Our statement on Court decision denying preliminary injunction vs. free space for charters

Right before the New Year, Judge Feinman ruled against our request for a preliminary injunction against the DOE's provision of free space and services to charter schools, in the lawsuit that Class Size Matters, along with other parents and the NYC Parents Union, filed in July.  His decision, which was publicly disclosed today, is posted here.  Here is a fact sheet about the case.

One of the reasons he denied our request is that he determined that the payments of more than $100 million owed by the charter schools  would not necessarily be used by the DOE to benefit our kids in any way or restore the egregious budget cuts their schools have suffered, so it was difficult to prove irreparable harm.

Nevertheless in his decision, he fired a shot across the bow to DOE & the charter school industry, saying that they should not take this as any sort of signal that when the case comes to trial, he will necessarily rule in their favor. 

Below is the press statement we put out with the NYC Parents Union.  Happy New Year to all!
_____________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 3, 2012

Contacts:
Mona Davids, NYC Parents Union, (917) 340-8987
Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters, (917) 435-9329 

Statement on Charter Rent Lawsuit Ruling

On December 28, State Supreme Court Judge Paul Feinman confirmed the need for a trial to determine whether or not charter schools co-located in public school buildings should be paying for space and services to the New York City Department of Education (“DOE”).

The case, New York City Parents Union, et al v. The Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York, et al, and Harlem Success Academy Charter School 1, et al, was a request for a preliminary injunction which would have required the agency to immediately collect back rent and payment for services from all charter schools co-located in public school buildings.

While denying the injunction request, Judge Feinman highlighted the fact that the practice of not paying rent existed since 2003 and, inexplicably, had not been challenged.  He warned the DOE and the charter schools with the following statement:

… the court’s finding that a preliminary injunction is not warranted at this stage of the proceeding should not be misinterpreted as a finding that the court has evaluated the merits of the parties’ contrasting reading of Education Law ∳2853(4)(3) and favors the BOE’s interpretation. Indeed, in planning its future budgets, neither the BOE nor Intervenor-Defendants should rely on this decision as standing for the proposition that the court accepts their reading of Education Law that if the BOE “gives” the charter school space there is no duty to pay “costs”.

Mona Davids, President of the New York City Parents Union, is pleased with Judge Feinman’s ruling and urges all co-located charter schools to heed this warning and include truthful facility costs in their budgets.  “Cases like this are why we exist.  We plan to take this issue to trial and win back the hundreds of millions of dollars due to all of the public school children in the City of New York as a result of preferential treatment of the co-located charter schools.  Charter schools that co-locate should pay rent since they are receiving the same dollars per child that charter schools with their own space receive, and, worse, co-located charter schools are limiting the space usage options of the public schools where they are co-located.”

Arthur Z. Schwartz, President of the public interest law firm, Advocates for Justice, representing the New York City Parents Union and parent plaintiffs, stated that:

“While we are disappointed that the Judge did not see the loss of $100 million to the school system as irreparable, his decision did no more, in that vein, than acknowledge the DOE’s statement that if it got $100 million it might not spend it on lowering class size.  Key to this decision is the Judge’s warning to the DOE and the charter schools that they should take the possibility of co-located charter schools having to pay rent into account when they set up next year’s budget. We look forward to a final decision on the merits before the next school year.”

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters and a public school parent, said: “It is ironic that Judge Feinman did not order a preliminary injunction because he was not sure that the DOE would spend the additional funds on restoring budget cuts to schools, reducing class size, enhancing instruction or in any way that would benefit our children.  But I find the judge’s decision very hopeful; the paragraph quoted above in particular.

“When the case comes to trial, we are optimistic that the judge will look carefully at the law and the facts of the case, and determine that from now on, co-located charter schools must pay their fair share of the costs of taking up valuable space in public school buildings and utilizing the services of city employees, as the law requires.  The gears of justice may grind slowly, but they do grind.” 

More information about the NYC Parents Union is at http://www.nycparentsunion.org/
More information about Class Size Matters is at www.classsizematters.org
For a fact sheet about the case, see http://tinyurl.com/6vaednn
To download the decision, go to:  http://tinyurl.com/8xx8wrd


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Which New Yorkers have the best interests of working people and children at heart?

See below video made by Darren Marelli of GEM, who interviewed NYC parents and teachers joining the Wall St. protesters on Wednesday.

