NYC Comptroller John C. Liu Statement on Possible Teacher Layoffs...

City Comptroller John C. Liu stated the following in response to inquiries about his reaction to Governor Cuomo’s proposal regarding teachers:

“Rather than attempt an end-run around collective bargaining, as the Mayor has tried to do, Governor Cuomo has stood up for both the city's children and the rights of union members.

“The Governor has continued to insist that the state budget he has proposed should not require local layoffs, despite the fact that the Mayor has threatened to lay off thousands of teachers and send class sizes skyrocketing, even if the state comes through with major new revenues for the city.

“The Governor has also taken a creative approach to developing a new and more objective standard to measure teacher effectiveness – a methodology developed by State Education Commissioner Steiner and the teachers' union that helped ensure New York's success in the national Race to the Top competition.

“New York is not Wisconsin, and the kind of leadership Governor Cuomo has shown on these issues stands as an example to other states where critical services and workers' rights are under assault.”

CNN Debate on Class Size on MLK's Birthday - CNN

Leonie Haimson (ClassSizeMatter.org) debates with Matthew Chingos on CNN yesterday.

Class Sizes Grew in New York City Despite '07 Deal to Cut Them - NYTimes.com

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Three years after a landmark agreement to cut class sizes in New York City’s public schools, classrooms are swelling across the city, a result of budget cuts and spending decisions that have reduced the teaching force.

According to the city’s Department of Education, elementary schools this year had the largest increases, with average class sizes growing to 23.7 students per class from 22.9 last year. In middle schools, class sizes climbed to 27 from 26.1; high school class sizes held at about 27.

Small classes are increasingly rare. Excluding special education classes, 22.4 percent of elementary and middle school students were in classes of 20 or fewer children two years ago. Now, only 13.7 percent are. Meanwhile, the percentage packed into classrooms with 28 students or more has jumped to 31 percent from 23 percent, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

The increases come despite a city commitment since 2007 to reduce class sizes across all grades in exchange for state money earmarked for that purpose. In January, the teachers union, along with civic organizations and local officials, filed a lawsuit to get the city to account for how the money, totaling $740 million, was being used. The city has argued that questions about the funds belong before the state commissioner of education, David M. Steiner, not in a court.

But the class size reduction plan assumed there would be much more additional money than ever materialized, which is one reason its targets have faded from reach.

According to the agreement, by 2012, the city’s kindergartens, for example, were to average less than 20 students. They averaged 20.7 students per class in 2007; this year, they had 22.

Over all, aid to schools across the state has been dropping. In the past year alone, city schools have had to absorb cuts of 4 percent.

State spending reductions are one of the largest challenges awaitingCathleen P. Black, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s choice to be the next chancellor, and given that the state faces another large deficit, it is possible that class sizes will continue to rise.

City officials said Wednesday that given the cuts, class sizes actually rose less than they could have.

In February, the city appealed to the state to excuse it from its class size reduction targets due to the economic downturn. Mr. Steiner agreed to allow the city to focus its class size reduction plans on just 75 of its 1,600 schools, chosen because they were both crowded and low performing.

Advocates fighting for smaller class sizes said Wednesday that it was disingenuous of the city to blame the economy alone for the swelling classes, because the city never mandated that principals use the extra funds to reduce class sizes. The lawsuit charges that the city has at times used the money to plug other holes in the budget.

In general, the city permits principals to use the class size reduction funds for other purposes, including to pay for specialized teachers and for team-teaching. But the city also officially ended a separate class size reduction program in the early grades, with principals receiving a memorandum in June telling them they could now spend those funds as they wished.

Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, the teachers union, said that class sizes rose even when the economy was strong. “It’s clear that their intention was never to lower class size,” Mr. Mulgrew said. “They don’t believe in it.”

Overall student enrollment has remained relatively flat, at just over one million, but according to the union, there are 4,000 fewer teachers than there were two years ago, because many recent retirees have not been replaced.

At Public School 138 on Lafayette Avenue in the South Bronx, where class sizes now average 29 in fourth grade and 31 in third grade, Michelle Viera, a fourth-grade teacher, said that it was hard to even get the basics done. “Sometimes there’s just not enough materials,” she said. “We constantly have to copy things. There’s also a problem with discipline.”

Mildred Rivera, 39, said that her daughter Julianne, a second grader at P.S. 138, sometimes “doesn’t get attention from the teacher because she’s too busy with other kids.”

Other parents said they did not think the crowding was a problem, because their children’s teachers were good.

Perhaps the most influential study on class size, conducted in Tennessee in the 1980s, pointed to the benefits of small classes, particularly for poor and minority students. That study found that in kindergarten through third grade, students in small classes outperformed those in larger classes. But in the study, small classes were defined as those with 13 to 17 children — unthinkably small for most school districts.

Alan B. Krueger, a Princeton University professor who studies the economics of education, said he believed that there was evidence to support the benefits of small classes, even when those classes have more than 18 students. Plus, he said, class size reduction “is one of the few education reforms that I think we know what to do about.”

“The thing that’s in vogue now is to say, ‘We just need better teachers,’ yet no one knows how to screen to determine if someone’s a better teacher. No one knows how to train people to be better teachers.”

But Dan Goldhaber, director of the Center for Education Data and Research at the University of Washington, sees it differently, as do some other experts. “The effects of class size, if they exist, are small, and class size is really expensive,” he said.

