Sen. John Liu explains why he sponsored the class size bill

Sen. John Liu at his Education Town Hall meeting on August 17, 2022 explains why he sponsored the class size bill and how smaller classes are essential towards providing NYC students with their rights under the New York constitution according to the state's highest court in the CFE case. He says it's a simple matter of the Legislature upholding the constitutional rights of children. I missed taping the very beginning of his comments, when he said that the passage of the bill is one of the proudest moments of his legislative career.

 

Letter to Gov. Hochul from NYSER plaintiffs urging her to sign the class size bill & correcting numerous factual errors in NYP oped

A few weeks ago, the NY Post ran an oped by a plaintiff in the NYSER case, which was an educational lawsuit  filed in 2014 and settled last fall,  after the Governor agreed to fully fund the amount to NYC schools owed them from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case.  

This NY Post oped, urging the Governor to veto the class size bill that was passed overwhelmingly by the Legislature in June, was full of factual errors and misinformation, including the false claim that the NYSER plaintiffs never discussed class size and never wanted any additional funding to go towards lowering class size.  

We knew that this was untrue, as Class Size Matters was one of the members of the NYSER coalition along with several Community Education Councils.  The class size issue was discussed several times at our meetings, and much of the class size data we had collected was included in the lawsuit itself as evidence of the inadequate conditions that still persisted in NYC public schools.  

I reached out to some of the other named plaintiffs and CEC Presidents who had joined the NYSER coalition as participants in the lawsuit, and asked if they would sign a letter, which pointed out the numerous factual errors in the oped.  The letter also pointed out how there was broad support for the bill among NYC education and civil rights groups, and the larger parent advocacy community.  Many of the NYSER plaintiffs that I was able to contact agreed to sign the letter, and concurred that the oped was full of errors.

I sent the signed letter to the NY Post oped editor, who refused to publish it or correct the errors in the oped. The NY Post letter editor also refused to publish it, even in an abbreviated form.  All this reveals  how little the editorial side of the Post cares about factual accuracy, as long as the claims made align with their right-wing positions, which generally oppose any more funding for public schools or any meaningful progressive reforms.  

So I rewrote the piece in the form of a letter to the Governor, which I sent to her today.  With the permission of the signers, it is posted below.  -- Leonie Haimson

____

The Honorable Kathy Hochul
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224

 

August 17, 2022

Dear Governor Hochul:

As named plaintiffs of the lawsuit filed by New Yorkers for Students’ Educational Rights (NYSER), and/or Presidents of Community Education Councils that were members of the NYSER coalition when the lawsuit was launched, we could not disagree more sharply with the erroneous and misleading claims  made in a NY Post July 21 oped that urged you to veto the class size bill. 

Contrary to the assertions made in that oped, class size was a frequent topic of discussion at meetings of the plaintiffs, and the excessive class sizes of NYC students were extensively described in the NYSER lawsuit complaint as key evidence of the inadequate conditions in our public schools that needed to be addressed. 

We strongly support the class size bill that was passed overwhelmingly by the Legislature in June, as do the following organizations which wrote memos of support for the bill:  the NAACP, Alliance for Quality Education,  the Educational Council Consortium, NYC Kids PAC and the Education Law Center, which now represents the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, the original lawsuit whose settlement has resulted in $1.3 billion in additional funds being awarded to NYC schools.

 The Chancellors Parent Advisory Council, which represents all the PTAS in the city, also passed a resolution last spring in support of the  class size bill.

Why? The research is clear that smaller classes benefit all children, but especially those who need the help the most. Students who gain the most from smaller classes are students of color, those from low-income families, English Language Learners, and children with disabilities – who make up the majority of students in NYC public schools.  Thus, class size is a driver of educational equity, which makes it especially unfair that our students have long been subjected to class sizes far larger than those in the rest of the state.

 All this explains why class size remains a deep concern for most NYC K12 public school parents, and smaller classes their top priority according to the Department of Education’s own surveys nearly every year.   We urge you to sign the class size bill as soon as possible

 Yours sincerely,

Miriam Aristy-Farer, lead plaintiff in the NYSER lawsuit; former President of Community Education Council District 6/member of the NYSER Coalition 

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director, Class Size Matters/ organizational member of the NYSER Coalition

Milagros Arcia, AKA Katherine A Arcia_GChanglerth, named plaintiff in the NYSER lawsuit

Bethany Thomas, named plaintiff in NYSER lawsuit 

Lisa Donlan, former President of Community Education Council District 1/organizational member of the NYSER Coalition

NeQuan McLean, former and current President of Community Education Council District 16/ organizational member of the NYSER Coalition

Melanie Mendonca, former President of Community Education Council District 23/ organizational member of the NYSER Coalition

Nicole Job, named plaintiff in NYSER case and former President, Community Education Council District 17/ organizational member of the NYSER Coalition

 

Cc:

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie

Senate Majority Leader Andrea S. Cousins

Sen. John Liu, Chair of the Standing NYC Education Committee

Assemblymember Benedetto, Chair of the Assembly Education Committee

Sen. Robert Jackson

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.”

