Update on class size caps, violations & strikes in NYC, LA, Oakland and Florida

Update 3/2/19:  After a seven-day strike, the Oakland district and the union have tentatively agreed to a new contract that includes an 11% salary increase over four years, more counselors, psychologists, related service providers and speech pathologists, and to phasing in lower class size caps starting next school year in Kindergarten to 23 students per class;  1st-3rd grade classes to 26 students per class ; 4th-5th grade classes to 29  students per class and HS classes in core subjects to 31.  By 2021, these class size caps will be further reduced by one. (All these caps lower than current UFT contract  that hasn't changed in 50 years.)  The OEA union summary of the agreement is here; the entire agreement is here; separate chapters are here.

Wednesday, the UFT announced the beginning of an expedited process to resolve class size violations in five high schools where violations had been chronic: Benjamin N. Cardozo High School, Francis Lewis High School, and Academy of American Studies, in Queens, and Leon M. Goldstein High School and Secondary School for Journalism, in Brooklyn.  Chalkbeat wrote about this here. 

This process was negotiated as part of the new UFT contract and is supposed to accelerate the lengthy and often ineffective way that excessive class sizes in schools have been addressed in the past, especially where violations have repeatedly occurred over the years.  The UFT press release  says the grievances will be referred "immediately to arbitration and the arbitrator’s decision must be implemented by the DOE within five days.”

Yet neither Chalkbeat the article nor the UFT press release provides any information about how many other NYC public schools in addition to these five schools still suffer from class sizes over the cap. What the UFT did say about all these other schools was this:

In addition to the expedited process for chronically overcrowded classes, the UFT will be working with district superintendents and the citywide Class Size Labor Management Committee to resolve oversize class complaints in other schools. Any schools where class size issues are not resolved by this process will be eligible for arbitrators' hearings, with the additional requirement that arbitrators' remedies must be implemented within five school days.

The class size caps according to the UFT contract are listed here:

Kindergarten: 25 students contained
Grades 1-6 in elementary schools: 32 students
JHS/MS: 33 students in non-Title I schools; 30 in Title I schools.
HS: 34 students.

Coincidentally, on Friday, the DOE released the audited Oct. 31 data for class sizes this fall, citywide, by district and by school.   When the law requiring DOE reporting was first passed over a decade ago, in part because of our advocacy, we pushed for two reporting periods, once in the fall and once in the spring, because we knew that high school classes were reconstituted in the second semester and we wanted to have a handle on those class sizes as well and try to provide pressure for them to be lowered as promptly as possible. 

Unfortunately, the DOE interpreted the law another way and after releasing the Oct. 31 data on Nov. 15, uses the Feb. 15 date to release the same basic data from Oct. 31, now just audited, rather than class size data from the  second semester.  The City Council has never challenged them on that interpretation.

Anyway, over the weekend we looked at the just-released audited fall data two ways, one assuming the Title I middle school cap of 30 pertains, and the other way assuming the non-Title One middle school cap of 33.  (About 83% of NYC public schools receive Title one funds, according to this DOE budget allocation memo – yet I don’t know of any middle schools where teachers grieve class sizes between 31-33; parents/teachers, please correct me if I’m wrong.)

The audited data shows that as of Oct. 31, there were 49,442 students in 1,311 classes that violated the class size limits,  assuming non-Title one caps of 33 in middle school:

# of classes and students over UFT limits, no Title I MS	Number of Students in Classes over UFT limits	Number of Classes over UFT limits
K-8 (assuming MS cap of 33)	12,676	399
HS	36,766	912
Total	49,442	1311

Assuming the smaller cap of 30 in Title one middle schools, there were more than twice as many violations in grades K-8, for a total of 67,656 students in 1908 classes:

# of students and classes over UFT Limits	Number of Students in Classes over UFT limits	Number of Classes over UFT limits
K-8 (assuming MS cap of 30)	30,890	996
HS	36,766	912
Total	67,656	1,908

The Oct. 31 audited data also shows that the largest percentage of violations occur in Kindergarten (affecting 7% of students) and middle school (5%-7% of students, assuming a cap of 30).

