July 31, 2019 I hope you are having a relaxing summer. Unfortunately, the last few weeks haven’t been much fun for Class Size Matters. We recently discovered that we lost over $7000, including the donations to our annual fundraiser in June, because NYCharities, our online processor, appears to have collapsed, as reported by Fox News. […]
On Tuesday June 11 at noon, more than one hundred parents, students, advocates, elected officials and union members gathered on the steps of City Hall to urge the NYC Department of Education and the Mayor to allocate specific funding in next year’s budget towards reducing class size. Below is a video of the rally. Thanks […]
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 […]
1. Save the date! On Wednesday June 19 we will hold our annual Skinny award dinner at Casa La Femme on 140 Charles St. The honorees will be Attorney General Tish James for her steadfast and courageous leadership in supporting public school students and parents over many years; and NYC Kids PAC, the only political action committee that rates candidates […]
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 […]
Testimony before the Committee on Education and Jointly with the Committee on Civil and Human Rights PDF of the testimony is here. May 1, 2019 Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. My name is Leonie Haimson and I’m the executive director of Class Size Matters. I would like to testify in […]
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 […]
Dear folks, As a result of the controversy over inBloom and related issues, the NY State legislature passed Education Law §2-d in 2014, with the goal of protecting the privacy and the security of student data that schools, districts and states as well as their contractors collect and disclose. After nearly five years, the NY State Education […]
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 […]
A terrific education Town hall was held Saturday March 14 in Queens, sponsored by Jackson Heights People for Public Schools. Among the speakers: Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez, Diane Ravitch and many education advocates and elected leaders. Accounts of the event was published in Jacobin and Diane Ravitch’s blog. Here is Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters speaking […]
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 .
