Archives for category: Class size
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Write a Letter to Your Representative in Congress to Protect Federal Education Funding!

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2017 //
5

Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, sent out the following bulletin:

It was just revealed that Congress is due to vote on an education budget early this week which would cut Title IIA funds by $300 million. President Trump’s budget would eliminate these funds altogether for the following year.

Please write Congress today: Urge them NOT to cut Title IIA funds – which many districts use to keep teachers on staff to prevent further class size increases. In NYC, $101 million of these funds are used to keep approximately 1000 teachers on staff.

As I explained in a recent piece in Alternet, districts throughout the country have already lost thousands of teaching positions since the Great Recession which were never replaced — increasing class sizes in many schools to sky-high levels.

For more on the myriad, proven benefits of smaller classes, check out our research summary here. But please write to Congress today by clicking here.

Thanks!

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011

Categories Budget Cuts, Class size, Funding, Trump

North Carolina: Legislators Propose Special Perks for Corporate Charters

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2017 //
13

Under a bill proposed in the North Carolina legislature, corporations would gain the power to set aside half the seats in a new charter for their employees if they contributed funds, land, or equipment. For their generosity, the corporation would also have seats on the charter boards. The charter would become a perk for corporate leaders and valued employees, kind of like a company store.

The state House is considering a collection of bills that would change who can start a charter and how quickly the schools can grow. Corporations would be able to reserve spaces in schools for their employees’ children, and two towns would be able to set up charter schools for their residents. Under current law, charters are open to any student in the state, although schools can give preference to siblings and school employees’ children.

“This is loosening the restrictions on how charters operate and what they’re allowed to do,” Rep. Graig Meyer, an Orange County Democrat, said of the collection of bills the House Education Committee approved Monday in divided votes.

Under one bill, up to half a charter school’s seats could be reserved for children whose parents work for companies that donate land, buildings or equipment to the school. Employees of those companies would also be able to join the charter school’s board of directors.

Rep. John R. Bradford III, a Mecklenburg Republican, framed the bill as an economic development tool that could help attract companies to rural counties. Companies would be able to offer classroom seats as employee perks, Bradford said, equating charter enrollment to companies paying for employee meals.

“This creates a vehicle where a company can create an employee benefit,” he said.

Meyer objected, saying the provision would have taxpayer money going to company schools.

“This moves closer to privatization than North Carolina has ever allowed before,” he said.

Another bill would allow charter enrollment to grow 30 percent a year without approval from the State Board of Education. Charters are now limited to 20 percent annual growth without board approval. Some Democrats objected on the grounds that it could fuel growth in schools that aren’t good. Allowing charters with bad records to expand would not be fair to taxpayers, parents or students, said Rep. Bobbie Richardson, a Louisburg Democrat.

At the same time, the legislature imposed a mandate to reduce class size without any new funding, which will cause layoffs of thousands of teachers and overcrowding in grades not included in the mandate.

North Carolina blogger-teacher Stuart Egan calls the corporate-control bill “The Privatization of Public Schools Bill.”

Can there be any question that the NC legislature is systematically privatizing the schools of the state?

Categories Charter Schools, Class size, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, North Carolina, Privatization

North Carolina: ACTION NEEDED NOW! General Assembly Will Vote on Budget at 4 pm!

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2017 //
4

An urgent appeal from parent leaders at Public Schools First North Carolina. The General Assembly is about to pass a budget that includes no funding for teachers of art, music, and physical education. The unfunded mandate for reduced class size in the early grades will cause massive layoffs and program cuts. ACT NOW!

ACTION ALERT……..ACTION ALERT ACTION ALERT……..ACTION ALERT ACTION ALERT……..ACTION ALERT

PUBLIC SCHOOL ADVOCATES MUST CONTACT LEGISLATORS NOW!

Senators are planning to vote on the HB13 Amended Bill THIS AFTERNOON, Tuesday April 25th at their 4pm session.

PLEASE STOP what you are doing right now and CALL, E-MAIL, or TWEET North Carolina Senators FIRST and then call every HOUSE Member and ask them to add an amendment to put money for SPECIALS in the new two-year budget! The current bill has NO funds to pay for specials teachers next year! PLEASE DO IT NOW!

