Blakeman hammers Hochul over dismal NY public school rankings, vows to boost STEM: Not acceptable

Republican Bruce Blakeman on Friday ripped Gov.Kathy Hochul for New York students’ dismal test scores under her watch — vowing to place STEM initiatives at the heart of public education if he wins in November.“You’ve got to elevate our kids.

Kathy Hochul has no clue how to do that,” Blakeman said during a campaign stop in The Bronx.“She’s had an opportunity for the last five years, and the test scores have gone down, down, down,” he railed.“It’s not acceptable.”Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, also hammered Hochul for her infamous 2024 claim that “young black kids in the Bronx” don’t know what a computer is — insisting youngsters in the borough “know more about a computer” than the governor will “ever know.”“She doesn’t know what is going on our communities.

She doesn’t even know what’s going on in our school system,” he said.“The fact is we have to support our children’s education and not put them down.

We have to elevate them.”Blakeman was joined by Bronx community leader and educator Sheikh Musa Drammeh, who highlighted New York’s bleak 17th-place national education ranking in US News & World Report — and questioned how that was possible when the state spends more per pupil than any other in the country.The nearly $40,000-per-pupil spending in 2025 didn’t translate to equally soaring results, Blakeman and Drammeh noted.Instead, New York 4th graders scored 22nd in the nation for reading while 8th graders scored 24th, according to the gold standard National Assessment of Educational Progress exam.Fourth graders also scored 38th in math and 8th graders scored 27th.“It’s not the teachers’ fault.

It’s the fault of the curriculum, the Board of Regents, the Chancellor of Education and Kathy Hochul,” Blakeman said.The Long Island pol said New York public schools should be zeroing in on science, technology, engineering and math — known under the acronym STEM — and said he’d make thos...