As the NY Times points out, children are most hurt by the nation's cutbacks to social services:

"Children will be among those most harmed by the jobs crisis. The Economic Policy Institute, using data from the September report, has calculated that 278,000 teachers and other public school employees have lost their jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Over the same period, 48,000 new teaching jobs were needed to keep up with the increased enrollments but were never created. In all, public schools are now short 326,000 jobs. At a time when more and better education is seen as crucial to economic dynamism and competitiveness, larger class sizes and fewer teachers are the last thing the nation needs. Staffing reductions also mean that schools are less able to respond to the needs of poor children, whose ranks have increased by 2.3 million from 2008 to 2010."

Bloomberg has ruthlessly cut the education budget five times in the last three years, forcing the elimination of thousands of teaching positions rather than support raising taxes on millionaires.  As the richest one percent of New Yorkers gains more and more wealth, our ,ayor continues to be their biggest defender, favoring their interests over our children. Now, he is proposing yet another 2 percent mid year cuts to schools, with another 6 percent cut next year. 

Meanwhile, on Friday, Bloomberg laid off nearly 700 school aides and parent coordinators, the lowest paid DOE staffers who serve crucial roles in helping kids in high-poverty schools.  And on the same day, he had the nerve to criticize the protesters on Wall Street, as "trying to destroy the jobs of working people in this city."

From the video above, who do you think really has the best interests of working people and children at heart?

We take the city to court over charter co-locations!

Here is an article about the court hearing from GothamSchools, here is video from NY1; here is our updated press release.

Yesterday morning, parent groups, including Class Size Matters, the NYC Parents Union, and individual parent plaintiffs, took the city to court over charter co-locations, and the way in which DOE provides space and service to charters for free, which we believe violates state law.

First, we had a press conference on the steps of the State Supreme Court. Then we took seats in Judge Feinman’s courtroom at 10 AM, which wasn’t nearly as crowded as when he heard the NAACP/UFT lawsuit, but was about half full with attorneys from the NYC Corporation Counsel’s office, DOE chief counsel Michael Best, and a large number of attorneys from the firms representing the charter schools.  In contrast, our side was represented by one lone attorney, Arthur Schwartz of  Advocates for Justice, who was terrific. 
 
There were actually three related lawsuits that were argued by Arthur; the first was on behalf of the parents at IS 303, who oppose the proposal to co-locate Coney Island Prep charter in their building, which sparked huge protests last year. Over the last few years, IS 303 had turned around its previously struggling school, by using a program that has students stay in their classrooms rather than travel from one room to another.  Arthur argued that this co-location would prevent this practice from continuing, and this would degrade the quality of education.  This was backed by an expert report from the 21^st Century Fund that Commissioner King had refused to consider because he received it one day after his deadline.  

Arthur also cited the precedent of the CFE case, which held that NYC students had the right to a sound basic education, and said there were constitutional issues involved.  He added that the Educational Impact statement for IS 303 did not properly asses the negative impact on the school’s special needs students, whose services and programs would be squeezed into inadequate spaces, though Commissioner King had claimed that DOE substantially complied with the law because the EIS simply mentioned these students in passing.    Finally, Arthur pointed out that the announcement for the public hearing on the co-location was only translated into Spanish after the hearing had taken place, even though 20 percent of the IS 303 parents are Spanish-speaking.

Then Chuck Orsland, the lead attorney from the NYC Corporation Counsel’s office, spoke. When he argued that Commissioner King did not have a duty to accept the 21^st Century report, Judge Feinman expressed some skepticism about why King couldn’t have easily granted an extension. Orsland also claimed that DOE had no legal requirement to notify the parents in Spanish, and that it was speculation to say that abandoning the teaching model that had improved outcomes at IS 303 would undermine the quality of education at the school.

Then Arthur went on to argue a second case: that the co-location of Explore Charter at Parkside Prep/MS 2 in Brooklyn was illegal, citing many of the same grounds.  The public notification of Spanish and Haitian parents was inadequate and there was little or no analysis of the co-location’s impact on special needs students and English Language Learners.  Orsland responded with a long procedural objection that I didn’t really understand about Article 78 hearings.  He also argued that citing CFE was a red herring, but the Judge explained that when a co-located school takes away 40 classrooms, it may undermine the quality of education.  Orsland concluded that even given these charter co-locations, the public schools remained under-utilized.  (Meanwhile, the NYC Comptroller pointed out in an audit on Wednesday that the DOE utilization figures are so unreliable, with 10-25% error rates, as to be “a house of cards.”)

