That statement comes after the decision that the city must use part of the additional state education aid to reduce class size in all grades. Calling it “a partial victory,” Haimson finds the newest developments are vague and far from the concrete objectives that she, along with other advocacy groups, parents and community school boards, have been fervently propelling for years.
About ten years ago, these groups had filed the Campaign for Fiscal Equity Lawsuit (CFE) against New York State accusing the state of unconstitutionally under-funding the city’s public schools. In 2003, the Court of Appeals, in a major victory for the plaintiffs, held that the city must reform their funding system to improve the city’s level of education. This built upon a previous decision that children must be provided with the opportunity for a “sound basic education.”
The Court of Appeals in 2003 had found “a meaningful correlation between the large classes in City schools and the outputs…of poor academic achievement and high dropout rates.”
Meanwhile CFE expert education panels proposed figures of maximum number of students that should be in a class: 14 for kindergarden through fifth grade, 22 for middle school, and 18 for high school. Right now, middle school classes are averaging 28 or more, and high school at over 30.
It seems unlikely those CFE terms will be met soon. The city’s plan would allocate only 10 percent of the $5 billion in extra spending from the settlement of the suit, a small total of $177 million to pay for smaller classes. The head of the teacher’s union, Randi Weingarten doesn’t think that is enough to do the job. She has been urging lawmakers to set aside $1 billion to fund the reduction of class size.
As it stands, the legal language is not as precise as Weingarten’s. Those who will receive the funds must agree to a “Contract for Excellence” which requires them to show how they’re using the money, insuring it will go toward, among several other provisions, improving quality of teachers and principals and reducing class sizes.
Over the next five years, New York City schools will be specifying to the state commissioner the progress in class size reduction. Haimson’s website professes: “We will all have to watch them like hawks.”
Not everybody is willing to concede to the significance of this issue. Raymond Domanico, a senior education advisor to the Industrial Areas Foundation, argues that cutting class size would ultimately hurt the poor. Domanico, who has acknowledged that he is of the few who oppose these reforms, says they would lead to teacher shortage and also to the recruitment of underqualified teachers. In a system that already employs 80,000 teachers, Domanico doesn’t believe they would have luck in finding more. He argues that a one-size-fits-all policy on class size reduction would fuel these negative side effects, and instead supports the allocation of more resources to low-performing schools who would individually decide how to use the money.
Haimson, however, finds no other issue as imperative as class size reduction. According to Haimson and its many other proponents, it is one of the few tangible ways to improve student achievement, cut down on teacher attrition, reduce disciplinary problems and increase parent involvement. They also say that overcrowded high school classrooms are a strong factor in dropout rates.
Indeed at a dropout summit at the beginning of this year, where such education leaders as City Council Education Commission Chairperson Robert Jackson and UFT head Randi Weingarten were present, the issue most emphasized in battling increasing student dropout rates was class size.
Additionally, supporters of this reform say that it would narrow the achievement gap between ethnic and racial groups. Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton, found that this was true especially for the early grades.
It’s proven strategy, they all say.
But another uncommon dissenter, Michael Rubell, executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at the Teachers College of Columbia University, refutes the issue’s absolute central importance. Although, like Haimson, he thinks New Yorkers should have a stake in how the money will be spend, he argues that, in light of the Court of Appeals decision, “funding follows need,” thus funds should be concentrated on lower-performing schools. And although Rubell is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the CFE lawsuit, he finds that critics are missing the number one reform priority: Improving the quality of principals and teachers. A quick move to lower class size would only garner underqualifed educators. Citing the California initiative several years back, that along with schools in several other states reduced class size, Rubell quotes U.S. News and World Report, in which the reform led to the hiring of “Nordstrom clerks, a former clown and several chiropractors.”
Haimson says that’s hogwash, and that Rebell knows that class size is the most compelling issue because he’s said so in public forums.
Research on the California initiative shows just the opposite, says Haimson. Teachers hired there were no less effective, and the achievement rates actually went up. She cites an April 2006 study, the Hamilton Project, which concluded about the reforms: “the Los Angeles Unified School District needed to triple its hiring of elementary teachers following the state’s class-size reduction initiative in 1997, the district was able to do so without experiencing a reduction in mean teacher effectiveness, even though a disproportionate share of the new recruits were not certified.”
Haimson in no way foresees a teacher shortage, because, she says, “there are 10 qualified applicants for each position.” And what about the problem in retaining teachers? That, she says, is due, once again, to class size and discipline issues.
“Reducing class size will improve the quality of teaching. A teacher no matter how skilled will not reach all her students,” said Haimson.
Pedro Noguera, a professor in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University and the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education concedes that there are obstacles. “The critics are right,” he writes via email. “Lowering class size will force NY City to hire more teachers (of which there is already a limited supply of qualified teachers) and build more schools and classrooms.”
But every overhaul comes with obstacles, and Noguera, an urban sociologist, is not fazed. He still believes the city should get on with the plan.
For Haimson, the plan goes back some time. It was roughly ten years ago when her daughter was in the first grade. Her teachers confided in Haimson about her class of 29 kids—that she would hope every day that a couple of kids would be absent so that she can accomplish more. That was the defining moment that impelled Haimson to plunge into the facts and numbers, meanwhile buying a ticket to ride this political rollercoaster.
She straddles both worlds of motherhood and politics, two that often merge into one. Although the hardworking Haimson doesn’t seem ready to drop the mike very soon, perhaps when her third grade son’s class of 28 will shrink to 18, she can take it easy.
RSS Feed (xml)
No comments:
Post a Comment