When California embarked on a costly class size reduction effort in the mid-90s, Mr. Goldhaber pointed out, studies showed “marginal, if any, impact, and possibly some harm,” as many sub-par teachers were quickly hired to fulfill the mandate, and many well-qualified teachers left poorer urban schools for new slots elsewhere.

Part of the issue in New York is transparency in how the funds for class size reduction are being used, said Geri Palast, the executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the organization that brought the lawsuit that led to the landmark agreement three years ago. While her organization has repeatedly asked the city for information about how much was spent each year on class size reduction, so far, she said, the organization has only been told what the city plans to spend at the start of each school year.

“We are concerned that there was money allocated for that purpose that was not used for that purpose,” she said.

Elissa Gootman, Robert Gebeloff and Mirela Iverac contributed reporting.

Victory for Parents and Kids in Stage One of Class Size Lawsuit! by Leonie Haimson - NYC Public School Parents

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We received a decision from Judge Barone of the NY Supreme Court this afternoon; the Court denied the city's attempt to dismiss the class size lawsuit. brought in January by the UFT, Class Size Matters, the NAACP, and other parents and community groups.

The city had claimed that only the State Education Commissioner could rule on whether they violated the law when it came to class size; inserted in the language of the law (at their insistence) was a clause that the “sole and exclusive remedy for any violation” would be a petition to commissioner, and “the decision of the commissioner on such petition shall be final and unreviewable.”

This language was the DOE’s sneaky attempt to ensure that they would never have to comply with the law, as they were convinced that the commissioner, then Richard Mills, would get them off the hook, as he had in so many cases before.

Yet the judge found the attempt to box out the court was likely unconstitutional, and that the legislature must have meant that the commissioner had the final right of review over the details of the class size plan, not the city’s compliance, especially as this entire matter flowed out of the court’s decision in CFE.

The city’s other main argument was that our petition should have gone to the Commissioner first in any case.

The judge agreed with our attorneys that this would cause unnecessary delay and would "irreparably damage the children who will during the course of these proceedings be relegated to learning in the overcrowded conditions which the legislature sought to alleviate.”

Yet another victory for NYC parents and their children's right to have a quality education, and another slap in the face of DOE’s outlaw mentality.

The Judge wrote they will see the attorneys in court on July 26 for a pre-hearing conference to start determining the facts of the case, i.e. whether the DOE has actually complied with its plan and reduced class size.

The facts on this issue are clear; they have not.

Teacher Performance Pay: What a Waste! by Leonie Haiimson - NYC Public School Parents blog...

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According to a new study from Mathematica, there’s no evidence for improved student achievement or teacher retention as a result of the highly touted teacher performance pay program in Chicago; despite protestations by Education Secretary Duncan, just as there has been no evidence so far of any benefits for the teacher bonus pay program in NYC that has cost at least $38 million this year.

The Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) was developed by the Milken Family Foundation in the late 1990s; yes, Michael Milken, former junk-bond salesman, indicted on 98 counts of racketeering and securities fraud. The TAP program is now being funded by a $27 million Teacher Incentive Fund grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

Nevertheless, Chicago and NYC will no doubt continue to waste more millions on these misconceived programs and the feds will continue to push states to adopt them; because our decision-makers seem happy inhabiting their evidence-free zones.

There are currently 34 districts and states across the country receiving federal money to implement teacher performance pay; according to EdWeek, and seven of them use a form of the same model now been proven to be ineffective in Chicago.

This push by the feds is counter to a huge amount of accumulated evidence in social science research that extrinsic motivators like performance pay don’t work and often do harm; for example, as explained in this lecture by Daniel Pink; or this study by researchers at the London School of Economics, or this literature review, published in Science magazine.

As the director of research at LSE, Luis Garicano has written, the evidence of the harmful effects of these programs indicate that instead, managers should “ reduce the power of incentives, so promotions would be again more based on seniority and less on measured performance. “ !!!!

Which of course flies in the face of the propaganda now being propounded by this administration, in their attempt to abrogate seniority-based protections in the teacher contract.

Teachers themselves consistently respond in surveys that monetary incentives like bonuses are unlikely to work to improve teacher effectiveness, in contrast to reducing class size, which more than 90% of teachers believe would be the best way to improve their effectiveness.

Yet even the Mathematica researcher who found no positive results in the Chicago program seems to advocate wasting even more money on this program, according to his quote in Edweek:

“You have to wonder whether the result would have been different if the payouts had been larger or more meaningfully differentiated,” Mr. Glazerman said.

Sure. When thousands of teachers are being laid off across the country, and class sizes are rising at unprecedented rates, why not waste even more millions on programs with no research backing?

Updated Data Show Class Sizes are Up, Especially in Early Grades by Elizabeth Green - GothamSchools

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Class sizes and student-to-teacher ratios went up this year, especially in the elementary school grades, according to data the Department of Education released today. This is the first time the Department of Education has reported an increase in class sizes since Mayor Bloomberg took control of the schools in 2002.

School officials blamed the economy for the rising figures, which come despite millions of dollars poured into class-size reduction over the last year. In a release, officials said budget cuts have prohibited some principals from hiring new teachers.

The data show that classes are slightly less crowded than a preliminary data set released to the City Council late last year suggested, but still more crowded than they were last school year. The average third-grade class, for instance, now has almost 22 students, up from 21 last school year. The biggest increases in class size came between kindergarten and fourth grade, where research is clearest about the benefits of reduced class sizes.

