Are class sizes really going down in NYC schools?
Whenever there are protests that class sizes are too large in our public schools, the administration tends to claim that class sizes are going down in all grades.
DOE officials claimed this once again, in response to reporters' questions, after the city released for the first time the current class size averages by school in grades K-8. Yet the latest available data from the state shows the opposite, that class sizes in most grades and subjects have been rising.
Problems with class size reporting have been chronic in the case of NYC.
In 2002-3, the State Education Department had to threw out all the class size data submitted by the city, as it was considered so full of errors to be unusable. In 2003-4, SED officials were forced to make their own estimates of average class sizes from the raw data submitted by the city.
December 2004, in response to evidence uncovered by the Independent Budget Office and Class Size Matters, the Department of Education officials admitted in a letter that they had long reported inaccurate information by including phantom classes of long term absent students in their calculations.
As regards the current data, as of October 2006, the reported class sizes by the city appear to be much smaller than they actually are for many schools, with the effect of bringing down the averages considerably.
In Districts 1 and 2, for example, class sizes reported for the Neighborhood School, the Earth School, NEST, the School of the Future, the CTT (inclusion classes) at Lab, and the Ella Baker school range from 8-11 students-- only half the size that these classes actually are.
Moreover, in District 2, the district-wide averages appear to include the small class sizes of the American Sign Language school for the Deaf -- even though special education classes are supposed to be kept in a separate category.
Each year that the city reports systemwide class size averages, they are later superceded by more trustworthy state data -- which show considerably larger classes in all grades.
As mentioned above, the latest available data from the state shows that contrary to the administration's claims, class sizes in most grades and subjects have been rising in NYC schools.
This data shows that in 2004-5, class sizes grew in NYC schools in nearly every
"From the 2003-2004 School Year to the 2004-2005 School Year, class sizes were reduced in every grade except grade 1."
To the contrary, the state data shows that between the 2003-4 and 2004-5 school years,
* Average class sizes in NYC rose in 1st grade (from 21.8 to 22.6)
(This was the only grade that the MMR reported as larger- but instead, rose much more slighly, and to a much lower size --from 21.6 to 21.7 students per class)
* Average class size also rose in 2nd grade (from 22 to 22.1)
* Though on average, Kindergarten class sizes were slightly lower than the year before, classes in Kindergarten were significantly larger than in 2001-2002, before Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein took control of the schools. (21.8 compared to 21.3)
According to the new state data, in each of the other elementary grades,except for 3rd, class sizes also grew slightly in 2004-5:
* In 4th grade, average class size rose (from 24.8 to 24.9 students per class)
* In 5th grade, average class sizes rose (from 26.5 to 26.6 students per class.)
In the middle grades, the state data shows that class sizes rose in three out of the four categories listed, by significant amounts:
* In 6th grade, average class size rose (from 27 to 27.6 students per class.)
* In 7th grade English, average class size rose (from 27.1 students per class to 27.9.)
* In 7th grade US history, average class sizes grew even more sharply (from 27.2 to 28.5 students per class.)
In high school, NYC class sizes rose in eight out of the twelve courses listed:
* In Global studies 9 (from 28.6 to 28.7 students per class.)
* In Global studies 10 (from 28.6 to 29.3 students per class.)
* 11th grade English (from 28.1 to 28.7 students per class.)
* In Spanish 1, (from 28.5 to 29.5 students per class.)
* In Physics, (from 27.9 to 29.6.)
* Regents Bio, (from 28.6 from 28.8.)
* US History, (from 28.8 to 29.2.)
* In Regents Math course 1, (from 29.2 to 32.5.)
The most alarming trend is revealed by this new data is the rise in class sizes for Regents Math course 1 in NYC.
This class, essential for students to pass their Regents, grew to a shocking level in the 2004-5 school year: 32.5 students per class, compared to only 26.1 students in the 2001-2 school year, before Bloomberg took control -- a 25% increase.
This new state data not only contradicts the administration's claim of declining class sizes in most grades, but also the claim in the Mayor's Management Report that high school class sizes averaged only 26.4 in 2004-5. (see p. 12, in pdf form.)
In fact, the data shows there was not a single HS subject in NYC where classes were smaller than 28.2 students that year- with most averaging about 29. Compare that to average high school class sizes in the rest of the state of between 20-22 students per class.
This overall rise in class sizes did not occur because of a lack of funds, but a lack of priorities.
Enrollment has been decreasing overall, and since 2000-2001, the state has provided almost $90 million in annual funds to reduce class sizes in K-3.
The fact that class sizes grew in 2004 in grades 1 and 2, and Kindergarten classes were larger than before Bloomberg took control of the schools, is a direct result of the fact that every year, fewer classes have been offered in the early grades since 2001-2, with 861 fewer classes overall, according
to an audit from the State comptroller's office. (see p.33, in pdf format.)
This audit also found the following:
* In 2004-5, the city provided only 20 additional classes over the baseline number that existed before the state class size reduction program began, despite $90 million in annual funds.
* Instead, as the audit concluded, the DoE improperly used millions of these dollars to pay for teaching positions which had existed before the program began - contrary to law:
"..we believe that the DoE's calculations are not consistent with the Law, because DoE's method substitutes Program funding for local funding that was used previously for early grade classes (and teachers) that existed prior to the Program's implementation." (, p.4)
According to this audit, if DOE officials had actually created the 1586 additional classes that they claimed in 2004-5, class sizes in NYC would have averaged 19.1 students in grades K-3, rather than about 22, as the state data indicates, and our children would have had the benefits of even smaller classes in these grades on average than the rest of the state.
