UFT Claims "Overcrowded" Classrooms Are Down In NYC Schools - Is This True?

From the State of Politics "Here and Now" update for the day:

At 1 p.m., an annual UFT survey has found that for the first time in five years the number of overcrowded NYC classrooms has shown a significant decline, UFT President Mike Mulgrew and elected officials will call on the state meet its obligations under the Contract for Excellence, including lowering all city classes to the state average, steps of Tweed Courthouse, 52 Chambers St., Manhattan.

Mulgrew and Company see themselves as co-leaders in the NYCDOE these days, so anything they say about the NYCDOE is suspect.

What experiences are NYC teachers having out there?

Are the number of "overcrowded NYC classrooms" really declining?

Class Sizes Rise Again In NYCDOE Schools

From the Wall Street Journal:

Average class sizes in grades 1-3 in New York City public schools rose to 25 or 26 children in the last school year—an addition of three students a class from five years earlier, according to the Mayor's Management Report released Wednesday. 

Average classes in grades 4-8 also rose but at a slower pace, and averaged 26 to 28 students.

The report noted the city aims to bring class sizes down in all K-8 grades, and has a five-year construction plan to reduce overcrowding.

With Cuomo forcing the city to find space for all charter schools - both new and expanding ones - or pay for space on private property, you have to wonder if the city's five-year construction plan to reduce overcrowding is going to work.

This is especially a concern since charter advocates and edu-entrepreneurs are looking to get the charter cap raised or completely eliminated in the next legislative session.

Class Size Up, Teacher Numbers Down While Edu-Entrepreneurs Get Fat Off Reform

From the NY Times:

COATESVILLE, Pa. — The recession may have ended, but many of the nation’s school districts that laid off teachers and other employees to cut payrolls in leaner times have not yet replenished their ranks. Now, despite the recovery, many schools face unwieldy class sizes and a lack of specialists to help those students who struggle academically, are learning English as a second language or need extra emotional support.

There's no money for small class sizes, more teachers or specialists to help students who struggle academically, are learning English as a second language or need emotional supports.

There is only money for the Endless Testing regime, the technology and curriculum consultants that come along with that regime, and the data collection projects and accountability systems that will be used to make sure the Endless testing regime remains unchallenged.

Bloomberg Scoffs Over Classroom Overcrowdedness

At yesterday's press conference where the Mayor of Money repeatedly told reporters he is not interested in this year's mayor's race, isn't following it and won't answer any questions about it, we get this exchange:

To another scribe who asked about overcrowding in the city’s classrooms, the mayor responded with dripping sarcasm.

“Let’s just go back to when the school system was loaded with crime,” he said.

Uh, Bloomie, one thing there in that answer has nothing to do with the other.

The public school system in NYC is overcrowded as a direct result of your policies - overbuilding, rezoning, refusing to build new school buildings, charter school co-locations, closures, etc.

Too bad you don't want to take responsibility for that - or even acknowledge it.

Other People's Children

The criticism of Michelle Rhee, Arnie Duncan, Rahm Emanuel, Andrew Cuomo, Barack Obama and other education deformers is not that they send their kids to private schools where their kids enjoy small classes, a wide curriculum, individual attention from teachers, art and music education, class trips, teachers who are not evaluated by test scores, and education geared toward the whole child.

The criticism of Michelle Rhee, Arnie Duncan, Rahm Emanuel, Andrew Cuomo, Barack Obama and other education deformers is that they send their kids to private schools where they enjoy all of those things even as Michelle Rhee, Arnie Duncan, Rahm Emanuel, Andrew Cuomo, Barack Obama and other education deformers push for large class sizes, a narrow curriculum consisting mostly of test prep, art and music education replaced by test prep, class trips replaced by test prep, teachers evaluated by test scores and education geared only to standardized testing for the Other People's Children (OPC).

It's the hypocrisy - what's good for the Rhee kids, the Duncan kids, the Emanuel kids, the Cuomo kids, and the Obama kids is not good enough for any of the kids who attend public schools.

Data-Driven Reform That Has Lost Sight Of Realities

The Village Voice reports that small class sizes, individualized instruction via a real teacher and not a Joel Klein computer program and mastery design courses rather than endless standardized test prep actually helps students learn:

CUNY began experimenting in 2007 with a different approach to remediation. Jahleah Santiago and Ashley Baret are in the START program, an intensive 12-week immersion designed for students with remedial needs in one, two, or all three areas.

