Leonie Haimson is a tireless advocate for small class size. At the drop of a hat, she will recite the research showing the value of small classes, especially for the neediest children.
She just published an article showing how New York City can afford to reduce class sizes.
She identifies the specific ways that the city can shift funds to reduce class sizes.
She begins:
The New York City Department of Education has lost 74 employees to the novel coronavirus, including 30 teachers and 28 paraprofessionals who have died as of May 8. Evidence has also emerged that children can develop serious illnesses after being infected with the virus, and even those who are asymptomatic are often effective transmitters.
Now that both Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo have wisely decided that our public schools will be closed through the end of June, it is time to start thinking about how they will be reopened in the fall to maximize the health and safety of students and staff, and strengthen the academic and emotional support that our students will need to make up for the myriad losses they have suffered this year.
As Mayor de Blasio has said, “Next school year will have to be the greatest academic school year New York City will ever have because everyone is going to be playing catch up.” And yet he has also proposed over $800 million in reductions to the Department of Education, including staffing freezes and at least $140 million taken directly out of school budgets, which would likely cause class sizes to grow even larger, the loss of school counselors and more.
How could next year be the best year ever, given such drastic reductions? In fact, our schools will need increased investments to provide the enhanced feedback and engagement that students will so desperately need after months of isolation and inadequate remote learning.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
School Safety Agents should be reduced (not just frozen), given the likelihood of half the number of students onsite at any given time, and far fewer (if any) visitors.
I wonder to whom they’ll be “catching up”? All the students are in the same boat. Yes, some have access to more than others but that’s no different than starting every year.
This continues to baffle me.
Many of Leonie Haimson ideas have merit beyond NYC.
The proliferation of “coaches” is one. These teachers can be reassigned to reduce class sizes.
Another is booting out co-location charters so those classrroms can be used by public schools. Also, declassify charters as “public” if they applied for and received small-business loans. At minimum charters should be paying market rents for spaces paid for with public funds.
ironic (and depressing) truth: many of the coaches are not actually experienced in classroom instruction
I agree with Laura and Ciedie. I prefer mentors over “coaches”, teachers who have “been around the block,” who are not jaded, and who keep their optimism and humility. In the short time I taught, I was blessed to have these kind of mentors. As for Ciedie’s comment, I get it. May I cite an analogy? I was never a big fan of Oprah and completely lost interest in her when I was made aware of her parenting “tips.” From someone who has never been a parent? Please. Just like the shallow recommendations of her “book club.” Coaches have to have been in the trenches. If they haven’t, they are charlatans.
This sounds like an odd suggestion:
“Moreover, about one-third of elementary grade classes and 40 percent of middle school classes are inclusion classes, meaning that they include both general education students and students with disabilities and have two teachers per class. Strong consideration should be given to dividing these classes in half, while keeping their inclusive nature, which would allow for class sizes of 10 to 16 without any additional hiring.”
A class that has students with disabilities must have one teacher with special education certification in it – often (at least when my kid was in an inclusion class) – the 2nd teacher did not but that was fine. Wouldn’t that mean having to hire twice as many teachers with special education experience and possibly laying off those who do not who co-taught those inclusion classes?
I also assumed those jobs as “coaches” etc. were because teachers’ unions wanted them.
There are some good suggestions here, but I wonder if the union will also be open to all sorts of changes where every teacher spends the majority of the day teaching a class.
I do feel sorry for all those nice school bus drivers who are getting thrown under the bus (so to speak) to save money.
There are many SPED teachers who have more than one license. However, you can’t “double dip” in ICT classes. This means that there always has to be two teachers regardless of if the SPED teacher has a license in the subject area. However, in NY, you can “double dip” in classes with ELLS. This means one teacher can teach 34 HS kids Shakespeare and still be in compliance even though five of those kids don’t have a word oof English as long as they have the 12 extra credits for ESL. These 12 credits turn teachers into magical beings where they can teach 34 students at the same time and same level regardless of their language abilities.
RL,
That disparity is probably because kids with disabilities have special protections that ELL students don’t have.
But I agree with you about how outrageous the idea that any one high school teacher can teach 34 hs kids when 5 of them don’t know English truly is.
One of the reason that I am so anti-charter is that the entire charter movement has been complicit in elevating the profile of dishonest people like Eva Moskowitz – who has argued against small class sizes — at the expense of the most vulnerable children in public schools. (There are still people who think Moskowitz was honest when she praised Betsy DeVos and demanded that DeVos be confirmed for the good of children everywhere, and those people who know that DeVos is the savior of children still think Moskowitz is a truth teller.)
Eva Moskowitz has worked very hard to convince politicians and the public that her schools have proven that small class sizes are absolutely unnecessary and are a luxury that no public school kid needs. Why would Eva Moskowitz say small class size wasn’t vital when so many of the most vulnerable at-risk students would benefit?
Moskowitz knows that she has reporters like Eliza Shapiro at the NY Times who are far too busy to ask inconvenient questions — like why did a junior class with 146 students only have 98 seniors graduating the next year — who will help push her false narrative. And that false narrative gives legitimacy to Moskowitz’ claims that small class sizes are unnecessary and legitimacy to Moskowitz’ ugly innuendoes that the African-American kindergarten children who win her lotteries just happen to include an extraordinarily high number of violent children and that’s why her charter schools had no choice but to suspend so many 5 and 6 year olds.
As long as charters and their education reporters enablers keep pushing this false narrative, it will be hard to justify small class sizes. Even if all the classes were half the size, if union teachers weren’t turning all those students into high performing scholars, you’d still have anti-public school politicians saying that public schools just aren’t as good as charters, and you’d still have anti-public school reporters touting the miracle results of charter CEOs who insist that class size doesn’t matter. And you would have the false narrative of “see, we reduced class sizes and those charters with bigger class sizes are getting better results, so we wasted all that money on small class sizes that are worthless when we should have spent that money opening more charters with ‘superior’ teachers and curriculum instead.”
@Laura C. Yes, get coaches and middle management and people employed by EL or SPED mandates temporarily re-assigned as regular classroom teachers. This lateral shifting within districts will offset some of the costs of adding more people. But, more people will have to be hired, with benefits mind you. Re-hire custodians with the intention of retaining them. Here in Chicago Rahm Emanuel signed a custodial contract with Aramark, schools are a mess in the better of times. What now?
Can’t risk an uninsured visit to the ER when the hall monitor gets sick. Hall monitors, yes. Also, this business of shifting kids around to other rooms when their teacher is absent with no sub has got to end. There are going to be many other service sector workers looking for work, the city can hire them to help with the education of our children. Well paid, with benefits. All classes of employee. The big city 1099 method of shopping out in-school services perpetuates school inequality. Absent a vaccine or widespread immunity, anything less would be a half-ass mess that many will see as purposeful privatization.
But, more people will have to be hired, with benefits mind you.
Yes. And more space will need to be freed up and not just cleaned but sanitized. The tech industry will profit one way ot another.
Oh my, was I hearing things or did Randi say she runs a charter school?