This may be our only chance to get this bill FIXED to avoid headaches with funding for our specials teachers next year. Let’s avoid having our teachers worry for another year about having their jobs. Let’s avoid potential layoffs next year by getting the money appropriated this year. Ask Senators to AMEND HB13 on the SENATE floor today! If this is their intention, then putting it into the bill this year should be no problem, right?

Ask Senators to amend the bill to add a guarantee of funding for specials teachers for next year in the two-year budget they are working on right now. ASK THEM TO PUT A GUARANTEE OF MONEY IN THE BUDGET to give school districts the planning time they need to keep their teachers in the classroom!

If HB13 is not amended to add money, this will NOT be addressed until the NEXT legislative session, the short session that starts in May 2018 — this is later in districts’ budgeting process than right now! May 2018 will be TOO LATE for many school districts whose teachers will have moved on to find other jobs or will have been dismissed due to lack of funding.

IF THE SENATORS DO NOT ADD THE FUNDING GUARANTEE NOW before the bill returns to the HOUSE for a final vote, OUR TEACHERS AND PARENTS will be left to worry and fret for another 12 months. This is not the way to run our public schools – ACT TODAY!! ASK NOW!!! This is the critical moment in this fight for funding.

Senators have the DATA needed! All of the information needed for the reports that Senator Barefoot wants to so he and other Senators can ALLOCATE money for K-3 teachers and for SPECIALS is in PowerSchool (NCDPI database) right now. This means that all of the Senators have this data NOW and can use it to make all assumptions needed NOW to figure out exactly what appropriations are needed to FUND Specials in 2018-19.

Senators promised to add this language in the Amendment last night and at the last moment they excluded the language leaving the HB13 fix ONLY half done.

BOTTOM LINE: The data needed to make the appropriation in the NEW two-year budget is in PowerSchool database and in the hands of our legislators at this time. The request is simple: put money in the budget now by amending HB13 now to include appropriation for Specials in 2018-19 school year.

To be clear, legislators are to be praised for advocating for smaller class sizes! All public education advocates are for smaller class sizes but not supportive of unfunded mandates or unrealistic implementation plans. The unintended consequences must be dealt with if our goal is to have great public schools that offer the best learning experiences for our youngest children.

Here is a WIN-WIN proposal: Encourage legislators to provide the money for teachers and SPECIALS NOW! And give local school districts time – 3 to 5 years – to find local funds for new classroom space; time to build and create additional space! Give school districts time to find new teachers or reassign/retrain some of their current staff. The alternative is crowded schools, classes in supply closets or lunchrooms, higher local taxes, lack of teaches or teachers with little or no experiences, and extreme over crowding in the upper grades to accommodate space and teachers for K-3. Right now, class sizes in the grades 4 to 12 are too large in many school districts — we have 35 or more kids in many classes!

Categories Budget Cuts, Class size, Funding, North Carolina

Manufactured Chaos in North Carolina as Legislature Mandates Class Size Reduction with No Funding

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2017 //
9

North Carolina public schools, once considered the best in the South, are under constant attack by the rightwing legislature. The latest salvo is an unfunded mandate to reduce class sizes in the early grades. It is a wonderful idea to reduce class size, but it is costly. Imposing the mandate without funding is a recipe for disruption and chaos.

The Republicans who control the legislature are crazy for privatization, for charters and vouchers and cybercharters. Are the Republicans trying to drive children and families away from public schools by inflicting chaos and stripping away activities that students love?

Despite warnings by district superintendents about massive layoffs of teachers of arts and physical education, the state senate has refused to back down.

“North Carolina’s largest public school system may be warning of “enormous disruptions” without speedy action from state lawmakers on a looming class size funding crisis, but key education leaders in Raleigh tell Policy Watch there’s little sign Republican lawmakers in the General Assembly will act soon.

“It doesn’t seem like there’s any movement planned,” says Sen. Floyd McKissick, a Durham Democrat who sits on the state Senate’s Rules and Operations Committee, a panel that includes some of the chamber’s most powerful lawmakers and sets the agenda for future committee talks.

