By law, the DOE is supposed to report on class sizes twice a year, the first time on Nov. 15 and then again on Feb. 15. We had heard from parents of egregiously large classes sizes this fall for many students engaged in remote learning of sixty students or even more, either full-time or part-time. […]
Jan. 22, 2021 Dear all – 1.Please read my piece published today at Gotham Gazette. It explains why the DOE should cancel the “gifted” tests immediately; now and forever. It makes no sense to continue this invalid, unreliable and biased exam, especially in the midst of a pandemic and the prospect of steep budget cuts […]
A pdf of this testimony is posted here. Class Size Matters Testimony on Impact of COVID-19 on Student Learning and Academic Achievement January 20, 2021 Thank you for holding these oversight hearings today. My name is Leonie Haimson and I am the Executive Director of Class Size Matters. Recent articles in the NY Post [1], […]
Dear Friends — 2020 was a difficult year for Class Size Matters as it was for many non-profits. If you support our mission of smaller classes, so that all students no matter what their background can receive the help and feedback from teachers they need for an equitable opportunity to learn, please make a tax-deductible donation […]
December 13, 2020 Dear Friends, 1 – It’s that time of year; please give to Class Size Matters, we need financial support especially as we could not hold our annual Skinny award fundraiser last spring because of COVID. We rely on donations from our supporters; please do so by clicking here. Also, if you’re buying gifts on […]
November 12, 2020 Dear Friends, 1/ Today, Thursday Nov. 12 at 6:30 PM, I’ll be speaking at an online forum hosted by Brooklyn for Peace about how the COVID-19 pandemic has widened the inequities that already exist within our public school system. You can find more information about this forum and sign up to attend here. 2/ The […]
Nov. 11, 2020 Chalkbeat also reported on Sen. Hoylman’s letter today. NY State Senator Brad Hoylman sent a letter yesterday to the Chancellor, asking questions about whether the personal student data that is being collected and processed by the many online programs acquired by the DOE is sufficiently protected from breach or abuse. According to […]
Oct. 28, 2020 Last week, Council Education Chair Mark Treyger wrote a letter to Chancellor Carranza urging him to report on school-specific and citywide class size averages as the law requires on Nov. 15, and also to disagreggate the data by type of instruction used: either in-person learning, remote classes for blended learning students, and […]
October 16, 2020 The NYC Council Education and Health Committees held oversight hearings on October 16 on the reopening of schools, as well as two proposed bills to require detailed attendance reporting: Int. 2058 and Int. 2104. Below is my testimony on the issue of class size and how to sharpen these bills to require more precise and disaggregated reporting […]
I sent the below memo to the members of the Panel for Educational Policy last week; questions about their busing contracts, DOE’s lack of compliance with the state student privacy law by failing to post their district data privacy policy and contracts with vendors that have access to personal student data, and problems related to […]
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