Nathan Stevens, Baret and Santiago's START teacher, has a luxury few of his CUNY colleagues enjoy: time, a total of 15 hours a week with these students. On a recent afternoon, he stands at the whiteboard, going over eight homework problems, encouraging all 14 students (average class size is 20) to verbalize their thought processes. A scruffy figure with a beard and tattoos, Stevens is relentlessly Socratic—"How do you know that you're finished with the factors now?"—and patiently draws out each student, who range in age from teens to fifties, as the class simplifies polynomials and multiplied exponents: "Put it into words, Manny. Tell me how you got that answer."

Seventeen hundred students are in the START program this spring. They are technically deferring admission to CUNY, paying the $75 fee out of pocket so they don't start the Pell Grant clock. Their curriculum was written especially for the program, and all instructors spent a full semester training with another teacher in the classroom. "In this program we seek to show what's really happening in the math," Stevens says. "Rather than teaching my students to memorize the formulas, tricks, rules, I try to reinforce the underlying ideas of what they're looking at, with the hope that they could solve any problem they see."

"In my high school, math was kind of under a veil," says Santiago. "You didn't know what was going on—you just do that and that and get the answer. Nathan will break it down and do different examples until we get it."

That process sounds an awful lot like what we used to think of as "teaching." And 60 to 70 percent of START students, most of whom set out with multiple remedial needs, gain proficiency in a given subject after just one semester, compared with 20 percent who take regular remedial courses. The program began in 2009, building on the model of ASAP, a full-year intensive program. CUNY also opened an entire school called New Community College near Bryant Park last fall; all three programs feature intensive, accelerated study, small classes, and individual attention. START and ASAP will both double in size this fall to a total of 8,000 students. "It's amazing, the progress I see in such a short time," says Stevens, putting his hand over his heart with unabashed sincerity. "The students leave me, they pass the test, I see them later in the hallways, and they tell me how well they're doing. They hold on to their notes from my class. It just gives you that wonderful teacher feeling."

Doing things this way isn't just warm and fuzzy—it also seems surprisingly cost-effective. While it's initially more expensive to have small classes with extra advisors and tutors, of the original cohort who entered ASAP in 2007, 55 percent earned their associates' degree in three years, compared with 24.7 percent of similar students in the broader CUNY campus and just 16 percent of urban community college students nationally. According to an independent study by the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education at Columbia, the graduation rates were so much higher that ASAP cost about 10 percent less per graduate.

At its heart, this story is about a complex set of math problems. CUNY is beginning to make headway with this reinvented approach to remediation, but the underlying paradox persists: It is still spending considerable money and time, its own and its students', to teach people what they should have already learned.

The contradiction is stark. If the city's Department of Education were to adopt the practices of START and ASAP—small class sizes, mastery-based course design, one additional counselor or adviser for every 25 students—it seems likely that more students would progress on grade level, and the system as a whole would actually save money. The trend, however, is in the opposite direction: 13 percent cumulative budget cuts since 2007, and larger classes at 60 percent of middle and high schools as of last fall. It's no wonder the remediation numbers keep rising.

In the Bloomberg Era, we have also gotten data-driven accountability based upon test scores and graduation rates which means if the students do not pass the test and do not graduate on time, it is the fault of the teachers, the administrators and the schools and all will be held accountable.

Under the new APPR state evaluation system, that means teachers may be fired.

Under Bloomberg's Reign of Error over the NYCDOE, that means hundreds of schools may be closed, reopened as new schools and then closed again.

You always here this jive statement from corporate ed deformers and charter school cheerleaders when they're talking about schools: "We know what works."

Most of them mean busting the teachers union and firing "bad teachers."

But we really do know what works in education and what has worked for a long, long time:

Small class sizes, individualized instruction via a real teacher and not a Joel Klein computer program and mastery design courses rather than endless standardized test prep actually helps students learn.

Too bad in the era of data-driven accountability, in the era of the Bushes and the Obamas and the Rhees and Kleins and Spellings and Paiges and Duncans, there is no time or money to experiment with methods that actually work to improve education.

These people are too busy branding teachers "bad" and schools "failing" and looking for ways to shut the whole system down and privatize it.


Because the agenda in education reform is not improve schools or help students.

It is to privatize the last great public institution that hasn't been privatized yet and profit from it.

Bloomberg To Increase Class Size For Special Education Students

More Bloomberg budget outrages:

The city plans to save money by increasing class sizes for special education kids, outraging parents and educators who say students will suffer under the new system.

Education officials quietly voted last week to reduce funding and increase class sizes by about 20% for many special education kids in city schools starting next year.

