Testimony on Attendance Reporting Bills

The NYC Council Education and Health Committees held oversight hearings on October 16 on the reopening of schools, as well as two proposed bills to require detailed attendance reporting: Int. 2058 and Int. 2104. Below is my testimony on the issue of class size and how to sharpen these bills to require more precise and disaggregated reporting on the three kinds of instruction students are receiving: in-person face-to-face learning, blended online learning, and full-time remote learning.

The most depressing statistic revealed at the hearings: 77,000 students still don’t have access to devices for remote learning.

The DOE also failed to provide any data on how many students are attending school in-person only to receive instruction on their computers, how many more teachers are needed to staff all three types of programs sufficiently, and/or how many houseless students have logged into any sort of online classes.

The most hopeful finding: Only 0.2% of students and staff randomly tested randomly so far in the public schools have been shown to be positive for COVID-19; more on this here. Dr. Jay Varma, the Senior Advisor for Public Health to the Mayor, also revealed at the hearings that their estimates of the actual current COVID-19 infection rate in NYC is between 0.1-0.7% --rather than the much higher positivity rate which according to the state is 1.3%, and according to the city is 2.17%, which instead reflects how many New Yorkers have tested positive at any one time.

CFE may sue for money owed & lessons learned re accountability and oversight

Exciting news! The Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) announced in a letter today that it was considering re-opening the lawsuit against New York State, on the basis that the funding promised NYC and other high-needs school districts has never been fulfilled.

The current plan puts off full funding "until at least 16 years from now, in 2028. Thus, two more generations of New York children will pass through our schools before the State even begins to approach meeting its constitutional obligation to adequately fund its public schools through implementation of the CFE remedy."

See the letter below, from David Sciarra of the Education Law Center, which has taken over the case, to the Governor and the leaders of the NY Legislature.

Coincidentally,  I  gave a class on CFE  Monday night at Princeton, for  a course on urban education policy.  See my powerpoint  below the Sciarra letter, in which I  summarize the history of the case, as well as where it fell short in my view, in terms of class size, public process, accountability and compliance.

Even in the first few years, when NYC did get all the extra funding that had been promised, class sizes also increased -- despite a provision in the state law requiring that the city be reducing class size in exchange for the funds.

Lessons learned:  

• How money is spent is as important as the extra funding;
• Enforcement, compliance and accountability mechanisms are critical;
•  Do not rely on any city or state governmental body to do any of the above;
• This time, continuing court oversight should be required, to ensure that the specific conditions that the court found deprived children of their constitutional right to a sound basic education are addressed, including class size.
2012 Nov CFE Ltr Re 2013-14 Budget Final Lessons from CFE