The average class size in high school is also up, to 26.2 from 26.1 last year. The department’s presentation argues that the change is due to a new form of reporting. Some classes with more than one teacher in a single room used to be treated as two separate classes, but this year the department counted them as one. Under the old form of reporting, the average high school class size would have dropped to 25.6, school officials said.

The rising class sizes come against a backdrop of big investments by the state into reducing class size. The DOE, in its release, says that schools where reducing class size was a high priority have seen lowered figures.

We’re still working on a deeper analysis. While we do that, please feel free to peruse the release — and send us tips for questions to ask.

Class Size Makes Biggest Jump of Bloomberg Tenure by Jennifer Medina - NYTimes.com

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Class sizes rose at nearly every grade level across the city last year, according to a report released by the city’s Education Department on Tuesday, the largest increases since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took over the school system in 2002.

School officials called the increase “unfortunate” but blamed it on the economy and said class size was largely in the hands of principals.

“Class size is related to the number of teachers schools employ,” said the report, which was sent to the City Council on Tuesday. “The combination of budget cuts and increases in teacher salaries means that principals, while they have continued to hire staff, have been cautious about hiring.”

The largest growth was in the third grade, where the average moved to 21.8 students per class, compared with 20.9 students last year. The city does not calculate an overall average because class sizes vary so much according to age; every increase was a gain of less than a single student. Class size increased even though enrollment in the city’s public schools decreased by nearly 4,000, to 1,019,525, because the number of classes also declined.

Critics of the department said the increases showed that the mayor and Chancellor Joel I. Klein have ignored efforts by the state and the City Council to reduce class size.

“Class-size reduction money has been in place for a long time, and they have done nothing with it,” said Councilman Robert Jackson, the chairman of the Education Committee. “They get an F. They don’t even get an A for trying, because getting an A for trying would mean all of what they had been doing would be geared toward getting the size down, which it has not.”

Mr. Jackson urged the state’s Education Department to take action against the city, including withholding money from its annual budget. Nearly $150 million in state money, part of an infusion that resulted from a longstanding lawsuit over school financing, was earmarked last year for reducing class size, either through creating new classrooms or hiring more staff members to co-teach in a single classroom.

Garth Harries, who oversees class size for the city’s Education Department, said that in an operating budget of nearly $17 billion, that was “at best marginal funds.”

“They are important obviously, but this is a truly massive system and what we put out today are aggregate numbers for that entire system,” Mr. Harries said. “Schools are all working to protect their priorities both in cuts they have already experienced and cuts that they anticipate.”

Mr. Harries emphasized that the increases were not startling, and that in most grades, the current average is below what it was in the 2002-3 school year, when Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein took control of the system.

But many students still attend classes that are more crowded than the city’s stated goals of 20 students per class in kindergarten through third grades (there are no targets for older grades). Roughly 45 percent of kindergarten students, for example, are in classes of 22 to 25, and more than 4,000 of the city’s roughly 61,000 first-graders are in classes with at least 28 students, according to Education Department figures.

The largest average class size, 26.9 students, is in the eighth grade.

Mr. Harries said it would take more time to know whether schools that now receive extra money from the state were able to reduce the number of students in their classrooms.

The report also warned that classes might soon get even bigger, as the department adjusts its five-year class-size reduction plan required by the state to “reflect the worsening economic climate.”

“The school system in the city is fighting to keep our heads at level, so that means that we will have to go back and have to reconsider the plan,” which was written in 2007, Mr. Harries said in an interview.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the teachers’ union, who has long pushed for smaller classes, called the rise “disheartening and inexcusable.”

“The state will not continue sending the city money for class-size reduction if the city continues to defy the terms and intent of the 14-year-old Campaign for Fiscal Equity court case,” she said in a statement. “It’s time for the city to quit making excuses and comply with the law.”

Class Size in New York City Schools Rises, But the Impact is Debated by Jennifer Medina - NYTimes.com

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Students at Public School 188 in Manhattan. Class sizes in New York City schools, the highest of any district in the state, have risen despite an infusion of money from the Legislature. Annie Tritt for The New York Times

In many circles, class size is considered as fundamental to education as the three R’s, with numbers watched so carefully that even a tiny increase can provoke outrage among parents, teachers and political leaders. Alarms went off in New York and California last week, as officials on both coasts warned that yawning budget gaps could soon mean more children in each classroom.

But while state legislatures for decades have passed laws — and provided millions of dollars — to cap the size of classes, some academic researchers and education leaders say that small reductions in the number of students in a room often have little effect on their performance.

At recent legislative hearings on whether to renew mayoral control of the New York City schools, lawmakers and parents alike have asked, again and again, why Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel I. Klein have not done more to reduce class size. On Tuesday, the Education Department issued a report that found the average number of children per class increased in nearly every grade this school year.

“If you’re going to spend an extra dollar, personally, I would always rather spend it on the people that deliver the service,” Mr. Bloomberg said when asked about the report on Thursday, calling class size “an interesting number.”

“It’s the teacher looking a child in the eye, and teachers can look lots of children in the eye,” he added. “If you have to have smaller class size or better teachers, go with the better teachers every time.”

But Assemblywoman Catherine T. Nolan, a Queens Democrat who is chairwoman of the Education Committee, said that she routinely hears from middle-class parents who say they are leaving the city in search of intimate classroom environments where teachers can pay more attention to each student. The teachers’ union estimates that New York City’s classes have 10 percent to 60 percent more students than those in neighboring suburbs, and the highest average size of any school district in the state.

