Tomorrow Wed. April 5 at 4:30 PM we will rally outside Governor Cuomo’s office at 633 3rd Ave. (40th/41st), to protest his refusal to adequately fund our public schools and his insistence on expanding charters and raising their funding. Please join us; come with your kids and bring signs! The NY state budget is deadlocked […]
April 3, 2017 1. The NY state budget is stalled and will be late for the first time in years. The deadlock appears to be related to education funding for our public schools vs. charter schools, and whether the cap on charter schools will be lifted. As usual, the Assembly Democratic majority wants to fully […]
March 9, 2017 In December of 2016, President Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced NCLB and requires states to develop a new accountability system for their schools. ESSA mandates that schools be rated mostly on academic factors, including test scores and graduation rates. But it also allows the inclusion […]
On Tuesday, Feb. 28, the NYC Council held joint hearings of the Education and Finance Committees on the myriad problems with the city’s dysfunctional process of school planning and siting. Many parents, students and advocates pointed out how the capital plan is underfunded, the enrollment projections inaccurate, school siting too slow — all resulting in […]
2017 Presentations on school overcrowding and capital plan Citywide District 1 District 2 District 3 District 4 District 5 District 6 District 7 District 8 District 9 District 10 District 11 District 12 District 13 District 14 District 15 District 16 District 17 District 18 District 19 District 20 District 21 District 22 District 23 […]
Cross-posted on NYSAPE’s website. Below is a memo that Class Size Matters and NY State Allies for Public Education sent to Commissioner Elia and the NY Board of Regents last week, on what may seem like an arcane and technical subject but is actually critical to ensure that opt-out students aren’t counted as failing in […]
On Thursday night, I gave a presentation on the capital plan to District 6 CEC. Since many of the parents in the district at the meeting were understandably concerned about the high levels of lead reported in the water of some of their schools — including a finding of 6,620 parts per billion (ppb) […]
This testimony is also available as a pdf here. Testimony to the NYC Council Education Committee on the impact of class size reduction on teacher recruitment and retention January 24, 2017 Dear Chair Dromm and members of the NYC Council Education committee: Thank you for holding these hearings today. Most experts say the challenge of […]
Trend in NYC class sizes, including very large classes of 30 or more and long-term trend through Nov. 2016. NYC public school K-3 and 4-8 grade class size trends citywide including each district 2007- 2016. Below are the individual power points for each school district. District 1 District 2 District 3 District 4 District 5 […]
Here are two research summaries on the evidence for the wide-ranging benefits of class size reduction; the first is for use by any teacher, parent or advocate ; the second is meant primarily for residents of New York state. ; T
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 .
