timeline of Resistance

In the 2024–25 school year, the teachers on my grade collaborated on replacing texts more consistently throughout the school year, but hadn’t represented these changes on paper. We felt comfortable with explaining our deviation from the curriculum, should it come up with admin, but we knew the district and admin had no appetite yet for formal deviations (considered “exemptions”) on paper. We organize together by building trust and relationships among the teachers in our grade. We eat lunch together every day, and naturally our thoughts, concerns, and ideas about how to modify the existing curriculum come up. Each of the four class teachers has made suggestions and provided resources for the others, and there was little hesitancy as we are all protected by tenure, have a strong commitment to student learning, and prioritize the needs of our students over any top-down directives. Because we have a shared understanding of where our priorities lie and what we are willing to do for our students, we were unified in our understanding of the necessity to deviate from the scripted curriculum.

In spring of 2025, as teachers were working on the pacing calendars for the upcoming school year, we decided to make a formal proposal to deviate from specific Into Reading texts and substitute them with other, more culturally responsive and engaging texts, that still addressed the same learning standards. We knew we could bring up our professional reconciliation rights (from Article 24 of the UFT contract) in the consultation committee if the proposed changes were not accepted by our administration. We ensured that the texts came from within the Into Reading Rigby Library series (so they were still technically from the publisher, but more accessible, engaging, and reflective of our students). We also developed activities related to plot, setting, character development, and vocabulary that mirrored the flow of the Into Reading curriculum.

Our proposed changes were accepted by admin and incorporated (on paper!) into our pacing calendar for the 2025–26 school year. I suspect we were successful in making the changes because it was our third year of the curriculum (so we had data and insight from the first two years), because we were united in our desire to make this shift, and because we were shifting to a text that is from the same publisher. Since then, we have used the consultation committee meeting (when the UFT chapter representatives meet with admin to discuss concerns) to gain more leeway in the texts we select. The administration wants to ensure the texts are on grade level and uniform across the grade, but has conceded that we may use texts from the Mosaic Curriculum (a culturally responsive reading curriculum that was ten years in the making and summarily dismantled by Chancellor Banks after materials had been delivered to schools).

One of the adjusted unit texts was for the launch unit, and this September we found much more engagement, success, and internal motivation as we implemented the agreed-upon shift. We anticipate proposing further changes and shifts for the next school year. My grade opposed and resisted using the AI components of Into Reading, but at least one other grade at my school has complied with the NYCDOE, UFT, District, and HMH push for using AI as much as possible. The majority of teachers at my school continue to resist and reject the AI programs that are available in HMH’s Into Reading. 

We also have a math curriculum mandate from the district to use Illustrative Mathematics. We have been using this curriculum since long before the mandate, and therefore were able to “grandfather in” adjustments to the order of the units. These adjustments reflect what we noticed were topics that students didn’t recall from the previous year (as they were addressed two or more years before and never since), and also adjustments to ensure that all pre-testing standards were covered in advance of the NYS math tests. The right to teach the units “out of order” with reasonable justification must be asserted each year, and my grade team is committed to advocating for and meeting our students’ needs in this way. I was fortunate to be able to take a course at Math for America with the author of Illustrative Mathematics and I articulated our need to shift the order of the units. While the author asserted that much thought had been put into the unit order, he also acknowledged the right of teachers to make reasonable adjustments on behalf of their students. We remain the only grade at our school to adjust the order of the units, and our state test scores continue to indicate that this shift, along with our responsive approach to our work, is an effective adjustment to meet our students’ needs and help them make multiple years of growth in math. Some grades have teachers that are new to the school or untenured, and the general tendency is to default to the order of the units as given. The order of units presumes mastery of every concept in all previous grades, which is not the reality in anyone’s classroom. If you are to implement a curriculum, I recommend interrogating the order of the units. Look at the standards and consider which build on which– fractions will not be mastered if multiples and factors are not solidified, so move the multiples and factors unit up before tackling fractions. Consider that teachers may be the only actors involved who are genuinely motivated by their students’ needs (between the hedge fund that owns the publisher, the district leadership, and the school administration, there is immense pressure – but none focused on meeting student needs with integrity).

Results of Resistance

One reason my grade was able to resist the mandates was that we have a strong reputation in the school for being effective teachers with rigorous classroom practices. We have built strong personal relationships, trust, and mutual professional respect. We also all are tenured, so felt comfortable advocating and speaking up about what we feel is best for our students without fear of losing our jobs. The most important factor besides that was that in May we provided a unified plan for the whole grade to implement for September. The uniformity and the advanced notice were advantageous to our success in getting these shifts entered into the schoolwide pacing calendar (which is also shared with the district).

The results of our hard work to meet the needs of our students and provide culturally responsive and reflective texts and lessons are impressive. For multiple years in a row, our grade has had significantly high test scores. In the most recent test score results from 2025, our school’s comparison to citywide testing data indicates the importance of resisting scripted curriculum. One grade scored 1.8% below the citywide average, another scored 0.1% above. Our grade (the only grade that resisted and adjusted the mandated ELA curriculum) scored 6.9% higher than the citywide average!

Replicating Resistance

We know what works in education– responsiveness to student interests, concerns, histories, and perspectives through Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education; smaller class sizes; project-based interdisciplinary learning; regular, meaningful professional development for educators focused on pedagogy rather than learning a specific curriculum. We must assert and demand our professional autonomy as the workers that add immense value in our classrooms. Many teacher contracts contain provisions that allow for curricular autonomy, or professional determinations about how curriculum should be implemented. In the NYCDOE/UFT contract, it lies in Article 24, professional reconciliation (see excerpt below):

The UFT earns lucrative contracts for training educators in these NYC Reads and NYC Solves curricula through the UFT Teacher Centers. Due to this financial conflict of interest, the UFT has left the resistance to the curricular mandates to be negotiated at the school level (via Article 24 in the monthly consultation committee meetings between the chapter and the principal), requiring a lot of member time and energy and causing the duplication of efforts at each school site, rather than asserting the need for professional autonomy citywide. 

Curriculum mandates can and must be resisted. As professionals with masters degrees as a requirement for our positions, we have the education, experience, and skill to reach our students in a culturally responsive and sustaining way. These mandates undermine our professional expertise and autonomy, and pave the way for deskilling the profession. If we can and must only follow a script, anyone could do that job, including a robot. The mandates are a form of censorship and are not aligned with the NY State framework for Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education. Hedge-fund-owned publishing companies should not dictate what students read and write about. Their allegiances lie with generating profits for their shareholders, not in addressing student needs or ensuring that students develop a lifelong love of learning. 

This generation of students faces the existential threat of climate change and consequences of extreme wealth stratification. Our students need to develop criticality, creative thinking, and consider a diversity of thoughts and approaches to problem solving. A mandated conformity with corporate canned curriculum will not provide the rich academic experiences that our students deserve and need. 

It is incumbent upon tenured and experienced teachers especially to consider the needs of all of the students in their schools and advocate at the school level for support for newer teachers and the autonomy of all teachers to utilize the curriculum as a tool (not a script) for meeting student needs. The power in our unions lies with the rank and file, and when we assert our right to professional autonomy, we are building the power of our union from the rank and file outwards, rather than looking upward for power. Even with a hopeful change coming through a new mayoral administration under Zohran Mamdani, we must assert and protect these rights. Our rights are only what we claim and fight for, and they require continual assertion in the face of well-funded efforts to dismantle and defund our public schools. 

Parts of this piece are adapted from an August 2025 MORE Strike Hot blog post by the author and others.