Tomorrow is the deadline for comments on urging the Office of Civil Rights to collect data on class size

Accurate data on class size is nearly impossible to find in many districts across the country.  The Office of Civil Rights of the US Dept. of Education is asking the public what additional data they should collect, with a deadline of tomorrow Friday Feb. 11 at 5 PM.

If you'd like to help us ask them to collect data on class size, please go to their webpage at https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/ED-2021-SCC-0158-0041.  Enter your comment on the line where it says, "Write a comment".  Add any more info about yourself or organization that you would like.  Here's a sample short comment about class size you can use, but feel free to devise your own.

"It is important that the Office of Civil Rights collect and report on class size data, as there is no other source for this information that is accurate and timely.  Smaller classes are key to education equity, and yet many students are subjected to class sizes that are too large to provide them with a sound, basic education."

The letter we just submitted with names of education activists and researchers from throughout the country is below.  thanks!

When will DOE post this year's class size data that was legally due Nov. 15?

UPDATE: the class size data was finally posted late in the afternoon on Friday Dec. 3, 18 days after the legal deadline; see the article in Gothamist.  Accurate data for last year still hasn't been provided and probably never will. Our analysis of this year's data will follow soon. .

According to a Local Law 125 passed in 2005,  the DOE is required to report on class size data by school, district, borough and citywide each year by Nov. 15, and then again on Feb. 15.  

Nov. 15 was two days ago, and yet class size data for this year has not yet been posted.  We have a clock below that started at midnight Nov. 15, to track how late the data is posted -- if it ever will. 

The DOE still hasn't posted accurate data for last year's class sizes, despite a  promise in writing by Deputy Chancellor Karin Goldmark to CM Mark Treyger that they would do so last year, and sworn testimony before the City Council by Chancellor Meisha Porter to CM Dromm about this as well.  

Instead, last February, three months late, they posted the data for (very small) in-person classes only, rather than providing any data on the remote or blended learning class sizes.  This is despite the fact that they were collecting data on the size of these classes separately since the beginning of the school year.

I will be checking regularly, but you can as well on the DOE website here; and if you see any class size data for the 2021- 2022 school year, please email us at info@classsizematters.org.

DOE still has not posted last year's class size data -- after repeated promises to do so.

DOE still has not posted last year's class size data, including the class sizes of remote and blended learning classes.  Last year, many NYC parents and teachers spoke out in protest about how these classes were excessively large, with as many as 40 or 60 students.  See articles in NY Post, WSJ and Gothamist.

Nearly a year ago, in response to a letter sent to the Chancellor by Council Education Chair Mark Treyger, Deputy Chancellor Karin Goldmark promised to provide class size data for the 2020-2021 school year by February, with separate categories for in-person vs. hybrid vs. remote learning.  That never happened.  

Instead, the only class size data posted in February, months after the Nov. 15 legal deadline, were for the socially distanced, in-person classes that were much smaller, averaging 18-20 students per class.

In May, at City Council budget hearings, after Finance Chair Danny Dromm pointed out that DOE had still not posted the promised class size data, Chancellor Porter again promised to make it available. See the hearing transcript on pp. 30-31.

MEISHA PORTER: …as you know that that data that you are asking about that we did post reflects our in-person classes. We also had to make investments to class size obviously as a result of COVID and look forward to providing that data as soon as possible.
CHAIRPERSON DROMM: So, Chancellor, thank you. We look forward to getting that data and former
Chancellor Carranza did say that that data was being collected. So, it should be easily available for us
to see. Would you agree with that, that that data was collected?
MEISHA PORTER: That data is being collected and we will work to make sure that we make it available to you.

Yet they never followed through. On Friday, I sent the following FOIL request for this data.  See below.  I will update this post if and when I receive the data.

Sept. 17, 2021

Records Access Officer
NYC Department of Education
52 Chambers Street, Room 308
New York, NY 10007

By email: FOIL@schools.nyc.gov

Dear Records Access Officer:

Under the provisions of the New York Freedom of Information Law, Article 6 of the Public Officers Law, I hereby request the class size data for the last school year 2020-2021, preferably on Nov. 15, 2020, disaggregated by type of class: remote only, hybrid (remote and in person) and full-time in person learning.  As usual, please supply this data, with class size distributions and averages by grade and type of class, at the citywide, district and school levels.

On Oct. 15, 2020, CM Mark Treyger sent a letter to then- Chancellor Carranza urging him to report on school-specific and citywide class size averages as the law requires on Nov. 15, and to disaggregate the data by type of instruction used: either in-person learning, remote classes for blended learning students, and remote classes for full-time remote students.   His letter is here .

On Nov. 14, one day before the class size data was legally due to be reported, Deputy Chancellor Karen Goldmark responded,  saying that they would delay the release of any class size data until Dec. 31, 2020, and would report the disaggregated data by Feb. 15, 2021.

No class size data was released on Dec. 31, and on Feb. 15, 2021, the DOE posted class size data, not on the DOE or Infohub website as usual, but on the city’s Open Data website. 

The data, which was said to reflect class sizes as of Nov. 13, 2020, was not disaggregated, and one can only assume it only reflected in-person class sizes,  since they were far smaller than ever before, 18-20 on average depending on the grade. See charts here.

Meanwhile, some parents and teachers had reported very large remote and online blended learning classes of 40 students, 60 or more.  See articles in NY Post, WSJ and Gothamist about this issue. 

There is no doubt that the DOE has had access to disaggregated class size data since at least Oct. 2020. 