“McKissick said he met late last week with Sen. Bill Rabon, the eastern North Carolina Republican who chairs the committee, but GOP leaders remain reticent to make any commitments regarding a legislative fix to the funding controversy, despite stiff warnings from district chiefs that thousands of teachers’ jobs are in jeopardy.”

Here is a report from Wake County, once considered one of the best school districts in the nation. Syracuse scholar Gerald Grant wrote a book called “Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Public Schools in Wake County.”

That was then. This is now:

“The state legislature’s plan to cut elementary school class sizes could lead to larger class sizes in all Wake County schools, including 40 or more students in some elementary classrooms.

“State lawmakers lowered maximum class sizes in kindergarten through third grade from 24 students this school year to between 19 and 21 students starting in July. Wake County Superintendent Jim Merrill warned Tuesday that unless the state provides relief, the district will have to consider options such as increasing class sizes for older students, cutting art and music classes, laying off teachers and reassigning students on short notice.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article145287929.html

http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2017/04/20/local-school-districts-prepare-enormous-disruptions-senate-refuses-ease-class-size-requirements/

Categories Class size, North Carolina

North Carolina: State Mandate to Reduce Class Size Will Cost Loss of Thousands of Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2017 //
29

The legislature in North Carolina never tires of finding new ways to mess up their state’s once-greatly admired public schools.

By mandating class size reduction across the state without providing additional funds, districts will be required to send pink slips to thousands of teachers of music, arts, physical education, and teacher assistants.

“We’re not dealing with widgets. We’re dealing with people’s lives and their livelihoods,” says Katherine Joyce, executive director of the N.C. Association of School Administrators (NCASA), an organization that reps public school district leaders at the legislature.

The uncertainty puts at least 5,500 teaching jobs statewide in jeopardy as districts scramble to reallocate resources, according to the NCASA.

That doesn’t include teacher assistant positions, particularly crucial jobs in low-performing schools and districts jettisoned by the thousands in cash-starved districts since 2008. Without major legislative concessions in the coming weeks, K-12 leaders expect many more T.A. jobs will be on the chopping block this year.

One bipartisan-supported reprieve to the looming class size order, House Bill 13, gained unanimous approval in the state House in February, but despite advocates’ calls for urgent action this spring, the legislation has lingered in the Senate Rules Committee with little indication it will be taken up soon.

Sen. Bill Rabon, the influential eastern North Carolina Republican who chairs the committee, did not respond to Policy Watch interview requests, but his legislative assistant said this week that Rabon’s committee will not consider any House bills until the General Assembly’s April 27 crossover deadline….

Regardless, public school leaders say the state’s drive to reduce class sizes comes at a particularly arduous time for districts. With North Carolina teacher pay mired among the lowest in the nation, K-12 experts are reporting major teaching shortages and plummeting interest in teaching degrees in the UNC system.

The legislature, dominated by a super-majority of ultra-conservative Republicans in both houses, is doing its level best to harass teachers and drive students to charter schools and vouchers. Under the guise of “reform,” more teachers and programs will be cut.

Categories Budget Cuts, Class size, North Carolina, Teacher Shortage, Teachers

California Teachers Form Statewide Alliance to Fight for Real School Reform

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2017 //
29

Teachers organizations from across the state of California have formed an alliance to fight for genuine School reform.

CALIFORNIA: 8 Teacher Union Locals Unite Against the Trump/DeVos Agenda, Fight for Public Schools through Collective Bargaining, Community Power

United around common struggles and a shared vision, The California Alliance for Community Schools is a groundbreaking coalition of educator unions from 8 of the largest cities in California, representing more than 50,000 educators. The alliance officially launches tomorrow, Thursday March 23 and includes: Anaheim Secondary Teachers Association, Oakland Education Association, San Bernardino Teachers Association, San Jose Teachers Association, San Diego Education Association, United Educators of San Francisco, United Teachers Los Angeles and United Teachers Richmond.

All 8 unions are uniting around statewide demands, through local bargaining as well as legislation, for more resources in schools, charter school accountability, lower class sizes and other critical improvements. Most of the locals are in contract bargaining or are interested in organizing around these key issues. The alliance plans to expand to include other labor and community partners.

