Adriana Alicea in support of the class size reduction plan in NYC

Below is a long and thoughtful submission to the Class Size Working Group from Adriana Alicea, President, PA of the Lynn Gross Discovery School (PS 175Q), President of the D28 Presidents’ Council and a member of CEC 28.  I also post an excerpt from her conclusion below.

You can email your suggestions and comments to ClassSize@schools.nyc.gov by Wednesday, October 4th at 12 midnight. There is also one more public session on Monday, where you can present your thoughts in person.

Monday, October 2nd – Citywide from 5- 7:30pm in person at the MLK Campus Auditorium, 122 Amsterdam Ave,  Manhattan.

More information about these hearings and a summary of the draft proposals are on the Infohub website here.

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In conclusion, I urge you to support the class size reduction plan in New York City, as it is a critical investment in the future of our children and our community. By reducing class sizes, we can ensure that every student in Queens and across New York City receives the education they need to succeed, aligning our educational standards with those of the developed world. Together, we can create a brighter future for our city, where every child has the opportunity to thrive. ....

Additionally, maintaining arts and STEM programming alongside efforts to reduce class sizes is essential for providing a well-rounded, engaging, and effective education. This approach ensures that students have access to a diverse range of subjects and experiences, setting them up for success both academically and in life. 

Furthermore, prioritizing public school students and postponing charter school co-locations until the class size mandate is fully realized demonstrates a commitment to equitable access to quality education for all students. It allows public schools to focus on improving the learning environment, meeting legal obligations, and providing a stable and supportive educational experience for the communities they serve.

 Lastly, prioritizing public school students and conducting a full audit of spending at the central DOE office are crucial steps in addressing the affordability of smaller class sizes. These actions promote transparency, equity, and efficient resource allocation, ultimately benefitting the education and future prospects of all public school students. -- Adriana Alicea

Comments on IBO brief on class size reduction costs

Articles about the IBO estimate and our response were published in the Daily News and Gothamist.

July 12, 2023

Regarding IBO brief on class size reduction costs:

It is surprising that the IBO came out with a higher estimate of the staffing cost for the new class size reduction law than the city’s estimate– $1.6- $1.8 billion vs. the DOE’s estimate of approximately $1.3 billion, and it is unclear why.  Perhaps this is because the IBO is re using enrollment data two years old.  The DOE states they also assumed “a moderate degree of school budget realigning through reducing existing non-teacher positions, per diem and per session, and non-staffing spending.” Neither the IBO nor the DOE seem to have into account the fact that many NYC schools have a relatively high teacher/student ratios yet relatively large class sizes, meaning that some schools may be able to re-assign existing pedagogical staff to classroom instruction, without additional costs.

Nonetheless, there will be a significant need for hiring more teachers in the years to come. The IBO estimates 17,700 new teachers will be required, which will be a challenge, particularly given the fact that the number of K12 teaching positions has fallen by about 4,000 over the last five years, with the number set to fall even further next year.  As the report points out, the current DOE plan is to further reduce the total pedagogical headcount by approximately 3,500 positions from 2023 to 2026; clearly that will have to change. While the IBO states there are approximately 11,000 pedagogical vacancies, they do not explain if these are forced vacancies that schools have been unable to fill because of budget constraints, or a result of a shortage of available candidates.

What the IBO brief does reveal is that the Chancellor’s repeated claim that high-poverty schools will not benefit from the class size mandate because they already have small enough classes is a red herring.  The data reveals that only 9 percent of the one third of schools with the highest poverty rates achieved the class size cap in 2021-2022; and most likely even fewer did last year, as class sizes increased in most schools across the city.  Nearly half (47%) of the schools with the highest poverty rates had between 37-100% of classes over the cap.  Moreover, even in the other two-thirds of NYC public schools, poverty levels can be as high as 72%.

It is particularly disappointing that the IBO did not attempt to estimate the cost of new facilities, and how many new seats will have to be built to provide enough space for smaller classes, especially when they did provide an estimate in the case of the City Council bill, Intro. 2374, that had far more rigorous requirements for class size.  The latest version of the capital plan approved by the City Council in June cut 22,000 new seats from the plan adopted in June 2021, without any explanation of why fewer seats will be needed, especially given that more than 300,000 students are enrolled in overcrowded schools.

Nor did the IBO brief take into account the potential cost savings from smaller classes, including lowering remediation costs and referrals to special education.

In any case, the conclusions of this brief reinforce the need for the city to start moving now on a realistic, effective class size reduction plan as quickly as possible, and to quickly reverse their planned shrinkage of teaching staff in order to meet the five-year timeline required in the law.