Teachers and parents say the new rules could mean less effective instruction for about 175,000 special education students in city schools.

...

Under the modified funding formula, high schools will receive enough money for special education classes with 15 students, up from 12. In younger grades, the number of special education students taught alongside mainstream peers will increase from 10 to 12.

The larger class sizes will "decrease the system-wide cost by reducing the need for additional classes," according to a Department of Education memo.

An agency spokeswoman said some schools already have special education class with a larger number of students.

"The changes to the funding weights reflect an alignment with the instructional models we know many schools are already using as well as the state guidelines on special education class sizes," said education department spokeswoman Barbara Morgan.

But special education teachers said that larger class sizes will make instruction difficult for kids with disabilities like autism, dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.

"The key to reaching these kids is individualized attention," said Becky Alford, a special education teacher at Public School 32 in Park Slope. "With more kids in your class, you can't possibly give them as much attention."
Principals said the change in the funding formula amounts to a significant cut to budgets for their special education programs, and students with disabilities will bear the consequences.

"It's a huge loss. Our students are going to suffer because of it," said one Brooklyn principal who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Well, there's just nothing that can be done about this because we must increase technology spending by $550 million next year so that children can take standardized tests every six weeks and teachers can be held accountable for the scores on those tests.

That's why Bloomberg is cutting the special education program spending.

That's why he's cutting teachers too through attrition and layoffs.

The mayor has decided that NOTHING is more important than the new testing apparatus they plan to roll out in the next few years and they need the technology infrastructure to pull it off.

So there you have it - computers and computer consultants and tests over children with special needs.

Bloomberg's legacy.

Bill Gates, His Own Kids, And Class Size

A Seattle columnist has a proposition for Bill "Class Size Doesn't Matter" Gates:

At Lakeside, Seattle's premier school, they say the graduates know better than anyone what makes the place so special.

"Ask any alumnus what the best thing about Lakeside is," the school's brochure urges. "And they will likely mention an environment that promotes relationships between teachers and students through small class sizes."

Any alumnus? Because one in particular is now going around saying the opposite.

Bill Gates lately has been arguing that smaller-sized classes are among the biggest wastes of money in all of education.

"Perhaps the most expensive assumption embedded in school budgets — and one of the most unchallenged — is the view that reducing class size is the best way to improve student achievement," Gates said last week to a gathering of governors.

Smaller classes just haven't worked, he said.

"U.S. schools have almost twice as many teachers per student as they did in 1960," he said. "Yet achievement is roughly the same."

Gates called for an end to state caps on how many kids can be in each classroom.

Now let me clarify: Gates is suggesting larger classes in public schools. Not private schools such as Lakeside or the ones his own kids attend today.

Public-school classes already are growing, due to the recession. Add in someone as influential as Gates saying it can be the right thing to do, under the right circumstances, and look out.

So — is he right? Can we improve education by increasing class size?

Well, as with everything in education, there's no easy answer. Gates' argument is hardly reassuring to those of us whose kids are the ones about to be experimented on.

For starters, that the U.S. has added teachers in the past 50 years and yet seen only moderate gains on tests doesn't prove smaller classes are a waste. There are countless other variables at work, from more non-English speaking students to the rise of special ed to major family and societal changes.

Research has shown small classes are most crucial when kids are young, but less so as kids grow up. That's why the focus in this state has been on driving classes down to about 17 kids for kindergarten through fourth grades.

Most remain far more crowded than that. So one could just as easily argue it hasn't worked because it hasn't been tried yet.

Gates put up a slide in his speech showing that a third of all school employees today don't work in classrooms. In the search for savings, I'd start there.

But Gates didn't. Instead, he proposed adding six students to the classes taught by the best teachers, then using the money saved to pay those teachers more. He said Gates Foundation research has found that teachers would be happy to have more students for more pay.

I looked up that study, done at the UW in 2008, and what it actually says is teachers prefer a $5,000 pay boost to having two fewer students. They weren't ever asked about more students.

We're lucky to have Gates — he both means well and uses his means well — so I don't want to get too personal here. I bet he senses deep down as a parent that pushing more kids into classes isn't what's best for students. His kids' private-sector grade school has 17 kids in each room. His daughter's high school has 15. These intimate settings are the selling point, the chief reason tuition is $25,000 a year — more than double what Seattle schools spends per student.

