March 26, 2025 Last Thursday morning, I spoke at the School Construction Authority board meeting, explaining how they have failed to fulfill their legal and ethical obligations to provide schools with the space necessary to comply with the class size law and the requirements of the Public Authorities Law. Here and below is the testimony […]
March 14, 2025 Here and below is the testimony that Michael Rance, our Research Director, gave on behalf of Class Size Matters at the preliminary budget hearing yesterday. Our testimony highlighted the many failings of DOE and the School Construction Authority in delivering a multi-year plan capable of meeting the benchmarks in the class size […]
In December 2024, DOE quietly posted on its website a Table entitled Class Size Space Analysis 2024-2025 , consisting of a list of all non-D75 schools, showing which schools in their estimation do or do not have the space currently to lower class sizes to the levels required by law. According to this list, 495 […]
Feb. 20, 2024 Today we provided testimony at NYC Council Education hearings, in opposition to the DOE plan to to cancel the leases of five Community Based Organizations that provide Early Education services in Brooklyn and Queens. During the hearing, the DOE officials said they intend in the future to cancel contracts with CBO providers […]
Feb. 15, 2025 1. Parents: a quick note to let you know that the deadline to run for your District Community Education or Citywide Council is tomorrow, Sunday Feb. 16. With all the chaos and corruption of the Trump administration and apparently the Mayor’s office as well, this is a way you can […]
December 16, 2024 Please sign our petition if you haven’t already, urging DOE to implement a real five-year class size plan, including providing more space for those schools that need it. More than 600 people have so far, but we’d like to get to a thousand signers before the New Year. Last week, we briefed […]
December 18, 2024 A press release about our letter is posted here. The letter is posted here and below. “
For immediate release: December 23, 2024 Contact: Leonie Haimson: 917-435-9329; [email protected] Wendy Lecker: (203) 536-7567, [email protected] On December 18, Class Size Matters and the Education Law Center sent a letter to Commissioner Betty Rosa, pointing out the failures of the NYC Department of Education (DOE) to comply with the class size law. The two organizations […]
December 12, 2024 The class size law requires that the DOE must provide in its annual Implementation Report “a detailed description of how contract for excellence funds contributed to achieving class size reduction in each school that received such funding including specific information on the number of classes in each school that existed prior to […]
Dec. 12, 2024 Today, we provided a briefing to the Chancellors Parent Advisory Council on the serious problems with the DOE’s implementation of class size reduction, as required by the class size law. Their most glaring failing is the fact that there has been no move to provide space for overcrowded or overenrolled schools. In […]
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 .
