August 3, 2023 Comments on paper by Matthew Chingos and Ariella Meltzer, “Class Size Reductions May Be Inequitably Distributed under a New Mandate in New York City” The primary claim made in this paper is that lowering class size would inequitably benefit white and Asian students rather than Black and Hispanic students, who tend to […]
Articles about the IBO estimate were published in the Daily News and Gothamist. July 12, 2023 Comments on IBO brief on class size reduction costs: It is surprising that the IBO came out with a higher estimate of the staffing cost for the new class size reduction law than the city’s estimate– $1.6- $1.8 billion […]
May 24, 2023 Our testimony at today’s budget hearings is posted here and below. We are very concerned about the continued shrinking of the teaching staff and the huge proposed cuts to the capital plan, both of which will make the goals in the new class size law difficult if not impossible to achieve. We […]
March 17, 2023 Hearings were held on Wed. before the Education committee of the City Council on the DOE preliminary budget and the Feb. amendment to the capital plan. During the hearings, the DOE admitted that they plan to cut school budgets even more next year, though they wouldn’t say by how much. Instead, the […]
Feb. 12, 2023 Below see Class Size Matters’ testimony from last week’s State education budget hearings, which describe some of the many reasons we are extremely concerned that the DOE is not prepared to meet the class size limits in the new state law, especially in the out years, given repeated cuts to school budgets, […]
January 25, 2023 For my account of these hearings, and the disappointing testimony of Deputy Chancellor Weisberg, see the NYC Public School Parent blog here. You can also read Jenn Choi’s testimony at that link, about the hurdles students with disabilities face being admitted to schools that meet their needs and allow them to reach […]
On June 2, 2022 the Legislature overwhelming passed the class size bill, S9460/ A10498, by a vote of 59-4 in the Senate and 147-2 in the Assembly. The bill required that NYC implement a five-year class size reduction plan beginning in the fall of 2022. On Sept. 8, 2022, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the bill […]
August 22, 2022 Check out Class Size Matters testimony at hearings of the Council Education Department today on their resolution, demanding the Mayor restore the budget cuts to schools. We included a critique of the entire design of the Fair Student Funding system, showing how it was structured to maximize class sizes and incentivize principals […]
August 20, 2022 A few weeks ago, the NY Post ran an oped by a plaintiff in the NYSER case, which was an educational lawsuit filed in 2014 and settled last fall, after the Governor agreed to fully fund the amount to NYC schools owed them from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case. This NY […]
Below is our testimony from the July 24, 2022 joint hearings of the City Council Education and Oversight/Investigation Committees. If you’d like to hear our account of the hearings, and the absurd claims made by the Deputy Chancellor, it’s posted here.
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 .