Bill, here's an experiment. You and I both have an 8-year-old. Let's take your school and double its class sizes, from 16 to 32. We'll use the extra money generated by that — a whopping $400,000 more per year per classroom — to halve the class sizes, from 32 to 16, at my public high school, Garfield.

In 2020, when our kids are graduating, we'll compare what effect it all had. On student achievement. On teaching quality. On morale. Or that best thing of all, the "environment that promotes relationships between teachers and students."

Deal? Probably not. Nobody would take that trade. Which says more than all the studies ever will.

It is so telling that the people who decry the importance of class size the most - Gates, Duncan, Geoffrey Canada - either send their own kids to schools with low class sizes or run their own schools with low class sizes.

But class size doesn't matter, right guys?

Cynthia Nixon: Let's Protect Kids, Not Millionaires

I think this spot she filmed for the Alliance for Quality Education is the best crystallization of the issue:



A Cuomo spokesman said she made the figures up but the Alliance for Quality Education's Billy Easton says:

"Far from being plucked out of thin air, the cuts and school closings are directly out of the front pages in newspapers all over the states. The governor's people appear to be out of touch with the actual impact these cuts will have on our schoolkids."

Indeed.

This spot should run ALL ACROSS THE STATE.

The UFT should pull it's "snow" spot or whatever they called it and buy airtime for the AQE spot.

Nail Cuomo with this - tax cuts for millionaires, budget cuts for schools, layoffs for teachers, education cuts for children.

That's Little Andy Cuomo's policies in a nutshell.

New Obama RttT Plan To Reward Districts For Raising Class Size

More change we can believe in from President Accountability:

The reimagined Race to the Top program would also seek to encourage districts to increase productivity during tight budget times by rewarding changes that improve student outcomes while saving money. In the past, Secretary Duncan has called for steps such as increasing class sizes and revamping teacher-tenure rules.

So now districts can win RttT lottery money - a one time windfall - by increasing class sizes and ending teacher tenure.

Remind me again why any teacher would vote for Barack Obama in 2012?

Online Survey: Class Size, Testing, Layoffs And Budgets Cuts Need To Be Addressed

Parents, teachers, and administrators weighed in on what Chancellor Cathie Black needs to address:

Parents want the new schools chancellor to tackle bloated class size and overcrowding, while principals worry most about teacher layoffs and budget cuts, according to a new survey.

Almost half of the more than 1,000 New Yorkers who responded to an anonymous online questionnaire picked class size as one of their top three priorities for Chancellor Cathie Black.

"You can have a perfect curriculum and a perfect teacher, but if there are 30 kids in the class, then you don't stand a chance of your child actually getting a good education," one parent wrote in the unscientific survey set up by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. "The kids in my daughter's class can barely all fit on the rug and still see the board."

Curriculum quality and rigor, together with budget cuts and teacher layoffs, were also top priorities for the roughly 640 public school parents who responded.

"After nearly a decade of focus on testing," one parent wrote, "the curriculum is watered down, without content, and doesn't serve high-achieving OR struggling students."

The three dozen principals who weighed in rated the item marked "budget cuts and teacher layoffs" as their most pressing concern.

"The budget issue is so bad it makes it almost impossible to put the books in the classrooms," one principal wrote.

The anonymous online poll allowed respondents to pick three concerns among a list of 26, or to name their own.

Stringer said he was struck by the number of parents who felt like their input was ignored.

"This report shows very clearly that there are a lot of parents, teachers and principals who are hungry to discuss their ideas," Stringer said. "This is one storm City Hall can get ahead of by having such a discussion."

More than half of the 164 teachers who answered the survey picked class size as a chief concern, and 46% named budget cuts and layoffs.

"As a high school teacher, having 34 per class is just overwhelming," wrote one teacher. "I am a strong classroom manager, but spend a lot of time doing crowd control. When I have a class of 25, it is so much better and I can TEACH."

A copy of Stringer's report with a list of recommendations will be sent to Black on Monday. The Education Department declined to comment.

Not only will the Education Department decline to comment on the survey, they probably won't even read it.

Because if we have learned anything after nine years of Bloomberg's reign, he already has all the answers and we need to listen to him tell us what those answers are.

Cathie Black: I Wouldn't Send MY Kids To NYC Public Schools

Cathie Black continues to say very stupid things:

Even as she takes the helm of the Department of Education, incoming Chancellor Cathie Black still isn't sure if she'd send her own kids to city public schools.

Black acknowledged yesterday that public schools have improved in the 15 years since she sent her two kids to a Connecticut boarding school. But when asked if she would let her kids attend city schools now, she couldn't say for certain.