“I always thought more money and the mayor controlling the schools would give us smaller classes,” said Ms. Nolan, who has a son in public school. “I just don’t understand it, but they seem to be nostalgic for a time of larger classes.”

The debate has continued for decades, with some consensus forming that class size matters most in the youngest grades, and that the effects are most profound when there are fewer than 20 students in a class.

Dan Goldhaber, an education professor at the University of Washington, said the obsession with class size stemmed from a desire for “something that people can grasp easily — you walk into a class and you see exactly how many kids are there.”

“Whether or not it translates into an additional advantage doesn’t necessarily matter,” Professor Goldhaber said. “We know that teachers are the most important thing, but teacher quality is not stamped on someone’s forehead.”

A Tennessee study in the late 1980s, widely regarded as the most influential study on class size, found that in kindergarten through third grade, students in classes of 13 to 17, particularly poor and minority students, performed better than those in classes of 22 to 25. In some cases, the benefits extended through high school.

But since then, as many states and school districts have rushed to reduce class sizes, usually to the low 20s, student achievement has not consistently improved markedly.

In California, a 1996 law provided schools with an extra $1,000 in state money for every student in the earliest grades whose classes had 20 or fewer students. The state quickly hired 28,000 new teachers, but many of them lacked experience or education credentials; a 2002 study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that the best-qualified teachers fled poorer urban schools as the extra funds created jobs in wealthier areas, and that children who were in smaller third-grade classes did not have higher scores on fifth-grade tests.

In New York City, an Education Department comparison over the last two years between school report-card grades and average class size has found little correlation; in many cases, schools with better grades have bigger classes.

Still, some researchers argue that reducing class size is a concrete and worthy goal.

“We can say we just want more good teachers, which would be great, but that’s a policy that we just don’t know how to do yet,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an education policy professor at the University of Chicago. “The nice thing about reducing class size is that it makes teachers happy in their own right and it’s the one thing that we know how to do.”

In New York, class sizes increased despite an infusion of $150 million in state funds last year earmarked specifically to reduce the numbers of children in each room. Chancellor Klein initially bristled at the restrictions state officials put on the money, but Albany would not release the funds until the city submitted a plan to bring class sizes down further. Last week, the city said it might have to adjust that plan to “reflect the worsening economic climate.”

Christopher Cerf, the deputy chancellor in charge of human resources, said the increase in class sizes this school year could be attributed to principals who determined that their money was better spent elsewhere and that the focus on class size was wrongheaded. “People think that this is the keys to the education reform kingdom here, but that is simply not the case,” he said.

Garth Harries, who oversees class size for the city, said that better schools often end up with larger classes as more and more parents want to send their children to places with successful track records. “It’s a complicated trade-off,” he said. “Would you end up giving fewer families access to those schools?”

But Leonie Haimson, the executive director of an advocacy group, Class Size Matters, and a frequent critic of the administration, scoffed at the suggestion that parents were happy with larger classes, saying, “The department is just trying to escape accountability.”

“Most of our elementary schools are zoned for a neighborhood, and to blame it on parents is absurd,” she noted. “You have more than 40 percent of students attending schools that are overcrowded. That’s not something they choose.”

Javier C. Hernandez contributed reporting.

New York City Schools Suffer Massive Overcrowding, Statistics Show by Meredith Kolodner - NY Daily News

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Scores of city schools are bursting at the seams - with some as much as 200% over capacity, according to Education Department enrollment figures.

Public School 56 in Norwood, the Bronx, is at 200% capacity. Nearby PS 8 was built for 800 students, but enrollment is currently 1,147.

[Photo Caption: PS 234 is operating at nearly 150 percent capacity. Mendez for News]

"There's like 34 people in my class," said Sadri Kasniai, a third-grader at PS 56. "It's too many. There were supposed to be 29."

Frankie Grady pulled his daughter out of the school after first grade because of the overcrowding. "She was in a trailer outside, and that wasn't acceptable," said Grady, 28. "It's terribly overcrowded and understaffed."

To deal with the overflow, PS 56 buses dozens of kindergartners to other schools. Teachers tutor students in the hallways.

And it's not just the Bronx. PS 290 on the upper East Side is supposed to have 433 students but has 647. Downtown, PS 234 is a 501-seat school that houses 748 students.

In response to the crisis, a coalition of parents, elected officials and the teachers union will launch a campaign Friday called A Better Capital Plan.

The groups will rally before a City Council hearing to urge leaders to build schools based on neighborhood need instead of the current district-wide evaluation.

They say keeping up with demand is as important in troubled economic times as it is when the city is prospering.

"We don't want to make the same mistake we made in the 1970s, when we stopped investing in the city's infrastructure," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. "You do not want to lose the tax base because of a lack of school construction."

An Education Department spokesman said the agency would plan by neighborhood in the future. "It doesn't mean that every neighborhood will get a school," said William Havemann, "but it's a valid complaint. There are certainly pockets of overcrowding across the city."

He said the current $13.1 billion capital plan includes building another school near PS 56 in the Bronx, which will add 5,000 seats in District 2 by 2012.

An analysis by the parent group Class Size Matters, based on the most recent Education Department numbers from 2006-07, found that 38% of students were attending overcrowded schools.

