Council Education chair Rita Joseph and her colleagues urge Legislature -- don't raise the charter cap!

See letter below from Council Education Chair Rita Joseph and nine of her colleagues on the Council Education Committee, urging the leaders of the Legislature not to succumb to pressure from Governor  Hochul and the charter lobby to raise the cap on charters.  Below that is a press release with quotes from many education advocacy groups, including Class Size Matters.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that charter-loving billionaire and former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg has secretly been spending millions backing a new shadowy organization called "American Opportunity," run out of the Democratic Governor's Association, that is buying deceptive TV ads and sending mailers, urging people to contact their legislators to accept Hochul's budget, without mentioning the word "charter" since it might scare away those he is trying to lure into her camp.

Hochul and the charter lobby are pushing this proposal despite the fact that their enrollment is falling.  More than half of all NYC charter schools lost enrollment over the past three years, not including charters that opened or closed during that time; and 45%  lost enrollment this year, including the most aggressively expansionist Success Academy, down 7.7% despite spending over $13 million per year on marketing and recruitment.  

Success Academy is so desperate to recruit more students that according to an eyewitness account, they have hired people to hang out in playgrounds to hand out flyers and beg parents to enroll their children in their schools. 

We have a briefing on the history of the charter cap and why it should not be lifted; you can also send a message to your legislators here.

Our rally/press conference this morning, urging Gov. Hochul to sign the class size bill as soon as possible

This morning we held a press conference at City Hall Park, along with State Legislators, advocates, parents, teachers and Congressman Jamaal Bowman, urging Gov. Hochul to sign the class size bill as soon as possible.  

This bill was passed with overwhelming support in the State legislature on June 3, and whose enactment would help prevent or minimize some of the drastic cuts to schools that the Mayor and the Chancellor have proposed.  Thirty eight elected officials, including from Congress, the Legislature, and the City Council have signed a letter, asking her to do so.

The presser was organized by Sen. Jessica Ramos and Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas, who are both mothers with children in the NYC public schools and are distraught about how their schools will be losing teachers and programs next year due to the Mayor's savage cuts.

 Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas

 

Chris Nelson, a parent at Arts and Letters school in Brooklyn spoke about how her son has finally been able to have the benefit of smaller classes this year, as a result of the enrollment decline, and has thrived as a result; and how destructive it would be to force class sizes upwards again.

Rep. Bowman was eloquent about how as a former principal, he knows how crucial class size is to the quality of education students receive, and how unfair it is that children in part of his district in Scarsdale are provided with far smaller classes than the Bronx children in another part of his district.

He added that these cuts will hamper the city's ability not just to improve education, but also public safety, health and the city's economy -- and that they are inexcusable, given the $8 billion the federal government has sent to NYC schools to help our students recover from the multiple disruptions and traumas of the pandemic.

 

Senator Jabari Brisport, a former teacher, agreed that smaller classes were desperately needed in the city schools; and Sen. Robert Jackson spoke about his twenty-year effort to ensure education equity for NYC students, first as the original plaintiff in the CFE lawsuit and now as the original sponsor of the class size bill last session.  

Zakiyah Ansari of AQE spoke about their fight to get full Foundation Aid to NYC schools, which was finally achieved and will be fulfilled over the next two years, to the tune of $1.3 billion, and smaller classes should be the result of that successful struggle.

Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon spoke as former special ed teacher and attorney, and an expert on dyslexia.  She pointed out that the Mayor's literacy initiative, while laudable, will not work with large class sizes.  

Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon

Rep. Bowman,  Sen. Brisport, our petition and me

My brief speech and  a copy of the petition we emailed to the Governor tonight is below, signed by more than 7,000 of her constituents.  

 

Many of the petition signers added comments and explanations of why it is critical that she sign the bill now, to prevent these cuts and begin the crucial process of reducing class size now.

 

 

 

Class size bill passes state legislature! Now call the Governor and urge her to sign the bill!