At the Mayor's press conference on Oct. 26, 2020,  Chancellor Carranza said that schools have been reporting attendance data in "literally three buckets of attendance every single day": in-person classes, remote blended learning classes, and full-time remote classes.  Thus, the disaggregated class sizes must have been available since that time, as attendance rates cannot be calculated without the data on the number of students enrolled in a class compared to the number who are attending.  

In Oct. 2020, the DOE began to release attendance rates by school, and since Feb. 2021, the city reported citywide and district-wide attendance data disaggregated by remote, blended in-person, blended-remote, and in-person learning.

In April 2021, the DOE released remote-only attendance data by grade.

This requested class size data is not exempt from disclosure under FOIL. In the event that all or part of this request is denied, please cite each specific applicable FOIL exemption and notify us of appeal procedures available under the law. 

To the extent that this data is readily available in an electronic format, we request that it be provided in that format. The Freedom of Information Law requires agencies to respond within five (5) business days of a records request.  

Please contact me by phone at 917-435-9329 or by email to leoniehaimson@gmail.com  with any questions. Thank you in advance for your timely consideration of this request.

Sincerely, Leonie Haimson

NYC DOE releases unreliable class size data three months late; please take our survey today!!

NYC parents, teachers and administrators please take our five-minute class size survey here. I'll explain why:

By law, the DOE is supposed to report on class sizes twice a year, the first time on Nov. 15 and then again on Feb. 15. We had heard from parents of egregiously large classes sizes this fall for many students engaged in remote learning of sixty students or even more, either full-time or part-time. See articles in NY Post, WSJ and Gothamist about this issue. 

So we realized it would be important for the DOE to report on disaggregated class sizes, i.e. in-person, vs. full-time remote, vs. part-time remote for blended learning students. On Oct. 28, Council Member Mark Treyger, chair of the Education Committee sent a letter to DOE, urging them to make the legal deadline of Nov. 15 and provide the disaggregated data. His letter is here which a Chalkbeat article reported on. 

At a press conference on Oct. 26, Chancellor Carranza said that schools had been reporting attendance to DOE in "literally three buckets of attendance every single day": in-person classes, remote blended learning classes, and full-time remote classes. So reporting the class size data in these three separate categories should not have been difficult for them to do. 

Yet on November 16, Karin Goldmark of the DOE responded to CM Treyger's letter, to say they would delay the release of ANY of the class size data until Dec. 31, and any disaggregated data until Feb. 15. Subsequently, they told the Council they would further delay the release of any class size data till the beginning or middle of January. 

In late February, more than three months after the legal deadline, the DOE finally posted on the Infohub site links to another Open Data site that alleges to report on class size data as of Nov. 13, 2020, with aggregate average data that appears to be inaccurate. Based on our analysis of the initial data, we calculated the following averages for each grade level, which if true would show DOE achieved the far smaller class sizes called for in their 2007 Contracts for Excellence plan:

Grades	Average
K–3	18.74
4–8	20.18
K–8 Special Classes	6.46
K–8	17.44
High School	20.00

Charts of the reported trend of average class sizes over time are here: Even factoring in the reported drops in enrollment, based on analysis of past data as well as speaking with teachers, parents, and students, we believe these figures are likely far lower than the reality. The DOE now says they will further delay any disaggregated data until sometime in March, which may be further delayed, given their past record, and may not be more accurate . 

So that's why in the meantime, we are asking NYC parents, teachers and administrators to respond to our five-minute class size survey here.

DOE to delay the release of any class size data due Nov. 15 until Dec. 31, and any disaggregated data until Feb.15

UPDATE: in late February the DOE released links to aggregate class size data that then links to spreadsheets on the Open Data site that seems absurdly low.  Now they say they will not release any disaggregated data that may be more accurate till sometime in March.

UPDATE 1/4/21:  According to City Council staff, the DOE now says they are further postponing the release of any class size data until "early or mid-January."

UPDATE 10/23/2020: Chalkbeat wrote about this issue here.

See the letter from Karen Goldmark below of DOE responding to the letter from CM Mark Treyger, saying they will not release any class size data until December 31, based on the size of classes on November 13, rather than the legal deadline established by city law of November 15.  It also appears from the letter that they do not intend to report any disaggregated data till February 15-- still based on the size of classes as of November 13  (!).

It is very difficult to understand why this should take so long, especially as at the Mayor's press conference on Oct. 26, the Chancellor said that schools have been reporting attendance data and thus class size in "literally three buckets of attendance every single day": in-person classes, remote blended learning classes, and full-time remote classes. 

One suspects that DOE officials just don’t want people to know how large the online classes actually are, as reported by parents and the media here, here and here.

 

Another day, another broken promise...

Guess what? the DOE has broken yet another promise -- this time to release the class size data by November 23.

See this November 18 article from Gotham schools in which educrats said class sizes would be reported to the City Council by that date -- which was yesterday. I checked with the City Council today and they have received nada.

They already missed the legal deadline of November 15. Indeed, this is the third year in a row they have missed the deadline.

Though no one should be surprised. Surely it will suit their purposes to suppress what is likely to be very bad news by releasing the info right before Thanksgiving...or perhaps over the Thanksgiving break.

I wish I had a dollar for every time these guys failed to follow through. I would be nearly as rich as Bloomberg.

Of course, the class size isn't likely to be fully reliable even when it is released, because of the fundamentally flawed reporting process. But that's another story...