An article from the UFT newspaper dated Nov. 1, 2018 cites figures showing 401 schools citywide and 2,056 classes were out of compliance as of the 10th day of school this year, which was September 18. The same article also reports a class size cap of 30 for middle schools.  Assuming this limit to be true, only about 150 classes out of more than 2000 were brought into compliance between Sept. 18 and Oct. 31. I would guess that most of these schools did not lower class sizes after Oct. 31, but do not know for sure since neither the UFT nor the DOE report on this data.

In any case, these class size caps are far too large, and haven’t been lowered in over fifty years since the days of Albert Shanker, who was able to negotiated both salary increases and smaller classes, although  now of course we know far more about the tremendous benefits of class size reduction for student and teacher success. 

Though the UFT did not negotiate smaller caps in the new contract (according to teacher Arthur Goldstein because the “DOE told us point blank they had no interest in that”),  as a result of the recent Los Angeles strike, LA teachers won both higher salaries and smaller class size caps, as well as a resolution from the school board calling for a moratorium on charter schools.   

Yet the LA class size caps were originally far larger than those in NYC.  Moreover, there was a clause in the contract allowing the district to ignore the caps completely by claiming “financial necessity”, they had claimed nearly every year.  Thankfully, the union also managed to eliminate that clause in the new contract. 

After a strike at four Chicago International Charter Schools was settled last week, those teachers won higher salaries and smaller classes, including class size caps of 30 at all three of the chain’s high schools, significantly smaller than the UFT high school caps of 34.

Oakland teachers have announced they too plan to strike on Thursday, and among their demands are both higher salaries and smaller class size caps.  The fact-finder report proposed that Oakland teachers should get both, and “that lower class sizes will improve teacher retention and educational outcomes.”

While Oakland teachers are demanding caps be lowered by two students per grade, the fact-finder instead recommended a decrease in one student per class “to be fully implemented by July 2020, with 20% of schools having an implementation date of July 2019. The intent is for implementation to happen first at the highest-needs schools. I also recommend that the parties form a joint class size reduction taskforce. This task force will be charged with looking at ways to fund further class size reductions to be implemented by July 2021.”

The fact-finder report also disclosed the current class size caps at Oakland schools: Kindergarten classes at 27; 1^st-3^rd at 30; 4th-6^th at 31; 7-12 at 32 in most core subjects – smaller in every grade except Kindergarten and middle school than NYC, assuming Title one middle school caps of 30. The Oakland fact-finder also agreed with the union that there should be financial penalties imposed on the district for violating these caps.

Class size caps in Florida schools are smaller yet – as a result of a referendum in 2002 that amended their state constitution.  No more than 18 students per class are allowed in prekindergarten through grade 3; 22 students in grades 4 through 8; and 25 in high school classes.  Though schools are provided with flexibility to some degree, especially in elective and AP courses, the vast majority abide by the caps according to the official state reports.  Charters and public “schools of choice” are  allowed to meet these figures through school-wide average figures rather than classroom caps.

As the Tampa Bay Times reported last month,

According to the Department of Education, only 474 of 18,755 traditional classrooms missed the mark in the fall count — most of them in Polk and Hendry counties. …Even districts using a more liberal rule that lets them apply averages to their “schools of choice,” a program implemented by lawmakers in 2013, had slightly increased problems. This fall, 18 of 2,873 “choice” schools — 0.6 percent — violated the rules of 18 students in K-3 classes, 22 in grades 4-8 and 25 in high school.

The Florida class size caps have  led to nearly ideal statewide class size averages , as shown in the data for the 2017-2018 year of 15.5 students per class in preK-3^rd grade, 17.8 students per class in 4^th-8^th grade, and 18.6 students per class in high school. In 2002,  then-Governor Jeb Bush confided to state legislators he had “devious plans’ to eliminate the class size caps, and various members of the Legislature have tried to scrap them over the years, but they have been unable to do so because of their huge popularity among parents and teachers.

In any case, we shall see if Oakland teachers, like Los Angeles and Chicago charter school teachers before them, achieve both salary increases and reductions in class size.  I will be rooting them on and crossing my fingers that they do.

What LA teachers are teaching the country about the need to reduce class size

Last week I published a column on the Washington Post Answer Sheet about how class size is the central issue in the Los Angeles teacher strike, now going on for a week.