Diane Ravitch’s testimony today in support of lowering class size

At the Council hearings today, DOE officials vociferously opposed the class size bill, Intro 2374, saying it would be "extremely disruptive" to schools.  Yet others, including Regent Kathleen Cashin, Diane Ravitch and Elsie Thompson McCabe, CEO of the Mission Society, one of NYC's oldest social service organizations, said reducing class size would be the most powerful thing we could do to improve our schools and outcomes for NYC students.  My written testimony is here; Diane's is below.

 

Diane Ravitch’s testimony in support of Intro 2374, the bill to lower class size

 

October 27, 2021

 

Chairman Treyger, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I am a historian of education. My first book was a history of the NYC public schools.

As a historian, I have studied reform in NYC and in cities across the nation.

Reform usually means shaking up the system. Centralize, decentralize, recentralize. Reorganize the bureaucracy, put the mayor in control, change the decision-making structure. Hire consultants, hire data analysts, hire coaches.

Or reform means outsource the schools to private entrepreneurs.

Or reform means more standardized testing. Interim assessments, test prep. Testing and more testing. More testing does not produce more learning or better grades.

These so-called reforms barely move the needle, if at all. 

Class size reduction is a far more powerful reform than any of the above.

Grades improve, discipline improves. Teacher morale improves.

Children get the attention they need. Class size reduction is especially valuable for the children with the greatest needs.

With smaller classes, teachers have the time they need to do their jobs. 

Chairman Treyger, you are right. Reform begins with the needs of children, not the limits of space.

Class size reduction is the most powerful reform you can enact.

Problems with DOE's proposed "plan" for Contract for Excellence funds, lack of public input, and upcoming hearings

Update 7/21/21:  The DOE has provided an email [ContractsForExcellence@schools.nyc.gov] to use to send in written comments on their proposed "plan", with a deadline of Sept. 3, 2021, but has provided no additional details concerning what their entire "plan" for more than $1 billion in state funds actually entails.

 Late Friday, the DOE finally posted a schedule for Contract for Excellence  (C4E) borough hearings, in response to a letter from Wendy Lecker of the Ed Law Center and I sent nearly a month ago, urging them to schedule timely hearings and to take public input seriously in their plan, as the C4E law requires.   

The first hearing is this Thursday, July 22 in Brooklyn at 6:30 PM at:

Urban Assembly Institute of Math & Science for Young Women, 283 Adams Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11201

Other hearings will follow the week of Aug. 2-Aug 5 in the other four boroughs:

Monday, August 2, 2021 – Bronx - PS 306 - 40 West Tremont Avenue, Bronx, NY 10453

Tuesday, August 3, 2021 – Staten Island - The Michael J. Petrides School, 715 Ocean Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301, - ABP Hall of Science

Wednesday,  August 4, 2021 – Queens - P.S. 212 - 34-25 82nd St, Queens, NY 11372

Thursday, August 5, 2021 – Manhattan - Isaac Newton Middle School for Math & Science, 260 Pleasant Avenue, New York, NY 10029, 2nd floor auditorium 

Wendy Lecker and I followed up with two emails to Robin Singer, DOE attorney, that are below.

Wendy wrote that allocating all the additional C4E funds to Fair Student Funding (FSF) as the DOE said they would do in this summary does not comply with the C4E law, in that the law requires the spending in six specific areas, including class size reduction, while FSF provides principals with almost unlimited flexibility as to the use of these funds.

This lack of adherence to the intent and language of the law is more important than ever as the city will be getting about $530M in additional C4E funds this year, approximately doubling the usual amount, following the Legislature’s decision to fully fund the CFE decision over the next three years. 

My email points out additional problems, including much missing financial information in what is provided online about how DOE proposes to use these funds, and no information as to how the public can provide comments via writing, which the regs require.

We have additional serious concerns regarding DOE’s explicit allowance of the supplanting of city funds, meaning the  C4E funds used to replace funding cut by the city, which is prohibited by law.  There are also real problems with the way in which the  Contracts for Excellence School Allocation memo allows principals to use these funds to support all sorts of activities and programs that are not specified in the C4E law.

If people are able to speak at the Brooklyn hearing or subsequent ones, please let us know by emailing info@classsizematters.org  If so, we’d be happy to supply you with some talking points which you can use if you like.

Also: School Leadership Teams are supposed to be meeting over the summer to give input about how their schools will use of the additional Fair Student funding.  These meetings are supposed to be open to any parent or community member who would like to attend.  If you are a SLT member or are a parent or teacher who would like to urge your school to use these additional funds to lower class size, please let us know.