As California faces a statewide teacher shortage, school districts issued more than 1,750 pink slips for educators last week. Trump released his proposed federal budget, which slashes funds for disadvantaged children, afterschool programs, teacher trainings and other vital services. Trump wants to spend $1.4 billion to expand vouchers, including private schools, and would pay for it from deep cuts to public schools. Voters in California have twice rejected voucher plans.

“We are reaching a state of emergency when it comes to our public schools,” said Hilda Rodriguez-Guzman, an Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment member and charter school parent since 1994. “We must support and reinvest in public education. I join educators in the fight for well-resourced, transparent, accountable, and democratically run schools, at the bargaining table and beyond.”

All 8 unions will use the power of bargaining and statewide organizing to fight for:

Lower class sizes

Resources for high-needs schools and students

Shared decision-making at local school sites, critical to student success

Charter school accountability

Safe and supportive school environments

The first significant step is the launch of the bargaining platform and petition, which includes statewide demands and specific contract demands for each local union. The petition reads:

“As educators in large urban school districts across California we face many of the same challenges. We are particularly concerned about disinvestment in schools and communities, especially those with the greatest needs; educational policies that discourage authentic teaching and learning; and the rapid expansion of privately managed and unregulated charter schools at the expense of our neighborhood schools.”

We applaud the work of these unions, who are fighting back the Trump/DeVos agenda and standing together with their students and communities to reinvest in public education.

To find out more, contact each union for more information:

Anaheim: Grant Schuster, CTA State Council Representative on ASTA Executive Board, schusters3@charter.net, (562) 810-4035

Los Angeles: Anna Bakalis, UTLA Communications Director mailto:abakalis@utla.net, (213)305-9654

Oakland: Trish Gorham, OEA President, oaklandeapresident@yahoo.com, (510) 763-4020,

San Diego: Jonathon Mello, mello_j@sdea.net, (619) 200-0010

San Francisco: Mathew Hardy, Communications Director, mhardy@uesf.org, (415) 513-3179

Richmond: Demetrio Gonzalez, UTR President, president@unitedteachersofrichmond.com, (760) 500-7044

San Jose: Jennifer Thomas, SJTA President, jthomas@sanjoseta.org, (408) 694-7393

San Bernardino: Ashley Alcalá, SBTA President, ashleysbta@gmail.com, (909) 881-6755
—

THE CALIFORNIA ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
We are a coalition of California parents, community, educators, and students united in our commitment to transforming public education in ways that contribute to a more just, equitable, and participatory society.

Together, we are fighting for well-resourced, community-centered, publicly funded and democratically run schools that prepare our students with the intellectual, social, and emotional skills necessary for success in a changing and often turbulent world.

Our Platform for The Schools All Our Students Deserve

1. Low Class Sizes: Quality instruction for all our students depends on limiting the number of students in a class. Lowering class sizes improves teaching and learning conditions leading to growth in student achievement and positive social interactions.

2. Adequate Resources for All Schools with Additional Resources for Our High Needs Schools and Students: All schools and students deserve adequate levels of funding and support, including but not limited to quality early childhood education programs, lower class size, lower Special Education caseloads, additional educators, after-school tutoring, counselors, nurses, certificated librarians, and other resources to address our students’ academic, emotional, and social needs. Schools and students with the highest need should receive additional funding and support. Site based governing bodies consisting of democratically selected staff, parents, students, and community partners should be responsible for deciding how such additional supports are to be used.

3. Shared Decision-Making at Our Local Schools: The needs of a school are best addressed by the members of the school community. Site based governance by democratically selected stakeholder representatives is a critical component for school and student success. Districts and unions should provide joint trainings to fully empower these bodies.

4. Charter Schools Accountable to Our Communities: All schools receiving public money must be held accountable and be locally and publicly controlled. Unfortunately, many privately run, under-regulated charter schools drain needed resources from neighborhood schools, are not fully transparent in their operations, and fail to provide equal access to all students. Common sense standards and adequate oversight are necessary. New charter schools should not be approved without ensuring accountability and transparency and without a comprehensive assessment of the economic and educational impact on existing public schools.

