New York City’s public education system is failing to properly serve children who are learning English as a new language, according to a report from the city comptroller that illuminates the plight of one of the most vulnerable groups of students.
Under state law, children who speak or understand little or no English are entitled to equal access to a free education.
But a report released this week by the city comptroller, Brad Lander, found that New York’s public school system, the largest in the United States, has denied legally mandated services and instruction to thousands of these children, even as their enrollment soared by nearly 17 percent during the past three years as large numbers of migrants entered the city.
The problem is not confined to New York: Experts and advocates say that it is crucial for states nationwide to improve their education of students learning English, who face higher dropout rates than their peers.
In its review, the comptroller’s office analyzed records of more than 300 students learning English as a new language. The city’s Education Department failed to provide almost half of those children with required courses or the minimum amount of instructional time, “crippling students’ language development and academic progress,” according to the report.
About 40 percent of the students were taught by teachers who were not fully qualified to teach them, a finding that the comptroller’s audit described as “shocking.”
The parents of nearly one in three students were not informed by the city of their rights, “eroding trust and access for all families,” the report said.
The school system’s troubles come as English language learners make up a greater share of enrollment: Nearly 175,000 public school students were identified as English language learners last school year, more than 16 percent of all public school students, according to city data. About two in three speak Spanish at home.
Mr. Lander described English language learner programs as the cornerstone of the school system’s mandate to “deliver equal access for all students, no matter what language they speak or where they come from.”
But he said the Education Department had “routinely denied this promise to thousands of young New Yorkers and their families,” adding that the systemic breakdowns were at odds with the department’s legal obligation and moral imperative “to provide an equal opportunity to learn.”
Onika Richards, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said that it “had already implemented strategic, systemwide initiatives to strengthen language instruction, compliance indicators and ensure equity in access to higher quality education” well before the release of the comptroller’s report.
Ms. Richards added that the administration of Mayor Eric Adams was committed to ensuring that “every child, regardless of language background, will receive their mandated instruction and support through any medium necessary to thrive in the classroom.”
The comptroller’s audit offers insight into how children who do not speak English have fared under Mr. Adams, a Democrat who is running for re-election as an independent. With roughly 50,000 migrant children having enrolled in the public school system since 2022, his administration has struggled to increase the ranks of bilingual educators and social workers.
His three opponents in the mayor’s race, including former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat who is also running as an independent, and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, have not released policy proposals for educating students learning English.
Nor has Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, who lacks a detailed schools platform. As a state assemblyman, Mr. Mamdani recently cosponsored a bill to provide more robust language assistance to families of children who do not speak English.
Still, the audit revealed other alarming problems related to the instruction of these children. Spanish-speaking students were most likely to lack access to services; so did large numbers of Chinese-, Russian-, Bengali- and Arabic-speaking children, the comptroller’s office found.
New York state law requires, for example, that a school district create a bilingual education program if it enrolls a certain number of students who speak the same language. Districts are permitted to request exemptions for less commonly spoken languages, but for no more than five consecutive years.
The comptroller found that roughly 97 percent of the waivers that New York City schools requested last year to avoid creating bilingual programs were improper, denying required instruction to thousands of children.
The comptroller’s office made 10 recommendations to the Education Department, including recruiting more qualified teachers and expanding bilingual programs in high-demand districts. The city agreed with nine of the recommendations.
Rita Rodriguez-Engberg, the director of the Immigrant Students’ Rights project at Advocates for Children of New York, said in a statement that many parents were not aware of their children’s rights or English language learner status, and that the audit reflected many of the same “challenges we also hear from the families we serve.”
Troy Closson is a Times education reporter focusing on K-12 schools.
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