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In the most recent fiscal year that ended in June, 13,429 participants took part in Department of Youth and Community Development-funded adult literacy programs, a 26 percent drop from the year before. But more than 5,000 additional people took part in classes paid for by the City Council, which stepped in during last year’s budget negotiations to plug a multi-million dollar cut.
For years, the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) has worked with local organizations to develop adult literacy programs, helping New Yorkers improve their reading, writing, and communication skills for jobs or to pursue further education.
Last year, DYCD changed how it selects nonprofit providers for adult education contracts, starting to use “Neighborhood Tabulation Areas” to target zones with low English proficiency and educational attainment, and high poverty rates.
However, after a year of implementing the new contracting system, the number of people who took part in these programs—which include English language classes for immigrant New Yorkers—dropped by 26 percent.
In the most recent fiscal year that ended in June, 13,429 participants took part in DYCD-funded adult literacy programs, down from 18,191 the year before and short of the agency’s previously stated goal of 14,312 participants for the year.
But another more than 5,000 people took part in classes paid for by the City Council, which stepped in during last year’s budget negotiations to plug a $6 million cut in DYCD funding for adult literacy programs amidst the contract overhaul.
Last year, advocates promptly criticized the contract changes after the New York City Coalition for Adult Literacy reported that over 70 percent of existing programs were not located in an NTA, and therefore weren’t eligible for funding.
The Council’s discretionary funds—a one-time, $10 million infusion—was used to keep programs afloat for longtime providers who were cut out of the new contracts, as City Limits reported at the time.
Anticipating the impact of the budget cut, the “City Council made its largest single-year increase in adult literacy discretionary funding in history,” explained Ira Yankwitt, executive director of the Literacy Assistance Center (LAC). LAC was selected to collect data on the classes funded by the Council, and its September report stated that 5,290 students participated.
Advocates and staff from Council Member Julie Won’s office said that, when including participants in both DYCD and Council-funded programs, the total number of participants stayed around 18,000 people in the last fiscal year, in line with previous years.
“This number of students served by the Pilot Project takes us back to the over 18,000 students served in prior years,” said Farah Salam, district director of Council Member Julie Won’s office.
This current fiscal year 2026, which started July 1, the Council once again allocated funds for two adult education programs: the City Council’s Adult Literacy Initiative (its larger umbrella adult education program) and the Council’s Adult Literacy Forward project (lawmakers’ more recent investment in community-based programming, previously called the City Council Adult Literacy Pilot Project).
| City Council Funding | FY24 | FY25 | FY26 |
| Adult Literacy Initiative | $4 million | $6.25 million | $6.53 million |
| Adult Literacy Pilot Project (renamed AL Forward in FY26) | $2.5 million | $7.86 million | $7.97 million |
| Total from City Council | $6.5 million | $14.1 million | $14.5 million |
(CREDIT: Literacy Assistance Center)
Still, there have been other challenges in the wake of DYCD’s contract changes. The assignment and allocation of funds in the most recent fiscal year took longer than planned, and not all NTAs—neighborhoods the city targeted for services under the new formula—actually had programs, DYCD explained.
In February, when City Limits reported on two bidders withdrawing their applications to run programs, DYCD said it had selected new providers to fill those areas. But by the end of last fiscal year, the city had received no viable proposals for two NTAs for Adult Basic Education and High School Equivalency, DYCD said.
DYCD said that the agency is working on reallocating those slots to Bilingual Education programs and English for Speakers of Other Languages classes.
The new contracting method also led to delays in the city selecting providers, who in turn had shorter time frames to get classes up and running. According to the latest Mayor’s Management Report (MMR), the percentage of participants meeting standards of improvement on English skills in adult literacy classes also decreased, from 59 percent to 54 percent.
“Due to delays in contract awards and the program start-up process, providers did not have as long with participants to reach outcomes,” explains the MMR. Some providers also struggled to fill their slots. DYCD said that providers who had trouble meeting their enrollment targets this year were offered help from a vendor that could help them improve their capacity.
DYCD said the number of spots decreased because the cost per person increased to allow for better programming. But they also recognized the program’s bumpy start and that delays affected how many people enrolled.
“DYCD is committed to helping New Yorkers attain the reading, writing, and communication skills they need to get a job, give back to their community, and pursue further education. Our Adult Literacy Program is doing just that, and we’re making this program even more robust to give New Yorkers the tools they need to succeed,” a DYCD spokesperson said.
There’s been an increase in demand for these programs recently, since the city absorbed over 237,000 migrants since 2022. Around 37,000 of them are still in the shelter system.
When asked for participation data on the current fiscal year, the DYCD did not provide specifics, saying that July and August typically represent a small percentage of enrollment, while data for September wasn’t yet final.
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