Welcome back, please take our 5-min class size survey & need to contact your Senators now!

Sept. 18. 2017

Welcome back to a new school year!

1.       Please take our five-minute class size survey to let us know how large your child’s class size is this year; teachers, your input is welcome too!   In NYC, the administration has until Sept. 20 to get below the union class size limits – which are already far too high. I’ve already heard of one NYC high school with 260 classes that violate these limits — meaning more than 34 students per class.

2.       On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted to approve massive cuts to the federal education budget, including the complete elimination of the $2 billion Title II program that provides funds to districts to enhance teacher quality and reduce class size. This occurred even as a new poll shows that parents’ top concerns for their children’s schools are inadequate funding, too much testing, and large class sizes. Please call your Senators today — tell them to retain full funding for Title II and class size reduction in the education budget! Instructions and full poll results here.

3.       In case you missed it, this summer we filed a legal complaint with the NY State Education Department to enforce the law requiring NYC schools to reduce class size. We hope to hear back from the Commissioner soon.  Meanwhile, after submitting a Freedom of Information Law request a year and a half ago, we finally got back a heavily redacted memo from the Mayor’s office, which blacked out their reasons for rejecting a proposal to align the school capacity formula with smaller classes. Check it out here.

But please call your Senators today; tell them that you want them to retain full funding for Title II and class size reduction in the education budget. And let us know what they say by emailing us at [email protected]

Talk to you soon, Leonie

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011

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