Finally, it was time for our case to be argued.  (Here is our original legal complaint, here is our reply brief.)  Arthur pointed out that NY state law holds that when districts provide space and services to charter schools, they shall do so “at cost”, but the DOE provides all this for free to co-located charters.  Since co-located charters represent about 2/3 of all the charters in the city, this means that DOE forgoes about $100 million a year in revenues.  This estimated figure is based on an analysis here and here, released by the Independent Budget Office in February 2011.  (These analyses corrected an earlier IBO 2010 report , which mistakenly held that co-located charter schools received less in per student public funding than district public school students.  Strangely, the charter school attorneys included only the uncorrected, erroneous 2010 IBO report as Exhibit 1 into evidence, without including the subsequent report or mentioning that the IBO had revised their estimates.)

Here is the relevant passage in the state law:
 
Article 56, Section 2853, Part 4(c): A charter school may contract with a school district or the governing body of a public college or university for the use of a school building and grounds, the operation and maintenance thereof. Any such contract shall provide such services or facilities at cost.

Arthur went on to explain that that this free provision of space and services leads to co-located charter schools being provided with more than the per pupil public funding that district public schools receive, leading to inequities in services and staffing.  He also pointed out that the illegal subsidy they receive from DOE of $100 million per year could prevent the loss of many of the 2500-3000 teaching positions that have occurred, and the consequent increases in class size.  

Orsland, the city’ attorney focused his rebuttal on three main points:  first, there were no contracts between charters and DOE and so there was no need for these contracts to include any charges for space or services.  Yet in Exhibit 2,  entered into evidence by the charter school attorneys, Michael Regnier of the NYC Charter Center stated something different: that “a handful of charters may have signed use agreements…but to the best of our information and belief, those agreements were in fact never executed”  (whatever that means).  In any event, Orsland’s claim is contradicted by the fact that we have a copy of a signed, notarized contract between Girls Prep charter and the DOE, saying they will pay $1 dollar in rent for the space, and laying out other detailed provisions about their use.  Until recently, the boilerplate contract agreement for space for co-located charters was prominently posted on the DOE website.  

Orsland’s second argument was that even if the city recovered these funds, they would not necessarily be spent on new teachers or programs that benefit our children, and that instead, the DOE might spend the funds on more administrators or other priorities, so the parents’ claims of injury were hypothetical.  (This point was also made in the city’s brief and the affidavit of Sharon Olds of the DOE budget office.)  This led into his third point:  that parents have no standing to sue and no private right of action, and whatever financial arrangement exists is instead a private matter between the DOE and the charter schools, and “we think co-location is a good thing.”

The lead attorney for the charter schools, Andrew Dunlap from Kirkland & Ellis, chimed in that if charters had to pay rent, some of them might have to close or lay off staff.  These arguments were also made in the various charter affidavits, such as this one from DREAM charter director, Richard Berlin:

 “DREAM currently has a model that provide for two fully certified teachers per classroom, with teaching assistants for grades K-1.  DREAM would likely be forced to reduce leadership and instructional staffing, eliminating 4-6 full-time teaching position and 1 to 2 school leadership roles, destroying the DREAM teaching model parents sought to obtain by applying for a lottery pot at DREAM.”

A similar affidavit was filed by Ian Newton of the Explore Empower Charter school: that his school “has a model that provide for two teachers per classroom” and if forced to pay rent, they might have to “cut core teaching positions, increasing student-teacher ratio, and destroying the Empower teaching model…”

The charter attorney, Dunlap, also argued that if these schools closed, their students would shift back to DOE schools which would lead to “worse overcrowding.” (Why?  Not sure; each new school that is co-located exacerbates overcrowding, because of the need to duplicate administrative and cluster space.) He reiterated the city’s argument that the DOE might use the money for other purposes rather than hiring more teachers.  The Judge interjected that perhaps the funds could be used for school supplies, since the teacher’s choice program had been eliminated this year. 

Judge Feinman went on to say that “no one could argue that $100 million wouldn’t make a difference” in how the DOE provides resources to the schools, and if parents don’t have standing, who does?  Dunlap maintained that parents, students, and advocacy groups had no right to sue, since none of these groups are mentioned in the relevant statute.

