On Friday, Feb. 28, 2020, parents, students, educators and advocates testified on the importance of reducing class size at City Hall hearings of the NYC Education Committee, chaired by Council Member Mark Treyger. Below are videos and links to written statements of some of these testimonies. The full unedited video of the hearings is here. […]
A pdf of this testimony is posted here; a video of my abbreviated remarks is here. Leonie Haimson’s Testimony before the NYC Council Education Committee on the Need to Reduce Class Size in the NYC Public Schools Feb. 28, 2020 Thank you Chair Treyger for holding these important hearings today on a subject that is […]
Update: 10/26/2023: The SCA has posted a spreadsheet that shows how many seats were lost in the 2021-2022 school year that includes the seats lost in 2019-2020, but has added no other information required by law. The spreadsheet lists “0” for the number of seats lost in a D75 school on Staten Island, at 669 […]
In October of 2019 Class Size Matters released a report on charter facility funding in New York City. This report reveals that the NYC DOE spent more than $377 million on charter school facility costs from FY 2014 to FY 2019. This includes matching funds for public school facility upgrade costs as well as rent […]
The Board of Regents and the New York State Education Department are re-examining the use of Regents “exit exams” as a requirement for high school graduation, and are holding a series of regional public sessions to gather input from parents, teachers and other stakeholders before making any changes to the current policy. These meetings will […]
You can download a PDF version here. What are we proposing? Class Size Matters is urging that the Mayor and NYC Council allocate $100 million to be allocated towards hiring teachers to lower class size, starting first in the early grades and in struggling schools. That amount could pay for the salaries of about 1,000 new […]
Jan. 6, 2020 The School Siting Task Force, created by Local Law 168, met only twice with no input from parent members appointed by the DOE or City Council members. It produced only a 1 1/2 page report, along with two spreadsheets, one a list of empty city-owned sites from the Department of Citywide Administrative […]
Here are power point presentations explaining why class size is important, and with data showing citywide and district-specific class size trends since 2006. Class size in NYC schools including citywide long term trends and what should be done Here are class size trends for every community school district over time, organized by borough and by […]
The NY Assembly Education chair Michael Benedetto and other members of the Education committee held hearings today on Mayoral control which the Legislature renewed with minor changes last spring until June 2022. More on these hearings on the NYC public school parent blog here. My testimony is below; but in response to questions I also […]
Dec. 3, 2019 My testimony to the NY Senate on the Foundation aid funding to schools in NYC and statewide is below.
Sign here to urge NYC to implement a real, multi-year strategy to lower class size, as the law intends, without exempting up to half or more of all students.
Talk out of School radio show and podcast airs Sunday night at 7 PM on WBAI 99.5 FM or online at www.wbai.org when Leonie Haimson and Daniel Alicea interview guests and discuss issues affecting public schools in NYC, the state level and nationally. You can stream or subscribe to the podcast here; or at iTunes, Spotify or Google.
We held our annual Skinny award dinner Wed. June 28, 2023, honoring Rep. Jamaal Bowman, former Bronx principal and now a progressive trailblazer who is fighting in Congress to protect and improve our public schools. More photos on Facebook .