Thanks Leonie

------------------------------------

From: leoniehaimson@gmail.com <leoniehaimson@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2021 3:27 PM
To: RSinger4@schools.nyc.gov
Cc: Chancellor Meisha Porter <nycchancellor@schools.nyc.gov>; Commissioner@nysed.gov; Regent.Young@nysed.gov; LOates@schools.nyc.gov; JNathan@schools.nyc.gov; 'O'Hanlon Katie' <KOhanlon4@schools.nyc.gov>; Wendy Lecker <WLecker@EdlawCenter.org>; 'Schanback Benjamin' <BSchanback@schools.nyc.gov>; 'Tan Ling' <LTan@schools.nyc.gov>; Leonie Haimson 

Subject: Additional problems with Contracts for Excellence lack of information

Dear Ms. Singer –

Along with the overarching, critical legal issues that Wendy references below, we have additional concerns  with the failure of DOE to provide sufficient information posted late Friday on the C4E page here.  

1. There are no instructions as to how people can send in comments via email, and/or a time frame to do so.   DOE is required by the Commissioner’s regulations to provide the opportunity the public to provide written comment.  Given Covid, many parents may be even more reluctant to testify in person than before, so it is crucial to facilitate the submission of written comments to DOE’s 2021-22 plan. 

Moreover, there is a lack of information available that impedes the public’s ability to submit meaningful comments to DOE’s C4E plan.   The points below relate to the DOE’s failure to provide this information:  

2. DOE has not yet posted its proposed plan.

3n  3.  There is no information showing the total amount of C4E funds subject to the City’s spending plan,  and how the DOE proposes to distribute these funds  between district vs school-based programs – for example, unlike this presentation from 2019-2020 -- Proposed Citywide Plan Borough Wide Presentation. 

4.   4.   While DOE has posted links to some budgetary information, it is not complete.  One of the memos to which the DOE links that is said to utilize C4E funds, Integrated co-teaching ( School Allocation Memorandum No. 01, FY 2022) is not posted; instead there is an error code when the link is clicked.  The autism spectrum disorder program memo (SAM No. 20) has no information as to how much of the total funding is being charged to C4E. 

5. There are only two memos that reference the allocation of C4E funds - (SAM No. 26) for 3K and Prek, with $9M charged to C4E funding; and a school-specific Contracts for Excellence School Allocation  memo that totals  $214,191,850.  The two together add up to only about $223M out of what we estimate to be over a billion dollars in C4E funding that DOE is receiving from the state this school year. 

6.  The C4E memo also says this: To obtain class size calculations, please refer to the Class Size Report with purported class sizes from last year.  FYI, DOE never reported class sizes accurately in a disaggregated fashion last year, despite several promises to do so.  Instead, the class sizes in this report were extremely low and appear to reflect in-person, socially distanced class sizes only.

 Yours, Leonie Haimson for Class Size Matters and Wendy Lecker for Education Law Center

From: Wendy Lecker <WLecker@edlawcenter.org>
Date: Friday, July 16, 2021 at 4:18 PM
To: Singer Robin <RSinger4@schools.nyc.gov>, "leonie@classsizematters.org" <leonie@classsizematters.org>
Cc: Chancellor Meisha Porter <NYCChancellor@schools.nyc.gov>, "Commissioner@nysed.gov" <Commissioner@nysed.gov>, "Regent.Young@nysed.gov" <Regent.Young@nysed.gov>, Oates Lindsey <LOates@schools.nyc.gov>, Schanback Benjamin <BSchanback@schools.nyc.gov>, Tan Ling <LTan@schools.nyc.gov>, Nathan Judy <JNathan@schools.nyc.gov>, O'Hanlon Katie <KOhanlon4@schools.nyc.gov>

 
Subject: Re: Contracts for Excellence Public Process

Dear Ms. Singer:
Thank you for your response to our letter regarding the C4E hearings.  However, we are quite concerned that DOE has already decided on how it will spend the C4E funds, and that its plan appears to violate C4E’s mandates. 

Since we sent our letter, we noted that the DOE’s plan as set forth in its Preliminary Update on American Rescue Plan (ARP-ESSER) & on Foundation Aid Funding is to allocate the entire increase in Foundation Aid of about $530 million next year towards  its Fair Student Funding (FSF) formula.  

The Contract for Excellence Law mandates that New York City spend these additional Foundation Aid funds in six specific categories enumerated in the law. (N.Y. Education Law 211-d §3.)  And yet, as the posted plan linked to above points out, FSF is the “most flexible funding stream for schools” and can be spent on nearly anything a school’s principal decides, with few if any restrictions.  This appears to directly contravene the language and the intent of the C4E law, which also requires that the final plan be adopted with the input of parents and educators. 

Especially as our schools are now receiving the full funding promised as a result of the court’s decision in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, it is more important than ever that these funds be spend as the law requires:  equitably and on programs proven to work to improve student outcomes, especially for disadvantaged students, and with the full participation of affected communities.

Wendy Lecker, Esq. (she/her)

Senior Attorney 

Education Law Center

60 Park Place, Suite 300

Newark, NJ 07102 

203-536-7567 

wlecker@edlawcenter.org 

http://www.edlawcenter.org