Questions and answers about the CFE lawsuit, class size, and accountability
A parent asked a very good question:
“I admit to being somewhat confused by the issues around how the DOE is or is not planning to spend the CFE money.
As I understand it, one chunk of CFE money is capital for building new schools, which should theoretically enable smaller class sizes since one of the biggest contributors to large class size is simply the lack of classroom space.
The other chunk of CFE money is for operating expenses. Are these the funds you refer to in emails about the DOE not spending CFE money on reducing class size? How are they proposing to spend these funds?”
I think a lot of people are confused about this, and understandably so. CFE, the advocacy community and the press have all let us down by not clearly explaining what the case was about, what the court has been asked for in terms of funds and why, and how this differs from what the city wants to do with this money.
The level of confusion is further exacerbated by the tendency of officials to further obfuscate these issues. Most recently, Dennis Walcott, the deputy Mayor, claimed that the CFE funds will be used to provide smaller classes for all children, and the NY Times repeated his statement without elaboration or commentary.
What is the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, and what did it say about class size?
The Campaign for Fiscal Equity is a coalition of NYC parents and advocates who sued NY State in 1993, claiming that New York City's public schools were underfunded and denied students their constitutional right to a sound basic education.
In 2003, the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, ruled in favor of CFE, and ordered that the Governor and the Legislature provide more funding to our schools. Elliot Spitzer, the next Governor of the state, has said that he plans to settle the lawsuit, and that from $4.5 to $5.7 billion in additional annual funds should be provided to NYC schools over the next four or five years.
The Court of Appeals found that there were three core areas that our schools were constitutionally deficient: class sizes, teacher quality, and "instrumentalities of learning", including textbooks, labs, etc.
As regards class size, the Court wrote that classes in all grades were too large to provide students their constitutional right to an adequate education, since there was “measurable proof ...that New York City schools have excessive class sizes, and that class size affects learning.”
The decision also found that the "evidence of the advantages of smaller class sizes supports the inference sufficiently to show a meaningful correlation between the large classes in City schools and the outputs” of poor academic achievement and high dropout rates.
The court concluded: “[T]ens of thousands of students are placed in overcrowded classrooms, taught by unqualified teachers, and provided with inadequate facilities and equipment. The number of children in these straits is large enough to represent a systemic failure.”
Yet the city's current plan for these funds is highly flawed, and would ensure that NYC classes would remain much too large -- significantly larger than in the rest of the state. Our students would be continued to be disadvantaged by some of the largest classes in the nation.This would result from the misguided priorities of both the city's capital plan and proposed way in which the operating funds would be spent.
The city's capital plan for school expansion
Last year, the state provided the city $6.5 billion in state aid for capital expenses, and also authorized overall spending on school construction and repair for NYC schools of up to $13 billion.
The amount the city asked for and received was in part based on a study submitted by the CFE plaintiffs, called the BRICKS report. The BRICKS report estimated how much it would cost to build enough additional schools and classrooms to allow for smaller classes in all grades, with no more than 20 students per class in K-5th grades, 23 students in 6th - 8th grades, and 24 in high school. These classes are significantly smaller than they are currently in NYC, but still considerably above the average in the rest of the state.
The BRICKS report estimated that it would be necessary to spend at least $7 billion in capital funds, to create about 120,000 additional seats, so that class sizes could be reduced to the above levels. (Here is the BRICKS proposal, as submitted to the court )
Less than a billion dollars in the BRICKS plan was for repairs – in a category of emergency spending called “Avoiding Imminent Additional Overcrowding”--- figuring that it should remain the city’s responsibility to continue to cover most maintenance and repairs.
But the city doesn’t plan to use the $6.5 billion it will receive from the state, nor the $13 billion in overall capital spending in the way the BRICKS report recommended, but simply to finance its existing capital plan.
- Instead of creating 120,000 additional seats, the city’s current plan would create only 66,000 seats, and would allow average class sizes to be reduced in only grades K-3. Moreover, much of the improvement in overcrowding that it claims to achieve relies upon highly questionable demographic projections that enrollment will continue to decline, in most parts of the city, indefinitely into the future.
