Please join us to honor Diane Ravitch & also speak out on the inadequate capital plan

April 24, 2026

1.     Please join us for our annual Skinny award dinner on Tuesday May 19, when we will be honoring the great education scholar and warrior, Diane Ravitch!

Diane is not only the foremost expert on the history of the NYC school system, the author of 20 books and a widely-read blog, she is also a fearless advocate and the founder and President of the Network for Public Education, an organization that battles to support public schools and protect them from defunding and privatization every day.

If you value Class Size Matters’ advocacy and analysis on class size, student privacy, and/or AI, or just want to honor Diane’s tremendous work, please purchase your tickets today! Depending on which level of tickets you buy, you may receive autographed copies of Diane’s terrific memoir, “An Education.”

2.     Much attention has been recently paid to the numerous controversial proposals on next week’s PEP agenda to be voted on April 29 to move, truncate, and close various public schools in Manhattan –and to open a new high school based on AI. Many of these proposals are chaotic, unfair, and unsupported by evidence, and will cause serious harm to students. Yet they are also indicative of an even larger problem at DOE – the refusal to provide enough space to allow all schools and all students to thrive.

Far less attention has been given to the fact that the PEP is also scheduled to vote on the capital plan next week, a plan that funds less than half the seats the School Construction Authority itself admits are necessary to lower class size to mandated levels. Of those seats that are funded, more than half have no sites, and nearly 40% are unspecified as to district or grade level.

This lack of transparency violates not just the class size law, but also Local Law 167, passed by the City Council in 2018. At Council hearings last month, the SCA testified that they are in the process of revising the current capital plan to better align it to the class size law, so any vote to approve this inadequate plan would be both premature and unjustifiable.

To add to this injustice is the fact that the School Utilization Committee of the PEP passed a resolution more than a month ago, on March 18, calling on the DOE to develop a comprehensive multi-year plan to lower class size and to mitigate school overcrowding, while pointing out the deficiencies of the current capital plan. Yet this resolution has never been posted on the PEP website and thus cannot be brought to a vote, presumably because of the DOE’s opposition.

Whether the DOE even has the legal right to block a resolution proposed by a PEP committee is an interesting question that should be examined – but in any case, this is yet more evidence for how stakeholder concerns, student needs and even the input of its own school board is ignored by an administration intent on pursuing its own flawed policies.

Please send a message to the PEP members today. A sample message along with their email addresses is below – but please feel free to edit it, change the wording, and add your own concerns, especially if the DOE/SCA has refused to adequately address the overcrowding in your school or community.

More info on the inadequate DOE AI guidance next week — and how you can support our call for a moratorium.

Thanks! Leonie

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aalicea6@schools.nyc.gov; daltman5@schools.nyc.gov; saubin@schools.nyc.gov; abogad@schools.nyc.gov; jborelli@schools.nyc.gov; ccasaretti@schools.nyc.gov ; mdienstag@schools.nyc.gov; afair3@schools.nyc.gov; gregfaulkner1@gmail.com ; agarcia141@schools.nyc.gov; agiordano16@schools.nyc.gov ; agreen57@schools.nyc.gov; fhannahjones@schools.nyc.gov; naveed@cs.columbia.edu; aho2791@schools.nyc.gov; rizquierdo2@schools.nyc.gov; yjimenez20@schools.nyc.gov; sodwin3@schools.nyc.gov ; aong3@schools.nyc.gov; bparsons5@schools.nyc.gov; msapp@schools.nyc.gov; JCollins37@schools.nyc.gov

 

Dear PEP members:  

I urge you to vote against the capital plan on April 29, which funds fewer than half the seats that the SCA itself has testified are necessary to lower class size to mandated levels, and will leave unacceptably overcrowded conditions in many schools and neighborhoods, as pointed out in a resolution passed by the PEP School Utilization Committee more than a month ago.

The capital plan as currently composed not only violates the class size law, it also violates the transparency required by Local 167, as nearly 40% of the funded seats are undisclosed as to district or grade level. Moreover, at City Council hearings last month, the SCA testified that they are in the process of revising the current capital plan to better align it to the goals in the class size law, so any vote to approve this inadequate plan at the current time would be both premature and unjustifiable.

Yours,

[name and school]