The percentage of New York City eighth-graders failing the statewide exam in social studies has risen dramatically since Mayor Bloomberg took over the public school system, jumping to 81% last year from 62% in 2002.

Exposure of the skyrocketing failure rate came at a City Council hearing yesterday, almost a year after the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, trumpeted single-digit gains in math and English scores but didn’t mention the double-digit dive in social studies scores.

The increase in the proportion of students unable to read charts, interpret political cartoons, and remember central facts about American, New York State, and European history and government comes despite a long list of social studies initiatives implemented since Mr. Bloomberg took control of the public school system and appointed Mr. Klein chancellor.

In an information packet provided to the council before the hearing, the Department of Education boasted that it has implemented 11 initiatives related to social studies and civics.

At the top of the list was separating the departments of literacy and social studies at the education department and giving each its own director. Since September, a former regional social studies coordinator in Brooklyn, Elise Abegg, has been social studies director. The 10 regions have also appointed instructional specialists for social studies.

Other programs include providing information and professional-development packets to teachers, beefing up classroom social-studies libraries for students in grades kindergarten through eight, and forging partnerships with historical, cultural, and political institutions.

As the department has implemented its reforms, however, results have worsened.

In the 2001-02 school year, 62% of New York City eighth-graders did not meet standards on the statewide social studies exam. The following year, 76% failed to meet state standards. Last year, the figure rose to 81%. The scores on this year’s test have not yet been released. The increased failure rate mirrors a statewide pattern. Across the state, the percentage of eighth-graders failing the social studies exam rose to 55% in 2003-04 from 35% in 2001-02.

The fifth-grade failure rate, too, climbed. In 2001-02, 25% of city students did not meet statewide standards. The following year, that rose to 51%, before dropping to 45% last year. The scores on this year’s test have yet to be released. Statewide, the fifth grade failure rate rose to 26% in the 2003-04 school year from 12% in the 2001-2002 school year.

A spokesman for the state Education Department, Tom Dunn, said the test did not change and that the agency has no explanation for the results.

“The data speaks for itself,” he said when asked about the middle-school scores. “We are concerned about the overall decline in performance on the middle-level social studies exam.”

The chairwoman of the council’s Committee on Education, Eva Moskowitz, questioned Ms. Abegg about the decline.

“What are you doing about this monumental failure?” Ms. Moskowitz said. “None of these things seem to address this monumental failure. I somehow don’t think just distributing packets is going to turn this around.”

Ms. Abegg blamed the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which holds schools accountable for their students’ performance on math and English tests, for the increased failure.

“Some schools have been afraid not to teach literacy all day long and math all day long,” she testified. She said some schools are focusing on literacy at the expense of social studies because they want to avoid being labeled by the state as a failing school.

“I find that very hard to believe,” Ms. Moskowitz said. She said it’s more likely that schools are responding to pressures from the city.

The other official who testified at the hearing, the city’s executive director for high schools, J.C. Brizard, said he thinks students know their history but can’t read well. Ms. Moskowitz said if the problem is too much literacy instruction, the problem shouldn’t be one of reading comprehension.

The director of New York University’s Center for Research on Teaching and Learning, Robert Tobias, said: “It’s very easy to point to a focus in something else to explain a failure in another area, but that just doesn’t hold water.”

Mr. Tobias, who used to be at the helm of the city education department’s assessment and accountability team, said the statewide increase in failure does not excuse failure in the city.

“Nobody’s off the hook,” he said.

The president of the teachers union, Randi Weingarten, who started her career as a social-studies teacher, said the subject is “essential to kids learning about their responsibilities as adults and about the rule of law.”

Since the education department created its Children First program, she said, social studies teachers have been told to focus on literacy instead of history and civics. She said there has also been more focus on test preparation than on social studies and science combined.

“What we were seeing before Children First was a steady increase in the test scores of kids that we teach,” she said. “It’s a troubling trend that needs to be reversed, but it points out that you need to listen to the people in the trenches.”

The executive director of Teaching Matters, a group that works to integrate civics and English, Lynette Guastaferro, said the city is moving in the right instructional direction, despite the scores.

She praised the department for homing in on literacy, but said, “I do think, though, when you put more time in literacy perhaps we need to put more nonfiction into it.”

The deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, Carmen Farina, predicted a rebound.

“In my 14 months as deputy chancellor, we have taken many steps to restore social studies to its appropriate place in the overall curriculum,” she said. “I expect to see stronger teaching in social-studies content and improved student literacy skills being applied to mastery of this content. Social studies is one area where students’ ability to analyze and interpret history is directly dependent on their ability to read to learn.”