How small classes "can provide a turning point in a student's belief in themselves; letter from youth advocate Al Kurland to Commissioner Rosa

Along with a generous donation, I found this copy of a letter to Commissioner Rosa in an envelope sent by Al Kurland, a long-time youth advocate, urging her to require DOE to develop and implement a real class size reduction plan, in alignment with the new state law. AQE and Class Size Matters sent a similar if longer letter to her a few days earlier, pointing out how as of yet, DOE had done nothing to enable schools to meet the benchmarks in the law starting next year.  

Al's letter is so wonderful I thought I'd share it, as it resonates with everything we know about why smaller classes are so important.  You can read  about many of Al's accomplishments here.  Below he explains how small classes "can provide a turning point in a student's belief in themselves as learners in the development of becoming better informed and confident people." Take a look, and if you agree, donate to Class Size Matters to help make this turning point a reality for all NYC students.

 

December 2, 2023 

Betty Rosa, Commissioner of Education 

To Betty Rosa: 

I am contacting you in urgent appeal for maintaining and sustaining the crucial baseline of adhering to the recommended standards so eloquently pointed out by Class Size Matters and its allies. The evidence of its benefits to students and teachers has been amply established both by research and enhanced teacher-learner experiences in the classroom. 

I had been an after school youth services advocate and director for years, beginning in 1984 with the Uptown Dreamers and Southern Heights, and with the Police Athletic League from which I retired in 2020. Especially during the early years of my tenure, I saw the negative effects of students and teachers who had to deal with vastly overcrowded classrooms. The one constant I came to learn is that the smaller the ratio between student and teacher, i.e. the more time available for questions and answers, guided direction, and focused attention, the more beneficial the time spent in this partnership of mutual understanding. Even a few minutes extra time can provide a turning point in a student's belief in themselves as learners in the development of becoming better informed and confident people. 

Our classroom teachers, who are so devoted to maximizing possibilities for their students, and so unselfish in contributing their own time at home in reading and marking the work of students, also derive deeper satisfaction. Increased dialogue, clarifying questions, and Ah Hah moments help to deepen the bond between teacher and students. 

I most urgently ask that the class size baselines for smaller numbers of students in classrooms be maintained where they already exist, and established in places where we fall short. Funding for anti-poverty practices and reducing class size should not be competing priorities, indeed, reducing class size is an essential target in the fight to reduce poverty. 

Thank you for your attention and support. 

Sincerely, 

Alfred Kurland 

cc: State Senator John Liu

Alliance for Quality Education Campaign Coordinator Amshula Jayaram

 

Lawsuit filed by UFT to block Mayor's budget cuts to education

Yesterday, a lawsuit was filed by the UFT, stating that the Mayor's proposed cuts to education violate two state laws -  the Contracts for Excellence law, which specifically says additional state funds awarded under the program must be "used to supplement, and not supplant funds allocated by the district." And yet these cuts have been imposed despite the DOE receiving an additional $500 million this year in C4E funds - the third phase in of more than $1.3 billion over the last three years, meant to be invested in improving  classroom conditions including lowering class sizes. Instead, class sizes have increased the last two years. Class Size Matters and AQE cited this issue in our letter to the State, pointing out this supplanting and urging them to require DOE to come up with a corrective action plan on class size. 

The other state law these cuts appear to violate is Education Law § 2576, which mandates that the city cannot cut spending on K12 education compared to the prior year, unless the city has suffered an overall decline in revenue, which has not occurred.  In  fact, the city anticipates an even higher surplus this year than last. 

The UFT press release is below, along with two charts shown at the press conference. The first is self-explanatory, but the second chart entitled "Education City Funds as Percentage of Overall City Budget Funds" is a bit confusing.  I was told by a UFT staffer that this chart shows how NYC spending on education has declined as a percentage of its overall spending on all city agencies.  Newsclips about the lawsuit at Chalkbeat, Daily News, NY Post, NBC News and elsewhere.

Teachers Sue to Halt Adams Budget Cuts to Education

 

The United Federation of Teachers, joined by individual teachers, today filed suit in Manhattan State Supreme Court to stop the Adams administration from cutting as much as $2 billion from city schools.

