Governor Kathy Hochul is advocating for a return to fundamental math teaching principles, suggesting the need for thoughtful revisions in curriculum and teaching methods.

While her intentions are commendable, her influence over New York’s educational system is limited.

Decades-old progressive reforms shifted control of the State Education Department (SED) to a Board of Regents, a body appointed through a complex process that effectively gives the state Assembly speaker significant sway.

Current Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie secured his position in 2015 by aligning with teachers’ unions and other leftist groups, which means that practical and factual approaches are often sidelined in SED’s management of K-12 education.

Thus, Hochul’s only option is to propose legislation that mandates SED to provide guidelines for math instruction and curriculum selection. However, even with legislative success, she cannot prevent education officials from interpreting “best practices” as they see fit.

If the gov really wanted to help, she’d use her bully pulpit to embarrass SED into rescinding idiocy like its recent math guidelines telling teachers to stop giving timed quizzes because they overstress some kids.

Better yet, she’d hector the Regents into admitting that top charter schools blow the regular public schools away on state and national math tests, and mandating that poor-performing districts adopt the “best practices” of those charters.

She might also call out new NYC Chancellor Kamar Samuels for pushing to to “improve” high- and middle-school math instruction barely 18 months after Mayor Eric Adams’ team introduced his solid NYC Solves math reforms.

If he wants to make a positive difference, Samuels should get NYC Solves going in elementary grades (as Adams failed to do), not trash it. 

New York spends vastly more per student on K-12 public education, with utterly mediocre results; families are fleeing the city’s public schools even as state law forces the system to mindlessly hire more teachers of dubious quality.

Someday, maybe New York will have a governor who’s willing to call out the obscene disservice the Albany power structure does for the state’s schoolchildren.