The chairman of the overcrowding committee at PS 234 in Tribeca said the number of residential building permits issued jumped from 1,700 in 2006 to 4,500 this year.

Eric Greenleaf, whose twins, Anna and Leo, attend sixth grade at PS 234, said that because the planned apartments were already in process, he did not expect the economic downturn to significantly shrink school demand.

Greenleaf, 52, said, "You can have the best teacher in the world, but if you have too many kids, education quality is going to suffer."

mkolodner@nydailynews.com

Public Asks For Help With Class Sizes, Grad Rates by Ben Hogwood - Queens Chronicle

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Parents and teachers let school officials know Tuesday the city needs to work harder to reduce class sizes and improve the graduation rates for English language learners.

The Department of Education held a public hearing at I.S. 230 in Jackson Heights to get feedback from the community on how to spend a chunk of state money, named Contract for Excellence (C4E) funds, designated for students with the greatest educational needs. The state has allocated $386 million to the city as part of this year’s C4E aid package, to be distributed among schools for six main purposes: class size reduction, time on task (includes programs to lengthen school years, expand support services and expand arts programs), teacher and principal quality initiatives, middle school and high school restructuring, full-day pre-kindergarten and model programs for English language learners. Funds are released directly to schools to be used in the specific areas at the discretion of the principal, School Leadership Team and the greater school community.

Dave Quintana of Ozone Park (correction) a parent and member of the organization Class Size Matters, said Queens has the most crowded schools in the city and DOE needs to take action. He cited Richmond Hill and John Adams high schools in District 27 as examples, stating both schools have enrollments exceeding 3,000 when they were built to hold 1,800 students.“The amount allocated to reducing class sizes is minimal,” he told officials, including Kathleen Grimm, deputy chancellor for finance and administration with the DOE.

He added the city’s plan for the funds was unlikely to meet its goals and wanted the state to check to make sure schools spend the money only in the areas they legally can.

Heather Goldberg, a teacher at P.S. 82 in Jamaica, added she appreciated the DOE’s attempt to reduce class size but a lot more needed to be done.

Silvia Gonzales, of the New York Immigration Coalition, wanted to see improvements with students learning English. She said this population has the lowest graduation rates in the city, with just 26 percent of ELL students graduating after four years and 50 percent dropping out after seven years.

Deycy Avitia, also of the coalition, added she was concerned some schools will use the C4E funds to cover basic needs for ELL students when it should be used to enhance services.

Councilman David Weprin (D-Hollis) also attended the meeting and raised several general concerns with the C4E program. He said it is imperative that there is accountability and oversight regarding the initiatives to reduce class sizes and that didn’t appear to be in DOE’s C4E plan.

High School teacher Janet Kelly was concerned schools would use the C4E money to fund escalating costs in operating expenses, such as electricity and oil, rather than use the money in the specific areas for which they are intended. If the city doesn’t keep up with those escalating costs, schools will use these funds to make up the difference, she said.

Terence Tolbert, executive director of intergovernmental affairs with the DOE and moderator of the meeting, said the C4E funds can only be spent in the specific areas by law and cannot be used for every day operating expenses.

James O’Neall, of the Sports and Arts in Schools Foundation, said decent after-school programs and a focus on arts, culture and sports between the third and sixth periods would greatly increase classroom attendance, grades, test scores and high school completion rates. He asked that the C4E funds be used on these items.

Citizens can still provide the DOE feedback on the C4E funds by e-mailing ContractsForExcellence@schools.nyc.gov. An updated version of the plan can be seen on the DOE’s Web site, at http://.schools.nyc.gov.

KEEP the PROMISE! Speak Out Against NYC Budget Cuts to Public Schools!

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This is the time to Speak Out, have your voice heard on behalf of our children, the future generation of our City and our Country..!

Principal Survey Results - ClassSizeMatters.org

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May 20, 2008

Today, results were released from a survey of more than one third of all NYC public school principals. The report, entitled “How Crowded Are Our Schools?” is posted here::

Fifty-four percent of principals say that the enrollment at their own school is not capped at a level to prevent overcrowding. Fifty percent say that overcrowding sometimes leads to unsafe conditions for students or staff; 43% observe that overcrowding makes it difficult for students and/or staff to get to class on time.

Nearly half (48%) of respondents believe that the official utilization rate of their own schools as reported by the Department of Education is inaccurate; more than half (51%) of principals at schools reported as underutilized say that the official rate is incorrect.

Eighty six percent believe that class sizes at their schools are too large to provide a quality education – and that the primary factors that prevent them from reducing class size are a lack of control over enrollment and space.

More than one fourth (26%) of all middle and high school principals say that overcrowding makes it difficult for their students to receive the credits and/or courses needed to graduate on time.

At 25% of schools, art, music or dance rooms have been lost to academic classrooms; 20% of computer rooms have been swallowed up; 18% of science rooms; 14% of reading enrichment rooms, and 10% of libraries have been converted to classroom space.

At 29% of schools, lunch starts at 10:30 AM or earlier; and at 16% of schools, students have no regular access to the school’s library.

18% of principals reported that their schools have classrooms with no windows. Many said that special education classes and services were being given in inadequate spaces, including closets.

Principals also reported ongoing battles with DOE over their schools’ capacity ratings, and many expressed resentment at being assigned excessive numbers of students, particularly when they tried to use available funding to reduce class size.

