New York City public schools promoted 99.6% of students in grades 3–8 during the 2024–2025 school year, even though just 57% were proficient in math on state tests; math proficiency was 43% in 2018.

The gap comes amid broader concerns about academic performance: a July report found that more than 900 city public schools had fewer than half of students pass state reading and math exams.

The article says schools have relied less on rigorous, objective measures since COVID, making teacher-assigned grades especially influential in applications to advanced programs; teachers may also worry that low marks will limit students’ opportunities.

At a City Council on High Schools meeting, member Adriana Aviles told Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels that her son earned A’s in math but entered high school unable to do fractions or algebra.

Parents’ perceptions may also be out of step with performance: a Learning Heroes study found that 88% believe their children are at or above grade level in math, down from 97% in 2022.

Manhattan Institute Fellow Danyela Egorov said staff face few consequences for poor performance, weakening incentives to assign fair grades; she argued that inflated grades also make the city’s high per-pupil spending harder for taxpayers to evaluate.

Egorov and Brooklyn College Professor Emeritus David Bloomfield argue that weak accountability can encourage grade inflation, because low grades may prompt scrutiny of teaching and student outcomes.

Egorov also blamed teachers unions, politicians and education officials for lowering standards, saying inflated grades conceal persistent student failure despite high school funding.

Researchers at the charter school network Success Academy said the city spends roughly twice as much per student as the average U.S. school district but has struggled for decades to achieve more than mediocre results.

In September, the state Board of Regents moved to eliminate passing Regents exams as a graduation requirement; at a hearing, board member Felicia Thomas-Williams likened testing struggling students to judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree.

A New York State Education Department spokesperson said many states are moving away from high-stakes testing and argued that educational equity means giving students meaningful ways to demonstrate learning, not lowering standards.

The article also notes that New York State’s education department declined to end DEI practices in April 2025, and that New York City Public Schools later sued over the federal government’s decision to withhold $47 million in grants related to the district’s transgender policies.