I’m a middle school teacher in New York, and what’s happening inside many classrooms today should concern every parent in this country — especially parents of Black boys.
Education is supposed to be about reading, writing, history, discipline and accountability. Instead, in too many schools, academics are being pushed aside while politics, ideology and lowered expectations take their place. The students who can least afford to fall behind — particularly young Black boys — are the ones being hurt the most.
The data shows this is not just opinion — it’s reality. According to the New York State Education Department’s 2024-2025 assessment results, proficiency rates in English and math remain far below where they should be, with major gaps between racial groups. Black students in New York City were only about 47% proficient in English and 43% proficient in math, compared with much higher rates for white and Asian students.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress — known as the nation’s report card— tells the same story. In 2024, only about 23% of New York City eighth graders were proficient in math, and scores nationwide remain below where they were before the pandemic.
Achievement gaps remain especially wide for Black students. In recent testing data, only about 16% of Black students reached math proficiency compared with more than half of white students, showing that the students who need the strongest schools are often getting the weakest results.
The pattern continues into high school. SAT results released in 2024 showed New York City students scoring below both state and national averages, with Black students posting some of the lowest scores in the city.
So what is happening?
Across many schools, the focus has slowly shifted away from academic mastery and toward comfort, messaging and politics. Instead of asking, “Can this student read at grade level?” the conversation often becomes, “How can we make the work easier?” or “How can we adjust the assignment so everyone passes?”
This is often described as differentiated learning, but in practice it sometimes means lowering standards instead of raising achievement.
Teachers are frequently encouraged to modify lessons, reduce rigor or avoid failure rates that look bad on paper. But when expectations go down, learning usually goes down with them.
This is especially troubling in a state like New York, which spends more money per student than almost anywhere in the country, yet still struggles to produce strong academic results.Inside many classrooms today, the consequences are clear.
Students reach middle school reading below grade level. Some struggle to write a full paragraph. Others have difficulty explaining basic history, government or literature. These are not political problems — they are academic problems. And they require discipline, repetition, structure and high expectations to fix.
Black boys in particular cannot afford a school system that replaces rigor with slogans.
For generations, education was the path forward. Strong teachers demanded excellence, corrected mistakes and expected students to master the material. That approach helped countless Black students succeed, even when the odds were against them.
Today, too often, the focus has shifted from scholarship to messaging. Students need facts before opinions. They need grammar before slogans. They need discipline before comfort.
If we really want to help Black boys succeed in New York, the answer is not weaker standards or more politics in the classroom. The answer is stronger teaching, clearer expectations and schools that put academics first again.
Because right now, the generation that will pay the price for this shift is already sitting in America’s classrooms.
Dennis Richmond Jr. is a journalist and the author of “He Spoke at My School: An Educational Journey.” He is the founder of The New York-New Jersey HBCU Initiative. Follow him on social media @NewYorkStakz.
The post Why Black male students are hurt the most by lowered academic expectations appeared first on New York Post.
