3 easy ways to help get smaller classes for NYC kids!
Feb. 11, 2020
Please help us urge the Speaker and NYC Council to invest $100 million in hiring additional teachers to lower class size, starting first in the early grades and in struggling schools.
This would pay for the salaries of about 1,000 new teachers, which could reduce class size in as many as 4,000 classrooms—as adding a new teacher at a grade level lowers class size for all the other students in that same grade in the school. These funds would represent less than one percent of the $34 billion that the DOE will be spending next year.
NYC kids will never be provided with true equity as long as their class sizes remain 15-30% larger than they are in the rest of the state.
If you support this critical goal, please take five minutes to do the following:
1.Call Speaker Corey Johnson’s office at: 212-788-7210; if busy, call 212-564-7757.
Say the following: Please make sure that at least $100 million is allocated towards reducing class size in next year’s budget and the Council’s budget response should include this initiative.
2. Contact your City Council Members via phone and urge them to do the same; also let them know you are a constituent. To find your City Council members and their contact information, plug your address in here: https://council.nyc.gov/
3. Once you have done that, please fill out our follow-up survey.
Unfortunately, the Council hearing and rally on class size had to be postponed because I broke my leg in Spain. More on this here.
Hopefully these events will be rescheduled soon — but we’re not going to wait to put this issue squarely on the Council’s agenda. Please make those calls today!
Thanks so much, Leonie
There is more data on class size and overcrowding trends citywide and in particular districts on our website here. If you’d like a briefing for your CEC or community organization, let us know.