 

The lawsuit charges that as the state increased education funding to the city's public schools, New York City illegal reduced its contribution to education.

These cuts came, according to the lawsuit, "at a time when the City collected nearly $8 billion more in revenue last fiscal year than was anticipated, and when the City’s reserves of over $8 billion are at a new record high.”

 

In November the Adams administration announced cuts of nearly $550 million in the current fiscal year and plans for further reductions that could amount to $2 billion.  The cuts announced in November have already affected the universal pre-K initiative, current after-school and planned summer school programs, along with computer science instruction, special education, and other services.    

 

The legal filing says that the administration's claim that dealing with asylum seekers sill cost $11 billion over the next two years is "an unverified estimate."  That cost estimate has been challenged by lower projections from both the city's Independent Budget Office and the City Comptroller.

 

Describing the administration’s statements of a fiscal crisis resulting from the asylum seekers as “a false narrative,” the lawsuit says “the law does not permit school funding to be used as a political bargaining chip; and cutting essential services to the City’s schools is not a substitute for the mayoral leadership and advocacy on behalf of New Yorkers needed to obtain federal and state support."

 

UFT President Michael Mulgrew said, “The administration can’t go around touting the tourism recovery and the return of the city’s pre-pandemic jobs, and then create a fiscal crisis and cut education because of its own mismanagement of the asylum seeker problem.  Our schools and our families deserve better.”

 

The lawsuit cites two provisions of state law:  a requirement known as “maintenance of effort” that is part of Albany’s mayoral control legislation for New York City schools; and provisions of the state’s “Contract for Excellence” program.

 

According to the lawsuit, the maintenance of effort provision “prohibits the City from reducing spending in its schools from the level provided in the preceding year unless overall City revenues decline.”

 

The city’s contribution to the education budget for fiscal year 2023 was $14.5 billion, while the adopted budget for fiscal year 2024 was reduced to $14.1 billion. By January, further cuts under the Mayor’s plan will reduce the city’s contribution in FY2024 to $13.9 billion. City revenues – not counting state and federal aid -- grew $5 billion last year.

 

Under the state’s Contract for Excellence, local school districts must use new state funds to supplement local spending for education, but not to replace local efforts.  The lawsuit claims that the administration’s budget cuts will mean that state funds will end up supporting city education programs, in effect supplanting with state funds the programs that the city has refused to pay for.

 

According to the lawsuit, the cuts also undermine students’ rights to “a sound basic education” as provided for under New York State’s constitution. 

 

The lawsuit asks the court to find that the Mayor’s recent and planned budget cuts violate the New York State Constitution and state law and order the administration to restore education funding to the $14.5 billion amount that the city appropriated in fiscal year 2023.

 

A copy of the lawsuit is available here: https://files.uft.org/mulgrew-v-cityofny.pdf

 

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Twenty Years of Mayoral Control in NYC - a Failed Reform

 

December 18, 2023

The State Education Department is holding hearings on mayoral control, the second of which are scheduled for tonight in Queens, since the system will either be lapse, be renewed or revised by the end of June 2024.  Here is a video of the Dec.5 hearing in the Bronx.

Please sign up to speak at the remaining hearings in the other three boroughs as soon as the links are posted at the webpage above, or submit written testimony, the deadline for which is Jan. 31.  The deep flaws in this autocratic system were evident almost as soon as it was adopted. However, this year there seems to be a stronger consensus than ever before that the system must change for the sake of NYC children.  I have put together a brief reading list of some of my testimonies over the years below, as well as some other useful links for those of you who want more background on this critical issue. 

If you have suggestions on pieces to add to it, please let me know in the comment section or by emailing the link to info@classsizematters.org Thanks!

2004 

NYT account of the Monday massacre, where in opposition to expert views of most educators and researchers, Mayor fired his own appointees in order to get the Panel on Educational Policy to approve holding back third graders on the basis of their state test scores. This policy was later expanded to all grades up to eighth grade, but was rescinded in 2014, because of lack of positive results on achievement and evidence that it increased dropout rates. (For the latter see this subsequent RAND study.)

