Video footage from our press conference on threats to student privacy

Class Size Matters hosted a press conference on the Tweed steps, March 14, 2013 about the state's plan to provide confidential student and teacher data to inBloom Inc., which in turn plans to make the data available to for-profit vendors, without parental notification or consent. Speakers included civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, Councilmembers Daniel Dromm, Letitia James and Stephen Levin, public school parents Karen Sprowal, Lisa Shaw and Tori Frye, and Class Size Matters' Executive Director,  Leonie Haimson.

For more information on the press conference, see our last post, here.


Part 1 Norman Siegel


Norman Siegel at Class Size Matters student privacy press conference from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.


Part 2 Councilmember Daniel Dromm


Councilmember Daniel Dromm stands up for student privacy from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.



Part 3 Councilmember Letitia James


Councilmember Letitia James stands up for student privacy from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.



Part 4 Councilmember Stephen Levin


Councilmember Stephen Levin stands up for student privacy from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.



Part 5 Leonie Haimson

Leonie Haimson explains student data elements from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.



Part 6 Public school parent Karen Sprowal

Public school parent Karen Sprowal stands up for student privacy from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.



Part 7 Public school parent Lisa Shaw

Public school parent Lisa Shaw stands up for student privacy from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.



Part 8 Public school parent Molly Sackler


Public school parent Molly Sackler stands up for student privacy from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.



Part 9 Public school parent Tori Frye

Public school parent Tori Frye stands up for student privacy from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.



Part 10 Closing statement from Leonie Haimson

Closing statements from our press conference from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.

Public School Parents Voted Against Bloomberg

The NY Times has some interesting exit poll results. About 25% of voters told the Times they had children in public school. These parents went for Thompson 55% to 43% for Bloomberg.

Full results here.

Susan Neuman's comments on Race to the Top, and mine

Here is an excerpt from Susan Neuman's comments on Race to the Top. Neuman, now a Professor at the University of Michigan was formerly the Asst. Secretary of Education under George W. Bush:

Teachers work on the basis of incentives, rather than disincentives. It would be wiser to focus on guidelines that ensured teacher decision-making; quality professional development; smaller classes; smaller teacher-child ratios in hard to staff schools; and quality improvements in facilities. Compensation might be appreciated but even more important are the conditions of schooling which allow teachers to be successful or not. These guidelines place undue emphasis on teachers as the agent of change without any regard for what might make teachers more effective. As documented in numerous papers and research, it becomes difficult to do the job when there are no books, no desks, no paper, and no pencils.

These guidelines, to date, seem like a grand and very expensive experiment, with little research or experiential evidence to suggest that it will work. Having experienced the last eight years in attempting to improve quality teaching without evidence, we need to support innovation and research before resorting to these new federal efforts.

It is striking that we now have a US Department of Education with apparently no sane, rational voice like hers. My full comments are posted here. They are similar, but perhaps not so artfully expressed. Here is the conclusion:

Rather than focus our efforts on encouraging the proliferation of charter schools, and/ or tying teacher pay to standardized test scores, both of which could have the unintended negative consequences of worsening the supply of experienced, effective teachers, research suggests that it would be far better to directly address the substandard conditions in our large urban districts that lead to high teacher attrition and low student achievement, namely their overcrowded classes, full of students who badly need the attention that only a smaller class can provide.

Not only would improving classroom conditions by reducing class size work directly to narrow the achievement gap, by providing at-risk children with a better opportunity to learn, but in the long run, this would also likely lead to a more effective, experienced workforce. Instead of the chronic frustration that too often causes teachers to flee, they would now be offered a real chance to experience the job satisfaction that can only come from success at their chosen profession.

Finally, as a public school parent and head of a parent advocacy group, I strongly object to the following statement in the proposed regulations: that states should be rewarded with these funds to the extent that they show support from the following stakeholder groups:

“The State’s teachers’ union(s) and charter school authorizers; Other State and local leaders (e.g., business, community, civil rights, and education association leaders); Grant-making foundations and other funding sources; and LEAs, including public charter schools identified as LEAs under State law.”

This list egregiously leaves out public school parents, the most important stakeholder group of all.

Why does the NY Times feature the voices of LA public school parents, but not ours?

See the latest column by LA public school parent activist, Sandra Tsing Lo, on the NY Times blog , called Public School Parents, Unite!

