Hail to the six parents on the city Department of Education’s class-size taskforce who dissented from the majority’s recommendations for implementing the pernicious state mandate — calling it out as disruptive, costly and harmful to high-poverty schools.
And shame on the majority, whose recommendations appeased the United Federation of Teachers — which got the NYC-only mandate passed in the first place.
Rightly noting that the “evidence on class size and learning outcomes is weak,” the dissenters urged that the mandate instead focus on grades K-3, where studies revealed some impact.
And in a rebuke to the UFT, they recommended that school leadership teams (which include parents) — not the teachers and principals unions — be the ones to approve class-size-reduction plans and exemptions.
Most important they urged reforms to the law, such as changing class-size caps to “average” class sizes to grant schools more flexibility, to honor parent choice over enrollment caps at schools offering popular programs (e.g., G&T) and to prevent successful, small schools from having to merge.
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Notably, the left-leaning Urban Institute has slammed the mandate because it would reduce “equity” for the city’s neediest students.
The unfunded class-size reduction demand will force the city to spend an extra $2 billion a year and force the DOE to hire at least 17,700 extra teachers once the mandate fully kicks in for the 2027-28 school year.
DOE officials say it’ll cost $500 million to reduce class sizes in K-5 alone.
Limiting class sizes may sound like a grand idea, especially for kids struggling academically.
In fact, it’s likely to leave many such children stuck with new, inexperienced teachers — while veteran educators use their seniority privileges (under the UFT contract) to opt for easier jobs.
The UFT gets more dues-paying members despite declining enrollments, with the added bonus of requiring schools to “need” more classroom space, which makes it easier to deny charter-school applications to that space.
For UFT boss Michael Mulgrew, public-school kids are simply tools.
The Group of Six deserves New Yorkers’ collective gratitude for standing up the UFT and advocating for families and children, instead the vested interests that milk the system to serve their selfish needs.