Los Angeles schools have a $1.8 billion surplus, and yet Superintendent Austin Beutner still insists that he can ignore any and all class size caps in the teacher contract, because of a loophole that was inserted in the contract after the great recession hit, a decade ago.

Ignoring these contractual caps - which are still too high -- means that class sizes in Los Angeles can rise to 35 or 40 in many schools, which are ridiculously large and far too large to provide any student with  sufficient feedback from their teachers.

In the piece, I also explained how many insiders suspect that the real reason the pro-charter LA school board and  Superintendent so obdurately refuse to lower class size is that this would take up space in their schools that instead they'd prefer to give to the expanding charter schools.

I also dispute the risible claims made in an oped by Arne Duncan, in which he tossed in the red herring of unreliable average class size data as cited by the district, rather than admit that the real focus of discontent among parents and teachers are the maximum class sizes that many LA students suffer.  Duncan also went on to repeat the tired straw man argument that parents would prefer their children have a good teacher than a small class- as though that's a real world choice any parent should have to make.

Class sizes have increased across the country since the recession, and even though we're a decade past that point, school budgets haven't fully recovered.  I'm encouraged that in Los Angeles as well as many of the other states where teachers led strikes and walk-outs last year, including Oklahoma,  Colorado,  and Arizona,  this has led to a resurgence in people's awareness of the key issue of class size, because its a too often-ignored component of any real school improvement strategy.

Despite all the more trendy proposals will concerning online learning, community schools or pre-K expansion, class sizes in grades K-12 are far too large in most public schools around the country to provide kids with a real opportunity too learn.  As Dale Farran, one of the lead investigators in the Vanderbilt preK study -- the most authoritative large-scale experiment ever done on expanding preK, has concluded:

“Too much has been promised from one year of preschool intervention without the attention needed to the quality of experiences children have and what happens to them in K-12.”

Here in NYC, class sizes also remain far bigger than they were when the state's highest court  said they were too large to offer students their constitutional right to a sound basic education in the decision in the CFE case.

The union class size caps in NYC public schools are also are far too large, and haven't been lowered in over fifty years - despite all the research showing how critical this issue is for student success, especially for disadvantaged students and students of color.  And this is despite the fact that 99% of NYC teachers say reducing class size would improve our schools - far outstripping any other reform.

Over 336,000 NYC students are crammed into class sizes of 30 or more, and our average class sizes are 15-30% higher than those in the rest of the state.    For more of the latest class size data this fall, including sharp increases since 2007, check out our powerpoint here.

Time to do something about this here in NYC?  Leave your comments below.

But first, check out the video below of Diane Ravitch speech at a UTLA rally at Alexander Hamilton High School in Los Angeles on Wednesday, saying the best thing that could come out of the LA strike is a real cap on class size and a real cap on charter schools.

Class sizes sharply rising & 7,000 violations this fall despite Bloomberg campaign promises

It’s been a busy week.  On Wednesday there was a spirited rally on the steps of Tweed to protest the continued cuts to school budgets, the loss of art, music & afterschool program, and the sharp increases in class sizes; a good summary of the event is on the  Ed Vox blog.  There were great speeches by parents and elected officials, and I met a large contingent from PS  217 in Roosevelt Island, protesting Kindergarten classes of 28 and 5^th grade classes of 34, even though there are empty rooms in the building.

 

On Thursday, I joined a UFT press conference at Murry Bergtraum HS, where Michael Mulgrew  reported  on the 7,000 classes that violate the union limits, with more than 250,000 students sitting (or standing) in these oversized classes during the first ten days of school.  (Contractual class size limits – already far too large – are 25 students in Kindergarten; 32 students in grades 1-6:  33 students in non-title I MS; 30 in Title I MS; 34 students in HS; and 50 students in gym.)

Most of the violations this fall, as usual, are in our large overburdened high schools; with classes of 35 students or more at Benjamin Cardozo (302); Long Island City (207); Lehman (270) Murry Bergtraum (104); and John Dewey (102).

