Any New Yorker who’s supportive of the inflexible new state unfunded mandate requiring the city to bring down class sizes to 20 students in kindergarten through third grade, 23 students in fourth through eighth grade and 25 students in high school should read the new report by a new advisory panel of the city’s Department of Education. It outlines a host of adjustments — we mean very bad, necessary steps — necessary to make compliance with the law possible.
First, a crash course. Research says that all things being equal, it’s not a bad idea to reduce class sizes. While the benefits of major reductions aimed at disadvantaged students in the early grades are clear, across-the-board cuts are a blunt policy instrument and an incredibly expensive one that, in a world of limited resources, forecloses more effective, more targeted investments.
Ignoring these facts, the Legislature, in a bill championed by state Sen. John Liu and the teachers union, last year demanded precisely the kind of rigid reductions that the best social science research says aren’t worth it.
Studies say that the city’s highest-poverty schools, which often already have classes under the legal cap, will be the relative losers here, as money and resources and teachers flow to schools in wealthier neighborhoods.
The advisory panel’s report reveals that this is not the worst of the unintended consequences.
To hit the new limits, the city would likely have to much more strictly cap enrollment at oversubscribed schools — meaning, severely restrict kids’ ability to attend highly popular campuses that are already bursting at the seams because they’re in high demand. One way to limit access would be to prioritize nearby families. Another way to put that: Make the link between ZIP code and educational opportunity even more absolute.
To hit the new limits, the city would have to merge many small schools that currently share their buildings with one another. Never mind the fact that study after study has said the small high schools, hundreds of which were created during the Bloomberg administration, are working for kids.
Countless high-performing charter schools would also likely find themselves homeless — which to Liu and the union is surely the goal.
To hit the new limits, many pre-K and 3-K programs would have to shift to nearby community pre-K centers, inconveniencing countless families who send their children to school together.
And to hit the new limits, the city would have to reconsider the creation of new schools — meaning, scratch plans to build innovative new campuses that respond to families’ needs.
And there’s no dispute that New York would have to hire thousands more teachers to meet the mandate. The Independent Budget Office puts the number at 17,700 teachers, costing $1.6 billion to $1.9 billion. The union will be thrilled with all the new dues-paying members, but will those educators be high-quality? Would public school parents rather have their children in a somewhat larger class with an excellent, experienced teacher or in a smaller class with an in-over-his-or-her-head newbie? That’s not always the tradeoff, but sometimes it surely will be.
The 46-member advisory panel was not unanimous. At least nine members refused to endorse the final recommendations and most of them have endorsed a dissenting report arguing that the law itself must be changed. Amen to that.
from New York Daily News https://ift.tt/RhMYHpK