NYC does a rotten job of school planning. The Mayor has encouraged rampant development to occur throughout the five boroughs with little or no forethought as to where all the additional children living in these buildings will attend school. This has led to over 570,000 students attending overcrowded schools, according to the DOE’s own data. […]
About 575,000 students are currently crammed into overcrowded public schools and the situation will only worsen given the city’s growing population and development trends, without a new planning process that takes full account of the need for new schools. Please send a letter to the new Charter Revision Commission signaling your support for the proposal […]
Class size and overcrowding citywide and in District 6. Presented to CEC 6 on Dec. 3, 2018.
Please send a letter to the new City Council Charter Revision Committee to propose that the school planning process be reformed. There is a need to reform the city’s planning process, so that sufficient new schools are built along with development – and not years afterwards, as now occurs in our dysfunctional system. If you agree, […]
November 27, 2018 Today is #GivingTuesday, and I hope you will consider giving to Class Size Matters, the only organization in the city, the state and the nation focused on providing information on the proven benefits of class size reduction and advocating for smaller classes in the public schools. The NY Times called us “city’s […]
Send a letter to the Mayor and Chancellor asking them to stop violating student privacy by making personal information available to charter schools for marketing purposes. Last fall, parent leader and CEC President Johanna Garcia filed a FERPA complaint with the federal government about the DOE’s practice of allowing charter schools to access her child’s […]
November 9, 2018 Much has happened since we last spoke. Tuesday’s elections will lead to a real sea-change in the NY State politics. We will be reaching out to the Assembly and the newly elected Democratic majority in the State Senate with proposals on how to ensure more accountability for charter schools and to reform […]
The NY Times front-page article by Eliza Shapiro about the disappointing results at the Renewal schools is here. I have written and testified about the deeply flawed strategies used in these schools since at least 2015, advocating that instead, DOE should be reducing class sizes in these schools, as they have promised the NY State […]
For immediate release: October 26, 2018 Contact: Leonie Haimson, 917-435-9329; leonie@classsizematters.org Elected and parent leaders urge the Mayor to fully fund need for school seats in soon-to-be released capital plan They warn that school overcrowding will worsen without a focused effort to expand capacity The new five-year capital plan for schools for 2020-2024 is […]
Here is the presentation on school overcrowding and the need to fully fund the need for seats that we gave to the Chancellors Parent Advisory Council on Oct. 11, 2018. If you’d like to request Class Size Matters to brief your CEC, Presidents Council or parent association with more district-specific data, please email us at […]
Please join us on Wed. June 18 when we will honor Dr. Betty Rosa, former Bronx principal, District Superintendent, Board of Regents member and now NY State Education Commissioner for courageously standing up against the Trump administration on the importance of preserving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs in our public schools. Wine and food will be served!
Sign up here for our Annual Parent Action Conference on June 7th 2025, with keynote speaker Jamaal Bowman!
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.