 

Class size bill to be voted upon in Legislature today!

Today, a vote is scheduled in the Legislature on a bill , A10498/ S09460 that would require NYC DOE to phase in class size caps in all NYC public schools to be achieved over five years – to no more than 20 students in K-3, 23 students in 4th to 8th grades, and 25 students in HS academic classes. There are real enforceability mechanisms attached to the law, including that state funding would be withheld if the city doesn’t follow through on its commitments to achieve a 20% reduction in class size each year.  The bill is supported by our elected leaders and a majority of both houses,

The bill is quite strong and close to the legislation that was introduced last session by Senator Robert Jackson and AM Jo Anne Simon, and will likely be voted on today or tomorrow. If the bill passes, as it is expected to, and signed by the Governor, this represents a huge victory for NYC kids, and for all of you who helped push for this– as well as the generations of advocates, parents, teachers, and elected officials who have demanded smaller classes over many decades, in the realization that it was unfair that NYC students should have to suffer from class sizes that were far larger than those experienced by students in the rest of the state.

There was also a consensus among our elected officials that with the $1.3 billion in additional state aid flowing to our schools as a result of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, in which excessive class size was a central focus of the court decision, it was finally time to address this problem and solve it once and for all. There are some additions to the bill that allow exemptions to the law, but in our reading, only temporarily and in times of great economic distress. All of us will have to keep an eye out to ensure that these exceptions are invoked one time only, and under extreme conditions.

Gothamist has a good article about the class size bill, which also includes a short discussion of the Mayoral control bill that was submitted at the same time. That bill extends the Mayor’s control for only two more years, and expands the PEP to include more parent representatives selected directly by parents, while keeping a Mayoral majority. In addition, it puts the NYC Comptroller on the PEP as a non-voting member, to provide guidance on finances and contracts, and requires that the PEP members receive six hours of training in fiscal oversight, both of which we advocated for in our testimony to the Legislature, proposals that were also adopted by the Education Council Consortium.

Neither the class size bill nor the Mayoral control bill has been voted on yet, but we expect they will be approved either later today or tomorrow before the legislative session ends. And hopefully signed by the Governor sooner rather than later. Cross your fingers and toes!

We will include more info on the new class size and Mayoral control bills during our Parent Action Conference, co-hosted by NYC Kids PAC, to be held this Saturday, June 4 at 4 PM. For more info and to sign up now, click here.

Meanwhile, I hope you all savor this extraordinary victory to come for NYC students, and your own part in helping to achieve it.

Thanks as always, Leonie

Time is running out on the class size bill -- & how you can help!

Where's @NYCSpeakerCoJo? 👀 Now's the time to finally lower class size! Schedule a vote on Intro 2374 and lets make history! #OurKidsNeed pic.twitter.com/p4jPJ6sjF0

— UFT Unity (@UFTUnity) November 30, 2021

 1. Only about two weeks remain before the Council adjourns and a new City Council  takes office.  Please send a letter TODAY to Council Speaker Corey Johnson by clicking here-- demanding that he schedule a vote for the class size reduction bill, Int 2347.   When Johnson was running for Speaker, he promised that if 34 Council Members signed onto a bill, he would bring that bill to a vote. Int 2347 now has 40 Council Members as co-sponsors, including the Speaker himself. NYC kids need smaller classes for a safer environment and a better chance to learn! Write him today!

2. This Thursday, Dec. 2 at 6 PM EST, Class Size Matters  and NYC Kids PAC will host an emergency briefing and strategy session on class size -- what the research shows, how NYC class sizes compare to those elsewhere in the state, and what we should do to help get this bill passed. Sign up here and we'll send you a link to the event.   Join us!

3.Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday. Because of the pandemic, we haven't been able to hold our Class Size Matters fundraiser for the last two years. No matter what happens to this particular bill, we'll continue to provide the oversight, outreach, advocacy and analysis necessary to ensure that someday soon, our students receive the smaller class sizes they deserve.  Please give as generously as you can, to help ensure that our work continues even stronger than before.  

thanks Leonie

P.S. If you buy gifts through Amazon, by ordering through Amazon Smile, Class Size Matters will receive a small percentage of the amount.

 

Urgent! Call Speaker Johnson to ask him to schedule a vote on the class size bill!

Este mensaje está en español aquí.

Leonie --

The good news is that with your help, 39 Council Members out of 49 have now signed onto Int. 2374, the bill that would require class sizes be reduced in NYC schools. This is a veto-proof majority, so that if passed, the Mayor could not block it.

The bad news is that the Mayor is trying to stop the bill from ever coming to a vote. This vote was supposed to happen Nov. 23, but has now been delayed.  

So I need your help -- please call Speaker Corey Johnson's office TODAY to urge him to schedule the class size bill for a vote. We only have a month until nearly the entire City Council turns over and we have to start from scratch.  