But  there are many violations in elementary and middle schools as well, including Petrides in Staten Island with 44 classes over the limits; MS 210 in Queens with 43; Bronx PS 83 with 33; Brooklyn’s IS 318 with 31 and PS 169 with 24. The UFT also reported that there are 7,000 fewer teachers than in 2008 – despite increasing enrollment.

As John Elfrank-Dana chapter leader at Bergtraum explained, though the administration will eventually address some of these violations, these students will have been shuffled from class to class for weeks, losing out on a crucial period of time to engage in learning and bond with their teachers.  Moreover, some violations will remain, despite grievances.  In any case, class sizes will likely increase for the fourth year in a row, with children in grades K-3 suffering from the largest classes in eleven years – and research shows that these are critical years in which class size helps determine the trajectory of their academic achievement and future success in life.  In many schools, we are seeing class sizes in these grades jump from 21 or 22 to 30 or more – especially as the DOE refuses to honor the cap of 28 students per class in grades 1-3, which they did for many years.

As usual, Walcott and the DOE spokesman responded with their usual pablum about how they are focusing instead on teacher “quality”; but I pointed out that even the best teachers cannot do their best with class sizes this large.  I also provided a flyer from Bloomberg’s 2002 campaign for Mayor, showing how he promised to reduce class size, especially in the early grades, because, as it points out,

 “...studies confirm that one of the greatest detriments to learning is an overcrowded classroom. …For students, a loud, packed classroom means a greater chance of falling behind. For teachers, class overcrowding means a tougher time teaching and giving students the attention they need.”

In his campaign literature, Bloomberg concluded that “NYC families have been waiting long enough.” Our children are still waiting, many of them in even more overcrowded classes than when he was first elected, due to the mayor's negligence and the flawed priorities of those he picked to run our schools. 

(For more news on the class size violations this year, see GothamSchools, NYT, Daily News, NY1, WSJ, Fox News, DNA info, and  UFT.)

Yelena Siwinski confronts Walcott on class size

Yelena Siwinski, teacher at PS 193 in Brooklyn showed up for a meeting in District 22.  Here is her account, which shows that still, even after being asked at two different consecutive City Council hearings what the class size limits are, Chancellor Walcott still has no idea.  

What a travesty!  I include the real caps below, contrasted with the CFE goals in the city's class size reduction plan.

I walked into a moderately attended CEC 22 meeting where Walcott spoke for a few minutes with the usual rhetoric which I couldn't even write down because it was so meaningless.  Then came time for questions and answers.  The first woman asked about charter schools and how could we give public schools equal money.  Walcott said that he was trying to calm down the divisiveness between charter schools and public schools and that he believed parents should have a choice and charter could be  more flexible since many of them weren't unionized, etc. etc.  He said that the UFT law suit just brought all that up again. 

Walcott talks bupkis

He also mentioned that charters shared the building equitably and that they used the BUP (Building Utilization Plan) to decide where the charters could go. There was another person before me and then it was my turn.  First I mentioned that I had been to the CDEC meeting last week and had shown a portion of the film "The Inconvenient..." and that I would be back in September to show the film in its entirety. 

I said that it was produced by the Grassroots Education Movement and that it would be good for the chancellor to view it because he wasn't telling all the facts such as the BUP doesn't take into account all the services the children are mandated and that kids were receiving them in hallways, closets, and stairwells.  Also equity might seem like 50-50 between the charter and the public school but there might be 300 kids in the charter and 600 kids in the public school.  I told the audience to find out the facts that went beyond the smooth rhetoric they were being told.

Then I mentioned that I had 2 college educated daughters and that the chancellor had mentioned that we need to get our kids "college ready".  I said that one of the main questions that are asked when looking at college was how big the class sizes were.  At a good college it is usually 1:16 or 1:18 but definitely less than 1:20.  By now I was really addressing the audience.  Then I stressed that this was for an 18, 19 20 year old and that we have 5 year olds with bigger class sizes!  Then I mentioned that Walcott was recently asked the class size limits and that he didn't know them.  I asked if he could tell them to us now.  He proceeded to harp on when he had been asked the question. I actually forgot but knew that I had read it recently and that the point was what was his answer today. He then struggled and said that the class size limit for kindergarten was 23.  I told him he was wrong and sat down.