"I don't know what we would be doing. I would love to look at all of the schools," said Black, whose local elementary school is highly regarded Public School 6 on the upper East Side. "It's about choice for parents."

In a wide-ranging meeting before the Daily News Editorial Board, Joel Klein's successor discussed her misgivings about lifetime teacher tenure, as well as being "bowled over" by the cleanliness of schools she has visited.

She dodged a question on whether the small class size at The Kent School in Connecticut - 12 kids per teacher, according to Board School Review - was the reason that she chose it for her now-college-aged son and daughter.

She did say, however, that the city did not have "the option of having 15 or 16 kids in most classes. ... What I have heard over and over from the people I've encountered so far is that the most important thing is a really good teacher."

Uh, huh - but you sent your kids to a school where the class size was 12.

And you wouldn't say whether you would send your kids to NYC public schools which means you wouldn't.

Great way to start your tenure as chancellor!

The school system is so bad that I wouldn't send my kids to it.

Class size doesn't matter, but I sent my kids to a school with 12 to a class.

What a hypocrite.

But nothing new for the ed deform world.

Geoffrey "It's Always About Me" Canada also says class size doesn't matter, but he keeps class sizes at the Harlem Children's Zone at 15.

When will somebody in the press call these hypocrites on this stuff?

Well, actually the Daily News has been doing a pretty good job calling Cathie Black on her bullshit.

And judging by all the stupid stuff she says, she really is loaded with a bunch of it.

Arne Duncan Wins An Award

President Obama's favorite corporate education shill won a coveted award - the "Blathering Idiot of the Week" award at Open Left.

Duncan won for suggesting that class sizes in public schools are too small and should be enlarged.

I'd like to offer my sincere congratulations to Arne for winning this award.

Other than handing this to Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg or President Obama himself, I couldn't think of it going to a better person than Arne Duncan.

Let The Obama Administration Know What You Think Of Their Plans To Raise Class Sizes All Across This Country

The Obama administration, through a speech given by Arne Duncan to his fellow right wingers at the American Enterprise Institute, told school districts to use the financial crisis to "leverage transformational change" and increase class sizes and lower teacher pay by putting an end to salary step increases.

The Obama administration suggests if teachers want a salary increase, they should either raise test scores or teach larger classes.

How's that for change we can believe in?

I don't remember Obama saying that as part of the 2008 campaign, and yet that's what his administration is saying now.

Larger class sizes, lower pay for teachers (make no mistake, having to teach classes of 45 students to get a salary increase IS lower pay) - that's the 21st century education policy they're promoting.

You should let the White House know exactly what you think about this.

Contact link is here.

They're already hearing a bunch of criticism from the House and Senate Dems.

Let's add union members and teachers to that list.

Let them know that if they continue with the wingnut policies that the AEI likes that screw teachers, students and schools, they better hope the wingnuts at the AEI vote for them, because teachers and union members won't be.

Obama Administration Calls For Larger Class Sizes

More change we can believe in from the Change We Can Believe In people:

The dismal economic climate may well be represent "new normal" for schools, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said today at a forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank.

...

He urged districts to consider "modest but smartly targeted increases in class size." As a parent, Duncan said, he'd much rather have his kids in a class of 26 with a really excellent teacher, than in a class with 22 kids, lead by a mediocre teacher. And he said that in Asian countries that tend to do well on international benchmarks (like South Korea and Japan) average classes in secondary schools are 30 or more, as opposed to the U.S. average of about 25.

He also suggested when layoffs come, "talented young teachers" should be saved from the cuts.

To reiterate: the Obama administration is encouraging districts to make class sizes even larger than they already are and to lay off expensive veteran teachers so that the cheaper newbies can be saved.

I already have 34 a class. That's 170 students a day.

Now Duncan is saying they can add put three or four more students into each of my classes (five if some don't mind sitting on the radiator) and save all that groovy money for more data base building and no-bid test contracts.

Should make teaching just fabulous to have 16-20 additional students a day.

Can't wait to see what that does to my value-added rankings!

But since Duncan is suggesting I - veteran teacher that I am - should be laid off to save the younger and cheaper teachers from budget cuts, I guess it doesn't really matter anyway.

Wow - I do hope Repubs are true to their word and subpoena every part of this administration, including the DOE, for rigorous oversight.

I want to see Duncan under the kleig lights with a subpoena slapped to his forehead explaining where all that RttT and i3 money went.

Actually I just want to see Duncan slapped, but I'll take congressional oversight on him too.