In his final rebuttal, our attorney, Arthur Schwartz pointed out that it was specious to claim that the DOE could get around the law by saying they had no contracts with the charters; and that another statute says that charters may lease or own space, but nowhere is it mentioned that they can get space for free.  

Arthur also commented that while the charter directors complain that they might have to sacrifice their great teacher-student ratios or some of their other assets, this is exactly what has happened in our public schools.  Because of repeated budget cuts, public schools have been forced to eliminate teachers and raise class sizes for the last three year in a row, and have lost many valuable programs.  Finally, if DOE chose to provide more money in the form of cash to charters than the state-mandate formula prescribes, would they also argue that public school parents could not sue?  

Judge Feinman wrapped up at about 1:15 PM, by saying our case was “interesting” and raises “different issues.” He asked for final legal papers to be due in a couple of weeks.  At that point, presumably, he will make a determination about whether he would order a preliminary injunction (meaning charter schools would be asked to pay rent immediately), whether he would dismiss the case,  or whether it should go to trial.

It was a very fascinating couple of hours, and for me as a plaintiff, thrilling, since theoretically at least, we have an equal chance to win as DOE.  In court, only the law and the strength of our arguments rule, rather than the money and power of Bloomberg and the DOE, who are generally able to steamroll their policies over the vehement protests and opposition of parents, no matter how legitimate our objections.  

Also revealing, I thought, is how the city openly argued that they wouldn’t necessarily use the extra funds to prevent class size increases and to benefit our kids, but might spend it on more bureaucracy; and that parents have no legal standing to intervene in their decisions.  Let’s cross our fingers and hope that the Judge disagrees.

UPDATED: Rally at City Hall and close encounters of the heated kind with Mayor Mike

We had a great rally this morning at City Hall to protest the budget cuts to schools. About fifty parents turned up, some with their children, with signs pasted to their jackets saying, “Do not balance the budget on our backs.”

Joining us were Council Members Robert Jackson and Margaret Chin of Manhattan, Mark Weprin of Queens, Jumaane Williams and Matthieu Eugene of Brooklyn, and Diana Reyna of Brooklyn and Queens, as well as Leroy Barr, staff director of the UFT and Donovan Richards, CM Sanders chief of staff.

At the end of the rally we had an unexpected encounter with Bloomberg himself. Pictures from the rally and our encounter with Mayor Mike are now up on the CSM Facebook page .

At the press conference, I showed charts revealing the sharp increases in class size that have already occurred, as well as a chart with the worsening distribution of income in NYC and NY state.

Eliminating 6,000 teaching positions would be an absolute disaster for our children, and would lead to even further increases in class size, probably the sharpest in over 30 years. I concluded that though the mayor may want to roll over the city’s $3 billion surplus, we as parents will not roll over when it comes to our children.

All of the elected officials were eloquent in their defense of our children’s right to a quality education, and pledged that they would fight hard to make sure that there would be no further increases in class size or any cuts to the classroom in the city’s education budget. I handed CM Jackson our petition with over 1,000 signatures and asked him to give it to Speaker Quinn, who will have to protect our children in the budget negotiations.

He emphasized that there was no need for any cuts with the city’s $3 billion surplus; Mark Weprin pointed out that there were plenty other areas that were expendable in the DOE spending policies, including wasteful testing, technology enhancements, consultants and private contracts. CM Chin said as a former teacher and married to a teacher, she knew full well how important class size is and that we cannot afford to let class sizes grow any more. Both Jumaane Williams and Matthieu Eugent pointed out that focusing on improving education is the best investment the city can make.

Sue Dietrich, Staten Island parent and head of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council, representing all the PTAs in the city, said her son’s class was already at 34 students; and that it can’t possibly go any higher. She pointed out that the city’s arts programs, like the great chorus at PS 22 that sang at the Oscars, could be lost if there were any more budget cuts to schools.

Noah Gotbaum, President of CEC D3, said the Governor and the Mayor should be ashamed of themselves for favoring millionaires over our kids, and that though Cuomo talked about “shared sacrifice” it was hard to see what if anything the wealthy had sacrificed in this budget.