Many observed that the problem of overcrowding has been exacerbated due to DOE policies: 27% said that overcrowding at their schools had resulted from new schools or programs having been moved into their buildings in recent years; and many reported that the decision to add grade levels in order to create more K-8 and 6-12 schools had led to worse conditions.

As Emily Horowitz, co-author of the report and professor at St. Francis College says, “The results of this survey should appall every New Yorker with a conscience. Principals report that their schools are seriously overcrowded, with excessive class sizes and insufficient enrichment space, even though the official data continues to show that they have extra room. I hope that the Department of Education pays close attention and revises the way school capacity is calculated - and admits the critical need to build more schools.”

According to Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, “The administration has devolved more responsibility and autonomy to principals, claiming that they have all the tools they need to succeed. Yet principals themselves observe that they have no control over some of the most important factors that determine the quality of education they can provide: the allocation of space and the number of students assigned to their schools. Until and unless the DOE adopts a more aggressive capital plan, the condition of our schools – and the future of NYC schoolchildren --will not significantly improve.”

Council Member Robert Jackson, Chair of the NYC Education Committee concludes: “We've known for years that official statistics on overcrowding and capacity were wrong but now we have hard data to show just how wrong. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or a multi-million dollar no-bid consulting contract to see that the current capital plan and budget cannot even begin to remedy the conditions described in this survey - 19 % of the schools with windowless classrooms and 47% with less than an hour of gym per week!! In light of this information, we will be looking and listening especially hard to DOE and SCA testimony at tomorrow's budget hearings on the capital plan."

Overcrowded School Gets Fined by Lee Landor - Queens Chronicle

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An overcrowded South Ozone Park school has long caused trouble for students and parents, so when a city inspector fined P.S. 124 last month for violating safety codes, anger came as no surprise.

The community asked for a school expansion, according to District 27 Community Superintendent Michelle Lloyd-Bey. Parents wanted the school converted from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade to K-8, and got their wish in 2006.

Parents said a variety of factors forced the school conversion. A wave of multi-family dwellings engulfed the neighborhood, bringing in more residents with children.

Once the school was converted and the option to send children to a smaller middle school became available, parents pulled their children out of J.H.S. 226 and enrolled them in P.S. 124. In addition to this, the Department of Education opened access to P.S. 124’s gifted program to qualified children who do not live in the school zone.

Operating well above capacity, the school cut pre-K classes this year and split space to create more classrooms. Next year, the school’s science lab will be converted into a classroom, according to published reports.

Still, the insufficient space forces students into the hallways during their free time. A city inspector called this a fire hazard and cited the school March 31. It was reported that city officials reviewed the situation last month, but made no plans to correct it.

An education department spokeswoman said more than 2,300 elementary and middle school seats will be created in District 27 by 2013 in order to alleviate overcrowding. One new school is set to open in September and another next year, both in Woodhaven.

Teachers' Furor Over Slashed Budget By Jess Wisloski NY Daily News

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Special education teacher Edelma Perez was one of several educators picketing outside Public School 150 Tuesday to protest program cutbacks.

Teachers and parents at Queens schools have erupted in protest over Mayor Bloomberg's citywide budget cuts after school administrators began scaling back classes and programs.

Supported by the United Federation of Teachers, educators have set out on a warpath against the ill-timed cuts in recent weeks.

Many schools opted to drop specialized education classes, some cut out enrichment or arts programs, and others axed the use of all substitute teachers. None of the options is reasonable, teachers argue.

Teachers at Sunnyside's Public School 150 picketed Tuesday after the cut of a substitute teacher forced an entire second-grade class to crowd into other classrooms. A staff teacher is on maternity leave.

"Finally, after many years, we were able to have a smaller class sizes," said Joanne Rodeschin, a fifth-grade teacher at PS 150. The city's efforts to reduce class sizes whittled down her normal class size of 30 to just 23 this year.

A budget crunch zaps such extravagances, she said.

"The mayor [said in a Jan. 31 comment] any organization can absorb 1.75%," said the 13-year teacher. "But he didn't eliminate it from any organization. He eliminated it from children."

Students for whom English is their second language - who make up half the 1,200 students at PS 11 - also may be a casualty of the cuts, said teachers who picketed outside the Woodside school on Feb. 15.

Academic Intervention Services, which offers individualized help to new English learners, will sacrifice lessons when the specialized teachers, like Katherine Kurjakovic, are used to cover for an absent teacher.

"Students we are supposed to support lose consistency" when specialized teachers are moved, Kurjakovic said.

The pain of the cuts was widespread: Middle School 67 in Little Neck cut a literacy coach and ballroom dancing. PS 26 in Fresh Meadows will stop all academic intervention services April 1.

Students at High School 620 in Jamaica - an engineering and technical trades school - might get no classroom time, said health teacher Vivian Esposti, 54, because teachers "must be licensed in a given technical area to even work in that classroom.

"Our students will have to go to the library or auditorium [to be taught], and they lose out on that portion of their learning."

At Long Island City High School, which lost $303,000 in the cuts, nearly all the classrooms are overcrowded, said Ken Achiron, a 30-year veteran health teacher.

Cutting substitutes left behind 24 teacherless classrooms because of absences, sabbaticals, maternity leaves and other issues.

Cuts were made "where it was able to be done as decently and expeditiously as possible," Achiron said.

