The Class Size Working Group appointed by the Chancellor to help develop a plan to lower class size citywide in accordance with the new state law is holding public engagement sessions online and in person starting next week to present their preliminary proposals and get feedback: Tuesday, September 26th – 5- 7:30pm online […]
Sept. 8, 2023 Dear all — Welcome to a new school year, and the first year of the phase-in of smaller classes, according to the new state law. Unfortunately, we have already heard of schools where class sizes have increased substantially compared to last year. We anticipated this would occur, given cuts to Fair Student […]
August 28 update: The Daily News published an article about our letter and the fact that DOE omitted its only promise for the coming school year from its revised class size plan, and no longer promises that schools that complied with the class size caps in the law last year would receive support and funding […]
July 5, 2021 1. The DOE’s Draft Class Size Reduction Plan, which is required by law to be submitted to the state next month, makes only one cursory commitment for the next school year: Ensure that schools with classrooms that currently meet the class size mandate have appropriate funding to continue to […]
August 15, 2023 Dear all – I hope you are having a delightful and restful summer. I wanted to bring to your attention that the DOE has posted an updated draft class size reduction plan that omits the only promise made in their previous plan – that they would help ensure that the schools that […]
The DOE’s Draft Class Size Reduction Plan makes only one real commitment for next year: Ensure that schools with classrooms that currently meet the class size mandate have appropriate funding to continue to maintain these class sizes in SY23-24. Yet there is no information in the plan or otherwise on how the DOE is planning […]
June 26, 2023 1. We’ve done an updated budget analysis that finds that one third of all NYC public schools are facing Galaxy budget cuts as of June 14, compared to the same date last year, and about one-third are also facing Fair Student Funding cuts. We explain here why both are a real concern, […]
Updated 6.29.23 with new analysis excluding summer school cuts and D 75 schools While the DOE stated that no initial school budgets for next year would be cut compared to initial budgets this year, more than a third (33.8%) of NYC public schools show a cut in their total Galaxy budgets for next year as […]
On Saturday, June 10th we had a great Parent Action Conference, co-sponsored with NYC Kids Pac. Many committed parent and teacher activists met via Zoom. We began the conference with powerful remarks from Council Member Alexa Avilés about her decision as a PTA co-president to run for office, and what the biggest challenges she faced […]
June 20, 2023 Eight days from now, on Wed. June 28th, we will be holding our annual Skinny dinner in honor of Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a former NYC principal and a great force for change in the US Congress. Rep. Bowman has sponsored two terrific bills that would change the face of education in NYC […]
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 .