5. Safe and Supportive School Environments: All students at publicly funded schools, regardless of ethnicity, gender, economic status, religion, sexual orientation, and immigration status, have a right to an academically stimulating, emotionally and socially nurturing, and culturally responsive environment that recognizes and addresses the many stresses that affect student performance and behavior. Adequate trainings and supports for restorative justice programs must be provided as an alternative to punitive disciplinary programs.

Categories Arts Education, Budget Cuts, California, Class size, Early Childhood Education, Funding, Real Education, Teacher Shortage, Teachers, Unions

Arthur Goldstein: When Teachers Complained About Large Classes, the Arbitrator Said…

By dianeravitch
February 2, 2017 //
30

High school teacher Arthur Goldstein reports what happened when teachers complained about overcrowded classes in New York City:

“A few months ago, a $1,600-a-day arbitrator named Deborah M. Gaines declared that Francis Lewis High School, where I work, could keep oversized classes, but that teachers of said classes would be relieved once a week from a school assignment, e.g. tutoring.

“It’s hard to imagine, by any stretch of the imagination, that 40 minutes per week of not tutoring alleviates the difficulties of teachers grappling with oversized classes. It’s even harder to imagine how less tutoring benefits students, particularly from a city that claims to put “Children First. Always.”

“If I’m a conscientious kid, sitting in one of our 42 oversized classes — some of which run as high as 37 students — and not getting enough attention from my teacher, I might be wondering how her being less available to tutor me helps the situation. Do I breathe a sigh of relief that she’s off that period and hope for the best? The arbitrator and the Department of Education seem to assume so.

“Maybe I’m not sophisticated enough to grasp how it helps. I’m just a lowly teacher. But I’m also my school’s UFT chapter leader, so twice a year I report class sizes, the union files a grievance, and we bring them before an arbitrator.

“Usually there are a handful and we work it out. This year the number was higher, never went down, and in fact rose to 42 by my last count.

“Oversized classes are tough to manage, especially when teachers in New York City are rated by a rubric that values student engagement highly. In a room with over 34 teenagers, keeping them motivated and on task is challenging in that it demands total attention. The arbitrator may as well have declared that teachers of oversized classes will now have eyes in the backs of their heads.

“It’s been 50 years since class size limits were first established in the United Federation of Teachers contract. Since that time, we’ve managed to not improve upon them at all, and worked our way up to the highest class sizes in the state….”

Categories Class size, Education Reform, New York City

An Organization Fighting to Protect Student Data Privacy: Please Help!

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2016 //
5

Please consider a gift to Class Size Matters, an organization that fights for smaller classes and for student data privacy. Its leader, Leonie Haimson, is a national leader in the movement against data mining of student i.d. Leonie works full-time for no salary or remuneration. Every dollar you give goes to programs and activities.

 

I belong to only two boards: one is the Network for Public Education; please join us as a member and consider a gift. The other is Class Size Matters. Please consider a year-end gift to both.

 

To My Friends, 

Please consider giving to Class Size Matters; a remarkably streamlined and effective non-profit on whose board I serve, that relies on the contributions of parents, teachers and concerned citizens just like you.

 

Your support will help the organization continue its work to ensure that all public school students in this city, state and nation are provided with small classes in uncrowded buildings, with sufficient individual attention from their teachers, and that parents can protect their children’s education data from breach and misuse.

 

This year the organization accomplished several important goals:

 

First on privacy: In 2014, Class Size Matters spearheaded a successful state and national effort to defeat inBloom, the $100 million Gates-funded corporation designed to collect and share the personal data of students in nine states and districts. inBloom closed its doors in 2014 when NY State passed a law against it – the last state to pull out.

 

The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, which Class Size Matters helped start after inBloom’s demise, is now leading the national effort to oppose the dangerous, Gates-funded campaign to overturn the federal ban against the US Department of Education collecting the personal data of public school students, from birth to preK through high school and beyond. If this ban were overturned, it could allow the federal government to track and create a dossier of sensitive information on nearly every American family – a dangerous threat to the privacy and civil liberties of us all.