It’s a good column, pointing out that parents of public school children should have a real voice in the policies in their children’s schools, as well as nationally, and how her group has been actively working so that a fellow parent can elected for a seat on LA’s school board.

It’s sad that parents here in NYC do not have the same opportunity, as we have no elected school board. The PEP is made up of mostly mayoral appointees and votes in lock step with every decision announced by Joel Klein, no matter how arbitrary and ill-considered, and as a result, its meetings are almost never covered by the NY Times.

Nor, to my knowledge, has the Times covered a single one of the many hearings and debates on Mayoral control that have occurred over the course of recent months, sponsored by legislators and other independent groups, featuring the informed views of countless disillusioned parents, advocates and the elected officials themselves, who have openly decried not only the manner in which this administration unilaterally imposes its policies but have also offered substantive critiques of these policies.

Indeed, it is disappointing that the NY Times has never offered the same sort of platform to a NYC public school parent as they have to Ms. Lo, but consistently excludes our voices from the public debate.

As a result, I think they have done a disservice to their readers, as few regular subscribers to the Times, supposedly the paper of record, probably have any idea how discontented most parent leaders feel about this administration.

Please let the NY Times know what you think, by posting your views in the comments section of Ms. Lo’s blog. My comments to the NY Times are below.

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I enjoy these columns by Sandra Tsing Lo, admire her activism and agree with many of her positions, especially as regarding the need for bottom-up reform from actual stakeholders like public school parents, rather than the top-down ideological approach that now prevails on how to reform urban schools, propounded by so-called experts, most of whom have never actually sent their own children to these schools.

But my question is this: why does the NY Times feature her column, while not giving the same sort of access to any NYC public school parent? Are our views not equally worthy of consideration? Or is our perspective simply too challenging to the opinion elite and the powers-that-be here in NYC?

It is disappointing that in the city that the NY Times makes its home, our views are consistently ignored and shut out of the debate over education policies. And yet there are many NYC public school parents who can write with the same passion, conviction, and intelligence as Ms. Lo.

Take a look, for example, at our NYC public school parent blog. Perhaps the NY Times might someday consider our voices as worthy of being heard as the public school parents in LA.

Tim Johnson: Put the Public Back in Public Education

Check out the dynamic speech of Tim Johnson, President of the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council, at the rally on February 28:

the Mayor's hypocrisy and contempt for NYC parents

Two articles in today’s NY Sun re class size. First, re the state budget deal:

“... lawmakers and Mr. Spitzer softened a demand by the Assembly that New York City lower its class-size average to the state median level over a four-year period, or risk losing billions of dollars in new funding. Although the exact wording is still being worked out, sources said Mayor Bloomberg will not be strictly required to lower class size by that amount, but will be forced to demonstrate that he is decreasing the burden on teachers.”

According to Albany insiders, apparently this is wrong and the final deal on class size has not yet been struck. It is clear, however, there will be 50 more charter schools for NYC.

Also, during his press conference yesterday, Bloomberg called the effort to require smaller classes with the additional state aid “individual union agendas and some ideological agendas when it comes to education...That is phenomenally dangerous, and hopefully that will not happen."

Randi Weingarten had a great answer: "If believing that helping kids by getting them the best teachers possible and reducing class sizes is ideological, then call me an ideologue on behalf of children."

Yet the Mayor's continued insistence that this is only the union's agenda is a slap in the face to all NYC public school parents, who in every public meeting this year and in every resolution they pass, have repeatedly told Bloomberg and Klein that they believe their kids desperately need smaller classes to succeed. To argue that this is only a UFT issue, and then to try to demonize Randi shows the Mayor's utter contempt for our very existence.

Instead, it is the Mayor’s education agenda, based on more charter schools, privatization, and untested radical funding schemes, which is relentlessly ideological and phenomenally dangerous.

When it comes to his own daughters, who attended private school, of course there’s nothing dangerous about ensuring that they were provided with class sizes of 15 students or less.

If NYC parents ask that their children be provided with what public school students in the rest of the state already receive – classes of 20-22 on average, it’s somehow dangerous.

I guess it’s only ideological to demand smaller classes when it comes to every one else's children but your own.

Check back here for an update on whether the Mayor and his well-paid minions have won their battle to deny our children the smaller classes that they need and deserve – and that according to the Court of Appeals is their constitutional right.

All I heard up in Albany this week was reports of the disinformation campaign the city’s lobbyists were spreading far and wide, in their effort to do everything they could to derail the effort to do the right thing by our kids.