- Rather than spending $7 billion, as the Bricks proposed, to build new schools and provide more capacity, the city’s capital plan spends only $4.2 billion for this purpose.
- It spends $4.4 billion in the category of repairs, and $4.6 billion in the category of “restructuring” schools, so they can be made into smaller schools etc., along with other structural enhancements. (For an excel file with a summary of DOE’s capital plan)
- The $4.2 billion that the city intends to spend on school construction for 66,000 seats may sound like a lot, but is limited in terms of the actual needs of the system, as well as the skyrocketing costs of construction. (Compare this, for example, with the current Los Angeles capital plan that would create about 180,000 additional seats at a total of over $11.7 billion -- and LA is also only about 2/3 the size of NYC, in terms of the number of the students enrolled.)
The city's plan for additional operating funds
The huge gap between the city’s plan for the additional operating funds and the CFE class size goals is even more glaring.
Expert educators were assembled by CFE to decide what class sizes would be needed to provide an adequate education in NYC. These “professional judgment panels” included Carmen Farina, former deputy chancellor, as well as teachers and administrators from throughout the state.
These panels concluded that class sizes of no more than 14 students in grades K-5th, no more than 22 students in middle school classes, and about 18 students per class in high school would be needed in NYC to ensure that our students had an adequate opportunity to learn. (Their class size proposals were included in the CFE costing out study on p.33)
The amount CFE asked the court to provide our schools –an additional $5.6 billion in operating funds – was based upon estimating what these much smaller class sizes would cost, as well as other recommended reforms.
Yet the DOE intends to use the $5.6 billion in ways never intended by the Court or envisioned by CFE, and plans to spend only 2% of these funds to reduce class size.
- In K-3, the DOE would spend $51 million to lower class sizes only to 20, instead of 14 students as recommended by these panels.
- The city would spend not a dime to reduce class sizes in 4-5th grades, which the CFE panels also recommended should be no more than 14 students per class. Currently, these classes average about 25-27 students, while in the rest of the state outside NYC, they average 21-22 students. (For the latest NYC class size averages by grade compared to. the rest of the state, see the last page of this 2004-5 State Education report.)
- The city would spend not a dime to reduce class sizes in our high schools, where classes average 29-32 students per class, depending on the subject, instead of 18, as these panels recommended. (In the rest of the state, most high school classes average about 20-22 students per class.)
- The city would spend a small amount -- $66 million -- to limit class sizes in our middle schools, but instead of reducing class sizes to 22 students per class as the panel recommended, would keep class size averages where they are now – at about 28. (In the rest of the state, these classes average about 21-22.)
If the city intends to invest only $117 million for class size reduction, what would all the CFE billions be spent on? The plan, as it stands, is full of highly questionable priorities.
- $600 million per year would go to more administrators, and for leased office space and computers.
- $400 million per year would be spent on charter schools and new small schools.
- Over $350 million per year would be spent on something called “instructional technology and support.”
- Over $420 million per year would be to hire other teaching staff and assorted “specialists” – rather than regular classroom teachers to reduce class size.
Michael Rebell of CFE was told that this plan was put together by Tweed over the course of a weekend. To me, it looks like it was dreamed up by someone in the middle of the night on a bender.
At a recent parent meeting, Klein said that if people had questions about how the city intends to use these funds, they should take a look at it. (I recommend highly that you do – check out the excel summary.)
So what should be done ?
Even though the need for much smaller classes in all grades in our schools was pointed out by the evidence and the testimony in the CFE case, as well as the court decision and the recommendations of the professional judgement panels, the bill written by CFE and introduced in the Legislature last year would basically allow city officials to spend the money in the way they currently intend, as long as the plan is described in more detail and submitted to the State Education Department.
The bill had no spending requirements, no standards for class size or any other reforms, and few if any provisions for public input. It provided no checks and balances for an administration whose priorities and practices are seriously out of whack.
This is why parents and other New Yorkers who care about the future of our schools must speak out and make sure that whatever legislation is passed in relation to CFE includes specific goals for class size, strengthened accountability, more oversight and a role for stakeholders in the planning process.
Prepared by Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, October 2006.
