Education Chancellor David Banks and Mayor Eric Adams kicked off New York City Reads in Brownsville, a new campaign with the goal to boost youth reading skills.

The program includes a phonics-based concept that will help students sound out words and letters. 

This comes as recent Department of Education statistics show that just over 50% of elementary school students are not reading at a proficient level in school. 

"I want to say this to all of our kids, your inability to read has not been your fault," said Banks. "They aren't reading because we've been giving our schools and our educators a flawed playbook."

Banks added the program will be introduced in two phases, beginning this year at 15 districts across the city with full implementation citywide by 2025. Each district will choose one of three curriculums that the program offers. 

"The only way to do this en masse is to have a basic, sound, really good literacy curriculum which is phonetically based," said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers. 

Groups like the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators say they don't agree with having a single curriculum for a school district, adding that the DOE is lacking engagement in the communities during this rollout. 

Teachers will receive 26 days of training for the new program, and it will begin starting next school year.