"Would you like me to cut off my left hand or my right hand?" jwisloski@nydailynews.com

Queens Getting 6 New High Schools By Jess Wisloski- NY Daily News

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More spin by School Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Michael Bloomberg - as noted below these 6 new schools will share existing buildings...NYC needs new school buildings, not breaking up over-crowded schools into 4 or 5 schools within the existing structures...

Students in Queens weighing their options about where to start high school this fall will have more choices this year.

The city recently announced that 25 new small schools will open in September. But a Feb. 25 deadline for interested applicants leaves no time to dillydally.

"They have a month," said Education Department spokeswoman Melody Meyer, who noted that most students had already picked schools they learned about from high school fairs last October.

"If they see something they like, they can resubmit their application," she added.

Six new schools will open at various locations in Queens, but high schoolers may attend school in any borough.

In addition to offering the requisite high school curriculum, the Academy for Careers in Television and Film, which does not have a location yet, is set to offer unique courses such as introductions to screenwriting and directing.

Another school, the Queens High School for Information, Research and Technology in Far Rockaway, will train students in Web design and scientific research techniques.

The new schools are part of a continuing push by the Bloomberg administration to transform unwieldy and sometimes dangerous large public high schools into boutique "small schools" with student populations capped at 525.

Since 2002, schools Chancellor Joel Klein has opened 278 small high schools in the city, and credits the model with nearly doubling graduation rates in many schools.

But some critics call the push for smaller schools inequitable, and say the effort is a catalyst for overcrowding.

"Every kid, no matter where they go to school, should get the benefit of smaller classes," said Leonie Haimson, president of educational advocacy group Class Size Matters. "Instead, some kids are getting better opportunities but at the cost of other kids, who are getting shafted."

Many of the new schools - like Queens Collegiate, which will open on the campus of Jamaica High School - share space at existing schools. As the small school grows one grade per year, the larger school often struggles to accommodate everyone, Haimson said.

"They should be creating more facilities," said Haimson. "Instead they keep squeezing more and more small schools into already overcrowded schools."

jwisloski@nydailynews.com

Report: Drop in Class Sizes Is Small by Elizabeth Green...

Report: Drop in Class Sizes Is Small

By ELIZABETH GREEN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
September 25, 2007

A report from the Independent Budget Office is heightening concerns that the city has kept public school classes large in spite of nearly $200 million in state and federal funds dedicated to making them smaller.

Classes did become smaller on average last year, but the drop — to 25.71 students in a class from 25.92 in fourth through eighth grade, and to 21.06 from 21.12 in kindergarten through third grade — was small, the report said.

Sixty-three percent of younger students were in classes with more than 20 pupils, the state-recommended target for those years.

And rather than create more classes to alleviate pressure on students and teachers, as advocates have demanded, the number of classes offered in the public schools actually dropped by 158 students in lower grades and 303 in fourth through eighth grades, the report, which drew on final city registers, showed.

An enrollment drop of nearly 15,000 students explains the change, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, Debra Wexler, said.

Even fewer classes would have been offered had it not been for the extra funding, which the city used to hire 1,006 new teachers and create 1,611 classes last year, Ms. Wexler said.

The president of the teachers union, Randi Weingarten, called the report "disturbing."

An advocate of smaller classes, Leonie Haimson, said the report reiterated the conclusion of a 2006 audit by a state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, which found that the city's class size reductions were so small they violated state law.

NY Times: Chancellor Answers Critics on School Financing Data by Jennifer Medina...

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Seeking to placate critics who want details of how the city’s schools will use an influx of new state money, Chancellor Joel I. Klein released figures yesterday that showed District 27 in Queens as the big winner, receiving more than $14 million. Much of the money — $10 million — will go toward reducing class size.

New York City won increased educational aid this year, the result of a legal battle over school financing. Gov. Eliot Spitzer and legislators agreed to a plan that sent an additional $1.03 billion to schools, with about $700 million coming from the state and $300 million from the city.

A portion of the money — $258 million — must be used for set goals like reducing class sizes, improving teacher quality and increasing instructional time. The city, like other school systems statewide, must submit a plan to the state for approval. The legislation also requires that the districts spend the money “predominantly” on schools that show poor performance or have large clusters of low-income students.

The city this month said that it would use nearly half the funds to reduce class sizes. Detailed figures released by the city yesterday showed how much extra financing school districts and individual schools would receive, but still did not specify where class sizes would be cut. Critics say the distribution raises the question of whether schools that are relatively high-performing are getting too much of the money.

“There is certainly going to be a lot more back and forth, because this just is not going to fly,” Meryl Tisch, a member of the State Board of Regents, said of the city’s plan. “The point of this money is to drive it to those kids who need it the most.”

But Chancellor Klein has adamantly defended the plan, saying that nearly every school in New York City has a number of students in poverty or at risk of failure.

“You’ve got to look at this in the real world and in the big picture,” the chancellor said. “There are students with needs everywhere, and we have to give money to all students, not just some students.” He said that the money has been directed to schools with high poverty rates and that the “overwhelming majority” of the money would be spent there.

The plan is unlikely to quiet those who say that the city is not focusing the new funds on the city’s lowest-performing schools. Critics yesterday pointed out that District 2 on the Upper East Side, one of the highest performing districts in the city, is getting more than $6 million.

“We believe that the money was intended to serve the lowest-performing students in the neediest schools,” said Geri Palast, the executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a group that sued the state for more money for New York City schools. “This just isn’t that, as far as we can tell.”

