Urgent Call To Action: Sign petition urging City to revise and improve its flawed class size plan
Class Size Matters asks for your help. Sign the petition.
The public comments on the city's inadequate draft class size "plan" are due less than a week from today, on Monday June 24. The DOE is supposed to take these comments into account in determining whether to revise its plan. They must also post a summary of comments and their response, which will then be provided to the State Education Department to help them decide whether the plan is sufficient or needs to be revised.
We have posted a petition that points out many of the deficiencies and flaws in this "plan," including inadequate funding to hire more teachers, and an underfunded capital plan for school construction. If this plan as written is implemented, it is unlikely that the NYC public schools will be able to comply with the annual class size benchmarks in the law.
Instead of providing schools with the resources they need to lower class size, DOE instead has told Superintendents that the schools in their districts should improve compliance with the new class size caps by 3%, whether or not they have the space or adequate staffing. DOE has also encouraged principals to expand online learning -- with or without parent consent--which if implemented could undo any of the benefits of smaller classes.
Please check out our petition, and if you agree with it, enter your name and info here, no later than Sunday June 23 at midnight. You are also encouraged to send your own comments to DOE about your children's need for smaller classes and/or what your schools need in terms of additional resources by emailing classsize@schools.nyc.gov, no later than June 24.
But time is short, so please take a look at our petition, and consider signing it now!
Leonie Haimson is the Director of Class Size Matters. She is the foremost expert on class size. She is also a stalwart advocate of public education and student privacy — locally and nationally. Find her on X/Twitter: @leoniehaimson
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