August 6, 2019 Dear Speaker Johnson and members of the City Council: We are very disappointed in the process and outcome of the School Siting Task Force, created by Local Law No. 168 in Sept. 2018. The law mandated the creation of an “interagency task force” to facilitate the acquisition of publicly and privately-owned […]
On Thursday May 23, 2019 the Education Law Center filed an appeal on behalf of nine NYC parents, Class Size Matters and the Alliance for Quality Education, urging the Appellate court to order the Department of Education to reduce class size in all grades as the Contracts for Excellence law requires. Our original lawsuit, Agostini vs. Elia, was filed […]
List of PDFs of approved resolutions urging City Council to fund class sizes here: CEC 2 CEC 21 Education Council Consortium resolution urging City Council to fund class size reduction Approved May 10, 2019 Whereas in the landmark Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, the state’s highest court concluded that smaller classes were necessary for NYC […]
PDF version here. NYC Should Fund Class Size Reduction Now! Class Size Matters is proposing that the NYC Council allocate $200 million to be targeted to reducing class size, starting first in the early grades and in struggling schools. That amount would pay for the salaries of about 2,000 new teachers, which could reduce class […]
A pdf you can download of this memo is here. Agostini v Elia—The New York City C4E Class Size Case In July 2017, nine parents from each borough of New York City filed a petition with the State Commissioner of Education (“Commissioner”) charging the City Department of Education (“DOE”) with failing to reduce […]
This blog post was originally posted here. PDF version is available here. Wednesday, February 27, 2019. Requiem for the Renewal schools: what went wrong? On February 26, 2019, the Mayor and the Chancellor Carranza announced an end to the Renewal program, which has cost the city $773 million since 2014. Since that time, of the 94 schools put on the list […]
Here is a summary of class size trends in NYC public schools, for all grade levels. For district specific trends, please email us [email protected] In short, though the state’s highest court concluded in 2003 that smaller classes were needed for NYC students to receive their constitutional right to a sound basic education, class sizes are […]
Full report with citations posted here (pdf):The Impact of PreK on School Overcrowding in NYC: Lack of Planning, Lack of Space, Dec. 2018. A Daily News article about the report is here. Summary: New York City public schools are critically overcrowded. About 575,000 students, more than half of all students, attended schools that are at […]
The Department of Education has delayed responding to several of my FOIL requests for years. Below is an appeal I filed to make the DOE follow the law and meet the request for information.
This blog post was first posted here. A PDF version is available. Thursday, March 15, 2018 New evidence of an extreme gender bias in selective high school admissions demands an independent evaluation of the exam Today, Ben Chapman of the NY Daily News wrote about the disproportionate number of girls rejected from the highly-selective Specialized high schools […]
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 .