Lisa Donlan, parent leader and member of the Grassroots Education Movement led us in a chant, “Whose schools? Our schools! Whose taxes? Our taxes? Whose priorities? Our priorities!” Sarah Porter, parent activist from PS132K in Williamsburg, wrapped up by pointing out the mayor’s math was defective and that he needed remedial lessons, since there was no need to cut 6,000 teachers with such a large surplus.

After the rally was over, some of us remained talking on the plaza in front of City Hall, including Sarah, Tina Schiller of PS 234, and Benita Rivera of the Mother’s Agenda, when I noticed the Mayor walking down the steps.

I waved to him and shouted, “Please, Mr. Mayor, do not balance the budget on our children’s backs” and that “Millionaires should pay more, including you!”

To my surprise, he briskly walked over to us. He asked if we were teachers, and we said, no, parents. I showed him the class size charts, and asked him if he would want to have his child in such large classes; how could he consider letting them increase even more?

He countered by saying that city had been subjected to big cuts from the feds and the state and we should criticize them, not him. I followed up by pointing out that the city’s had a $3 billion surplus, but he claimed that there was no surplus; when we disputed that, he added that he needed to save the surplus for the year after.

I told him that I knew he wanted to roll over the surplus, but our kids cannot have their education further damaged. We said he should use the surplus now to fill holes in this year’s budget, and if he needed more money, he should raise city taxes on the wealthy. He said, go tell Albany; and that he’s been up there arguing with them.

We pointed out that he didn’t go to Albany to support the surtax on the wealthy but that he had instead opposed this. Several times he said, “Listen to me! I won’t talk unless you listen to me!” After about five minutes, he got tired of the discussion, and walked off.

Luckily, Benita Rivera was snapping photos with her cell phone; these are on the CSM Facebook page along with earlier ones from the rally, taken by Michelle Faljean of the SI Federation of PTAs:

Thanks Benita, Michelle, and everyone who came today!

After our exchange with the mayor, Erin Einhorn, City Hall Daily News reporter ran over, along with Samantha Gross of the AP, to ask us about it. She has already posted an account of our debate on the DN blog, entitled Mayor Bloomberg Listens! (But Does He Hear?)

UPDATED: The mayor's press spokesman has responded and so have I. several times on the DN blog. Go check it out!

Go check it out and leave a comment! And please leave a comment below.

What would Martin Luther King Jr. say about class size and charter schools?

On this, the holiday commemorating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, we should remember that African-American children still suffer from inequitable conditions in our nation's schools - foremost among them, larger classes.

This is despite the fact that class size reduction is one of the very few reforms that have been proven to narrow the achievement gap, as poor and minority children receive twice the benefit from smaller classes than the average student. (See this recent issue brief from ETS, with data revealing the persistent inequities in class size, and pointing out that the achievement gap narrowed substantially in the 1970's and 1980's but stalled in the 1990's -- just as progress in reducing class size stalled nationally as well. )

Yet the corporate reformers who have hijacked educational policy in this nation, including Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, and Michelle Rhee, are all calling for even larger class sizes in our nation's public schools.

Rather than support equitable conditions, they are promoting the further expansion of charter schools, which as the UCLA Civil Rights Project has pointed out, leads to more segregation, not less. See also this excellent article by Jim Horn on the charter school issue, "What would Dr. King say?"

See below; one of the first in-depth televised interviews ever given by Martin Luther King Jr., first broadcast on NBC news on October 27, 1957.

(thanks to Mona Davids of the NY Charter Parents Association for pointing out the Jim Horn article.)

Political pull by charter school operator exposed

Some parents have asked me why I am involving myself in such a controversial issue as charter schools, seemingly unrelated to class size. But I don’t think it is.

District public schools that have a higher concentration of high-needs students are losing classrooms, libraries and intervention spaces to charter schools, which is neither equitable or good policy.

This is especially damaging, given the fact that only three out of 13 district schools slated to lose space next year to charters have reached their mandated class size reduction targets. For more on this see here, my comments on the charter co-locations that were voted on by the PEP last night.

Yesterday, on Good Day NY, when asked why the Chancellor seems biased towards charters, I said I didn’t really know, but that I suspected that many of the charter school operators are receiving preferential treatment because of their political connections.

A perfect example is revealed in today’s column in the Daily News by Juan Gonzalez, and in the emails he FOILed between Eva Moskowitz and Chancellor Klein.