NYT oped by Diane Ravitch and Randi Weingarten, on how mayoral control needs to be amended, as the PEP acts as a rubber-stamp as evidenced by Bloomberg’s firing of his appointees to get his way on grade retention, and how he was running the DOE “along the lines of a corporate business model, as though educating children were no different from selling toothpaste.”

2007 

A critique in City Journal by conservative commentator Sol Stern, who recounted the DOE's waste of money on public relation, their manipulation of test scores, and how Bloomberg retorted if people didn’t like how he runs the schools to they can “boo me at parades.”

2009  

Parent Commission Report on School Governance A thorough analysis of the many problems with mayoral control and recommendations by an independent group of parent volunteers on how to improve the system (disclosure: I was a member.)

NYC Schools under Bloomberg and Klein: A collection of essays by many experts and advocates, with an introduction by Diane Ravitch, describing the negative impact of one-man rule. (Also available for purchase for $5.74 in paperback form here).

Assembly hearing transcripts on mayoral control in the Bronx and Brooklyn, with many parents and educators testifying about their concerns. [I can't find the Manhattan, Queens or Staten Island transcripts, but here is a video-taped debate by two students at Democracy Prep at the Manhattan hearings between ]

Many articles about how Mayor Bloomberg assembled supporters and commissioner an expensive PR campaign to lobby for the continuation of Mayoral control via a group called Learn NY, that was secretly funded with millions of dollars from fervent charter school supporters, including billionaires Eli Broad and Bill Gates.  As Bill  Gates later explained , he spent $4 million on renewing Mayoral control in NYC as “You want to allow for experimentation. The cities where our foundation has put the most money is where there is a single person responsible. In New York, Chicago and Washington, DC, the mayor has the responsibility for the school system.”  It is no coincidence that all three districts encouraged the expansion of charter schools under Mayoral control.  

More here on this campaign, led by charter school director Geoffrey Canada, that included clumsy ads featuring misinformation, failed attempts to recruit parents,  and pro-Mayoral control comments under pseudonyms posted on blogs, including this one.  Unfortunately, big money won out over parent and educator voices, and Mayoral control was renewed without significant changes.

2010

Why Public Schools Need Democratic Governance: Diane Ravitch makes the case for elected school boards, and explains how the push towards Mayoral control in NYC and elsewhere is funded and led by those who want to privatize our public schools.

2013

NYC Comptroller report No more Rubber Stamp: Trenchant analysis of many of the flaws with the system, especially notable since it was issued by then-NYC Comptroller John Liu, now chair of NY Senate NYC Education Committee.

2015

Gotham Gazette oped, Time to reform Mayoral control.  Succinct analysis by parent leader Shino Tanikawa and me.

2016

Our Testimony on Mayoral Control before State Senate, pointing out how despite claims of great progress, our analysis of NAEP test scores shows that New York City schools came out second to last among ten cities in improved achievement, when results are disaggregated by race, ethnicity,
and economic status.

2019

Our testimony before the NY Senate, focusing on how Mayoral Control in NYC is inherently undemocratic and provides no real checks and balances to autocratic rule.  As a result, it has too often suffered from insufficient input from parents and community members, closest to conditions on the ground, the result being damaging policies and unwise spending priorities.  

2020

My piece for the Indypendent on Bloomberg's disastrous education legacy at the end of his twelve-year reign, the product of unchecked one-man control.

CSM testimony to NY Assembly on Five myths of Mayoral control, including that it provides less real accountability, despite claims otherwise.

2022

CSM testimony before NY Assembly and Senate; Why Mayoral control needs to be amended ; including examples of problematic and delayed decisionmaking by Mayor De Blasio and specific proposals for improvement -- including at least three which were adopted.

NeQuan McLean and Shino Tanikawa, It’s Time for a Democratic School Governance System to Replace Mayoral Control

2023

Education Week, Mayoral control: a Fading school reform: How Chicago schools and other districts are moving away from one-person rule.