 

As part of the 2014 law that caused inBloom to close, the NY State Education Department was required to appoint a Chief Privacy Officer who would create a comprehensive Parent Bill of Privacy Rights with input from parents and other stakeholders. This fall, Class Size Matters helped convince the NY State Education Department to finally appoint a Chief Privacy Officer as the law requires. The group also persuaded NYSED to rescind their decision to send all the personal data of the state’s public school students into the NY state archives, where it would have remained for up to a hundred years, vulnerable to being publicly released or misused.

 

Class Size Matters is also continuing to advocate for smaller classes and less overcrowding in our public schools. NYC added nearly a billion dollars to the school capital plan last spring to build more schools, in part because of their advocacy. The organization’s analysis revealed that the DOE had hugely underestimated the need for new seats. New reports and strategies to address the class size and overcrowding crisis in our public schools will be released this year.

 

In October, the NY Appellate Court ruled unanimously that the DOE must open School Leadership Team meetings to members of the public in a lawsuit in which Class Size Matters intervened. These teams, composed of half parents, are an essential part of the school governance system and have an important role in decision-making, and thus full transparency must be required. (A fact sheet that you can post in your schools or forward to parents and teachers is here.)

 

In November, the organization held a very successful citywide parent conference, including guest speakers Comptroller Scott Stringer, Council Member Danny Dromm and education advocate Robert Jackson. Workshops were offered on fighting privatization, parent organizing on school overcrowding, perspectives on diversity, and more.

 

At the national level, given the priorities of Donald Trump and his pick of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, we must all work together to protect our public schools from privateers and profiteers who want to defund and dismantle our public schools. Supporting Class Size Matters is more critical than ever before, in the fight for adequate, equitable and well-funded public schools.

 

Please contribute to Class Size Matters. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. If you’d like the donation to go to the organization’s efforts to protect student privacy, please note that on the check or in the comment box online.

 

Yours,

 

Diane Ravitch

 

 

Categories Class size, Class Size Matters Org, Education Reform, Privacy

Why Class Size Matters: A Research Brief

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2016 //
17

William J. Mathis has drawn together the research on class size to explain why it matters.

It is costly to reduce class size, but it is very likely the most effective intervention to help students who are struggling.

It also happens to be the single reform that parents want most. When class size was put on the ballot in Florida, it was overwhelmingly approved. Despite numerous attempts by Jeb Bush and his allies to get rid of it, the caps on class size have remained intact.

Reformers disregard the research on class size because they don’t want to spend more money to do what works. They prefer changes in governance, like charter schools, vouchers, mayoral control, state takeovers–anything but reducing class size. They claim that reducing class size benefits unions because it requires more teachers. But the biggest benefit of reducing class size is to the children, who get the attention and time they need to learn.

Categories Class size, Education Reform, Research

Daphne Stanford: The Trouble with Idaho

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2016 //
9

Daphne Stanford left the following comment on the blog. Idaho, she says, doesn’t care about education. It doesn’t care about its own children.

 

 

Yes, there is a problem with education in Idaho; however, it’s not the fault of the teachers or the schools. The problem is much more complex than that. As a former high school English teacher who has also taught college-level composition, I can testify to the woeful state of education funding in Idaho: while I was teaching in Riggins, for example, the district had to pass an emergency bond levy for more school funding simply in order to keep the schools open. That’s ludicrous. I’ve also never heard of high schools actually charging students to take choir or art, for example, or to participate in team sports. It’s painfully obvious to me that part of the problem is not only that there is a lack of funding; there is also, sadly, a lack of belief or trust in education and educators–especially in rural Idaho. As one of the reddest states in the U.S., our state is especially prone to private corporations hijacking public education in the name of progress or technology. However, it’s not that simple. What is simple, however, is the formula that makes for good education: small class sizes, teachers who are adequately paid & supported, and a community that also supports and believes in education. If class sizes are bloated and overcrowded, if funding is non-existent, if teachers are overworked and underpaid–guess what? Education is going to suffer. It’s really not that complicated.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Class size, Idaho, Teacher Pay, Teachers and Teaching
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