Here is his phone number and a suggested message, but feel free to alter it in any way you like:

Call 212-788-7210 :

I am a parent and I'm calling to urge the Speaker to schedule a vote on Intro. 2374 as soon as possible. It just isn't fair that NYC class sizes are 10-30% larger than those in the rest of the state. NYC children have waited long enough for a better chance to learn. Passing this legislation would be one of the greatest accomplishments of his time in office. My name is x, my phone no. is y., and I would appreciate a call back to find out when this vote will happen.

Then, once you've called, please fill out this form if you have time, letting us know what happened.

And please forward this message to other parents, teachers and New Yorkers who care.

Thanks Leonie

Updated! Growing support for the class size bill and how you can help!

Este mensaje es en Español aqui.

UPDATED Nov. 12, 2021

Intro 2367, the bill that would require smaller classes be phased in over three years, now has 38 out of 49  Council Members as co-sponsors. (Two Council seats are empty.) We hope this bill will come to a vote in the next ten days or so.

As of this morning, 11 Council Members have not signed on. Their names and phone numbers are below, along with the school districts they represent and their twitter handles.

This list is updated and corrected.  CM Selvena Brooks-Powers had earlier signed on; and Brad Lander and Paul Vallone have since yesterday.  Keep those calls coming!  They make a difference.  

If they are your representative, or you work or your child attends school in their district, please give them a call, and follow up with a tweet if you can. If you don’t know who your Council Member is, you can find out by filling out the form here.

Here is a sample message:

I urge you to support and co-sponsor Intro 2367, so that my child and all NYC children can have a truly equitable chance to learn. It is simply unfair that NYC children continue to be subjected to the largest class sizes in the state.

The updated list of Members who have NOT signed on is below. thanks Leonie

 

Important update on class size bill & how you can help; plus deadline to opt out of SEL screener

1. Check out the compelling testimony including videos from yesterday's hearings on Intro 2374  and the importance of lowering class size, from Regent Kathy Cashin, Diane Ravitch, Elsie McCabe Thompson and others. Diane Ravitch testified that lowering class size would be the most powerful education reform the Council could enact.

My written testimony is here.  If you’d like to add your voice, you can upload your thoughts in the form of a doc  through Saturday on the Council website here. If you do write something, please also send it to at info@classsizematters.org so I can post it on my website.

2. As expected, DOE officials expressed total opposition to the class size bill, claiming it would take decades to build enough seats and that it would be "disruptive" to schools, though of course, overcrowded classrooms and schools are hugely disruptive to the quality of education NYC students receive. Not one of them claimed that achieving smaller classes would not be beneficial for kids,  and in fact, Deputy Chief Academic Officer Lawrence Pendergast testified that "no pedagogue would disagree" that class size matters.

Though DOE officials claimed that it would take 200,000 seats to provide the additional space required, the IBO estimates the real number is about 100,000 seats. My view is that the DOE cannot be trusted to come up with an accurate figure since they still haven't complied with Local Law 167 passed two years ago, that required them to explain their methodology for estimating the need for new school seats as laid out in the Capital plan. Council Education Chair Mark Treyger pointed out that the Mayor had created thousands of PreK and 3K seats nearly overnight, and that creating space for lowering class size could be done, given the same impetus and political will.

So far 28 Council members have signed onto the class size bill, Intro 2374 , so please check the link for the names of the co-sponsors and if your CM is not listed, please give them a call. You can find their names and phone numbers here. We have only a few short weeks before the Council turns over to a nearly entirely new cast of characters, so this is urgent!

3. The DOE has contracted with a company that produces a social emotional screener which teachers are supposed to fill out for their students starting next week. DOE has said that parents have the right to opt out of this screener, called DESSA, though many have not been informed of that right. Many parents also have serious concerns about the privacy, security, reliability and use of the resulting data, issues I have written about here.  

If you decide to opt out, you have till tomorrow, Friday October 29 to do so. If you haven't been told about a specific form to fill out, you can opt out by emailing your principal and copying your parent coordinator, informing them of your decision; be sure to include your child's name, class and OSIS number as well.

Thanks , Leonie

Hearings scheduled for Oct. 27 on class size bill; please urge your Council Member to sign on and testify yourself at the hearings!

Thanks to all of you who called the Speaker's office, urging him to schedule hearings on the classroom capacity bill that would phase in smaller classes, Intro 2374, introduced by the Speaker Corey Johnson and Council Education Chair Mark Treyger.

Yesterday it was announced that Council hearings would be held on this bill on Wed. Oct. 27 starting at 10 AM.

Two things you can do to help ensure the bill is actually passed: See if your Council Members have signed onto the bill by clicking on the link here, and if not, give them a call and ask them to co-sponsor. You can identify your Council Members and find their contact info here.

It would be great if you could also testify remotely at the Oct. 27 hearings; if you can't make it, you can send in written testimony within 72 hours of the close of the hearings. Instructions on how to sign up to speak or send in testimony are here.  

Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters 

info@classsizematters.org