Other districts getting large influxes of new funds are District 9 in the Bronx, $8.6 million, and District 10 in the Bronx, nearly $9 million.

Even within districts, the distribution of funds varies widely. In District 27, in Queens, Public School 124 in Ozone Park will receive about $525,000. A few miles away, Public School 108 will receive more than $1.4 million in new state money, more than any other city school. But in both schools, more than two-thirds of the students perform at grade level and about 70 percent of the students are at the poverty level. While P.S. 108 will receive far more money, lower-grade classes there are already smaller than at neighboring P.S. 124. — an average of 21.8 students compared with 23.5.

The plan was submitted to Albany late Monday night after a week of public hearings. It will set the stage for negotiations with the State Education Department, which has until mid-August to approve the plan.

NY1: Critics Argue Against Klein's Class-Size Reduction Plan by Michael Meehan...

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July 20, 2007

Come September, city schools are supposed to get a huge cash infusion when the state makes good for shortchanging city schools for decades. But now, some advocates are worried the city's Department of Education will not spend the new money in the best way for school kids. NY1 Education reporter Michael Meenan filed the following report.

Creating smaller classes is supposed to be a big part of how the city spends hundreds of millions of dollars in increased state aid. It's a requirement mandated by Albany, and it can't come too soon says one high school student.

"If it's like 32 students, the class goes like out of control,” said student Jose Araujo. “It's too many students for the teacher."

School Chancellor Joel Klein agrees that students do better when classes are smaller. But he says he has already shrunk classes. He maintains there's now an average of 25 students to a teacher in city high schools and in the early grades it’s even lower.

Klein says he wants to target $141 million of the new state money for further class-size reduction, especially in middle schools where many classes are 30 kids or more per teacher.

But the teacher's union says classes need to be 20 kids per teacher and Klein's class-size reduction plan, based on school-by-school reviews, falls way too short.

"It was not supposed to be an amalgam of what principals wish lists were, school by school, and they put it together and give it to the state,” said United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

Klein argues that principals know best.

"We've got some schools where they're going to put two teachers in a class of 30,” said Klein. “They may not have the room to break up the class into two of 15. That's class-size reduction, maybe not in the view of some who want 20 in every class, which is not a real-word view in our context."

To prove how serious it is about reducing class sizes, the DOE says it's going to send in a team of specialists to 72 schools in September to teach administrators how to reduce class sizes.

The DOE is letting the leaders at one Chinatown junior high, where there are 30 students per class, decide what to do. But the group that brought the lawsuit that forced the state to provide the cash infusion says Klein's approach risks losing a chance for real class-size reduction.

"We need to get to a greater level of specificity beyond saying there will be coaching and supportive services,” said Geri Palast of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity.

The state education commissioner has the final say on whether or not the DOE's class-size reduction plan meets their approval. A decision is expected in mid August.

-Michael Meenan

Gotham Gazette: Poor Grades for a School ‘Contract'..

Gotham Gazette. July, 2007: Poor Grades for a School ‘Contract’...

As the fight to get more state money for New York City public schools wended its way through the courts for more than a decade, educators, parents, politicians and others occasionally stopped to fantasize: What would we do with all that money?

Now, with the 14-year-suit having reached a somewhat anticlimactic conclusion and the city set to receive an additional $3.2 billion from the state over the next four years, New Yorkers are learning the answer to that question, and some education activists do not like it. Complaining that they have been shut out of the process, many want the city to spend more to reduce class size and improve middle schools – and less on testing and charter schools. The dispute, aired at hearings throughout the city in early July, is about money to be sure, but it also concerns setting priorities for the nation’s largest school system and how success – or failure – should be measured.

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NY1: City's Education Funding Plans Face Criticism - July 11, 2007 by Elizabeth Green...

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July 11, 2007

Supporters of the lawsuit that resulted in increased funding for the city's public schools are trying to force the city to rewrite its plan for how to spend the money, and one source said there has even been talk of another lawsuit if the city does not relent.

The original lawsuit, brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, ended last year with a state agreement to pour $5.4 billion extra dollars into the city schools. The city made its first proposal for how to spend a portion of those funds, the $228 million governed by a state accountability plan, last Friday. The CFE's executive director, Geri Palast; the city teachers union; an advocacy group, Class Size Matters, and the lawsuit's original plaintiff, City Council Member Robert Jackson, have all criticized the plan.

"There's a fundamental clash here between the way the city went about doing this and what the clear intent of the law was," another critic, Michael Rebell, who was the lead lawyer for the CFE, said.

One portion of funds, $17 million, will finance a new testing program. The city says the plan meets the goal of raising students' "time on-task," but the president of the teachers union, Randi Weingarten, challenged whether a testing system would contribute to instruction.

Another portion of the funds, more than $133 million, will be allocated at principals' discretion. A Department of Education spokeswoman, Debra Wexler, said officials worked closely with principals to guide their choices, which were restricted by the state goals. The city describes the funding as guided empowerment, but critics, including Mr. Rebell, characterize it as a lack of a coherent plan.

A final plan is due to be submitted to the state July 15, following a series of hearings this week. Ms. Wexler said the department would listen to the public feedback and "make refinements to the proposal as appropriate."

Ms. Palast, Ms. Weingarten, and Mr. Jackson said that if the plan was not revised, they would urge state officials to reject it.

Ms. Palast said litigation would be a last resort. "Before we consider further court action, we must raise a ruckus here and now," she said.