Not only did the Chancellor intercede repeatedly with his own staff to get her chain of charter schools more space, when she had already received more than the formula would allow, helped her recruit parents for her schools by giving her access to their names and addresses, and also appeared at numerous fundraisers and helped her raise a million dollars from the Broad foundation, explaining how politically useful she was in organizing thousands of charter school parents to support Bloomberg, the continuation of mayoral control and raising of the charter school cap.

As Klein wrote to Dan Katzir of the Broad Foundation, “she’s done more to organize parents and get them aligned with what our reforms than anyone else on the outside.”

In her emails, Moskowitz repeatedly refers to her “army of parents” and many of them were indeed at attendance last night in the PEP meeting, along with their kids, cheering and chanting in support of their expansion into district buildings – all of which were approved, except for one.

Click on the email above, and check out the others on the Daily news website here. You'll be amazed.

You can also check out my appearance on Democracy Now .

Emergency parent conference on closing schools; please come!

In communities throughout the city, students, parents and teachers are outraged at the unilateral decision of the DOE to close their neighborhood schools and/or put charter schools in their buildings.

Parents want to know what can be done.

Class Size Matters is hosting an emergency citywide conference about the proposed school closings by the Department of Education. We will be hearing from parents, students and teachers at the affected schools, and will share strategies and legal options.

When: Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010 from 9:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Where: School of the Future, 127 East 22nd Street, NYC. (take the #6 to 23 St.)

Norman Siegel, famed civil rights attorney, will be one of the speakers.

Here is a flyer you can post in your schools.

The conference planning committee includes Leonie Haimson, Lisa Donlan, Shino Tanikawa, Khem Irby, William McDonald and Monica Major; active parent leaders from Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.

For more information or to volunteer to help out, please contact Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters, at classsizematters@gmail.com; 212-674-7320 or Monica Major, Event co-chair at
majorm766@gmail.com; 347-664-6712. Hope to see you there!

Parents and teachers sue the city over increases in class size

On Tuesday, Class Size Matters joined with the UFT, the NAACP, the Hispanic Federation, and parent leaders from the Bronx and Queens, to sue the Chancellor and the Department of Education for flouting the law and refusing to reduce class size.

Here are some news clips: City bungled bid to lower class sizes: suit (Daily News) Teachers sue city (NY Post); City Ignoring Law on Class Sizes, Suit Says (NY Times); After years of complaints, union sues city over class size dollars (GothamSchools); Lawsuit accuses NYC of ignoring class-size law (AP); Teachers Sue NYC for Smaller Classes (Courthouse News Service). Good video at Teachers sue DOE over class size (Channel 7 news) and Education Groups Sue City Over Class Sizes (NY1).

Despite a state law passed in 2007, requiring that the city lower class size in all grades, and despite being granted over $750 million of state funds to be used for this purpose, class sizes have gone up dramatically in the last two years.

This fall, class sizes made the biggest jump in eleven years -- as far back as we have reliable records.

The DOE and the Chancellor have committed fraud on NYC children by refusing to provide them with the smaller classes that the state's highest court said would be necessary for them to receive their constitutional right to an adequate education.

They are also violating the trust of taxpayers, by failing to use hundreds of millions of dollars for the critical purpose they were intended.

As Michael Mulgrew, the president of the UFT said, “Three-quarters or a billion dollars later, tens of thousands of New York City students are packed into classes that are higher than anywhere else in the state. Who is managing – or should I say mismanaging – this process?”

Currently, Kindergarten class sizes are the largest they have been since the 1999-2000 school year; and 1st through 3rd grades class sizes are the largest since the 2001-2002 school year.

Smaller classes continue to be the top priority of parents, according to the DOE's own surveys. This is no surprise, considering our students are crammed into the largest classes in the state.

Not only have average class sizes risen substantially; but so have the number of students in very large classes, as these charts attest.

In District 11 in the Bronx, more than 52% of all Kindergarten students are in classes of 25 or more, according to the DOE's own class size data.

District 24 in Queens is not far behind, at 47%.

Nearly one quarter of high school students are in classes of 34 or more (and we believe that this underestimates the actual size of high school classes in most schools.)

See the UFT press release here; the Class Size Matters summary, with more charts, including those for high school, here.

Also you can check out my affidavit in the case, the legal petition; and the memo of law.