The decision to require all New York City elementary schools to teach a phonics-based curriculum will make New York a national leader in literacy education. The mandate, announced by Mayor Adams last week, will give New York students their best chance at learning to read and set them up for long-term success.
However, a Staten Island Supreme Court justice threw a last-minute wrench into Adams’ plans, ruling just hours before his Friday announcement that the toddler mask mandate can’t be enforced because it’s “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.”
Staten Island Supreme Court judge Ralph Porzio declared in a one-page decision on Friday that the city’s face-covering requirement for kids five and younger is “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable” and ruled the mandate “void and unenforceable.”