 

Thanks to the leaders of the Legislature, as well as Education Chairs John Liu and Mike Benedetto, along with our champions Sen. Robert Jackson and AM Jo Anne Simon, the class size bill S09460/_ A10498 passed the NY State Senate Thursday afternoon at 59-4; and the Assembly early Friday morning; 147-2.  It will require that class size be capped at no more than 20 students in grades K-3; 23 in grades 4-8 and 25 in high school, phased in over the next five years. Good articles about these long-awaited and much needed measures were published in Gothamist, Chalkbeat , Politics NY and News 4 NY and NY1; while other media outlets uncritically repeated long-debunked anti-class size myths.  Our press release with AQE and Ed Law Center is below.

Now, please urge Gov. Hochul to sign the bill, so that planning for smaller classes can begin!  Call her  at 1-518-474-8390; or message her here.  Tell her: Please sign the class size bill as soon as possible so that NYC students can receive the smaller classes that students in the rest of the state already receive.

 

For immediate release: June 3, 2022

Contact: Leonie Haimson, 917-435-9329; leoniehaimson@gmail.com
Wendy Lecker, 203-536-7567, wlecker@edlawcenter.org
Julia Watson, 978-518-0729, julia@aqeny.org

 

NEW YORK, N.Y. (June 3, 2022) — Advocates for New York City public school students hail the passage of S09460/_ A10498 by the New York State Legislature. The law mandates caps on  class size  to be phased in over five years in all New York City public schools.  The caps are  20 students per class in Kindergarten through 3^rd-grade;  23 students per class in grades  4^th through 8^th. ; and  25 students per class in high school academic subjects.

The new law amends the 2007 Contract for Excellence (C4E) law which  required New York City  to reduce class size averages by 2012.  Yet the New York City Department of Education failed to comply and class sizes  grew larger, sometimes exponentially. The new law requires caps in all schools rather than averages and adds enforcement mechanisms to ensure City  compliance.

“If this law is enacted, it will transform New York City schools by finally ensuring smaller classes in all grades,” said Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters. “For too long, city students have struggled in classes that are 15 to 30 percent larger than those in the rest of the state. These excessive class sizes have deprived them of the close feedback and support of their teachers that they need to succeed, a glaring inequity. While all students benefit from smaller classes, the research shows that those who benefit the most are children of color, who make up the majority of students in the NYC public schools.”

“This law is the culmination of persistent advocacy by  parents and teachers across New York City,” said Wendy Lecker, Senior Attorney at Education Law Center (ELC), which works to enforce  the legal rights of New York public school students. “Smaller class sizes are an essential element of a constitutional ‘sound basic education’ as defined by New York’s highest court. This legislation is vital and long overdue.”

“For years, parents, educators and advocates have fought to reduce class sizes in NYC public schools in order to ensure students get the individualized attention they need to succeed. Senator Robert Jackson stood with parents to lead the fight to fully fund Foundation Aid to ensure NYC schools would have the resources to significantly lower class sizes,” said Jasmine Gripper, Executive Director for the Alliance for Quality Education. “In 2020, AQE surveyed parents to ask their top priorities for schools and overwhelmingly parents named smaller class sizes among the top two priorities. The passage of the Class Size bill gets us closer to that goal. We urge the governor to sign it immediately.”

”Advocates and parents thank the Leaders of the State Legislature, Speaker Carl Heastie and Majority Leader Andrew Stewart Cousins along with the Chair of the Assembly Education Committee Michael Benedetto and the Chair of the New York City Senate Education Committee John Liu for shepherding this bill to passage.  We are also greatly indebted to the lead sponsors of the original bills on which these amendments are based, Senator Robert Jackson and Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon for ensuring the promise of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit will finally be fulfilled,” Ms. Haimson said. “Now we hope and expect Governor Kathy Hochul will sign the bill, so that our children can be provided with the smaller class sizes that students in the rest of the state already receive.”