TESTIMONY

BEFORE THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL COMMISSION ON THE CAMPAIGN FOR FISCAL EQUITY LAWSUIT

October 19, 2004

Mary-Powel Thomas

President

District 15 Community Education Council

Hello. I’m Mary-Powel Thomas, president of the Community Education Council for District 15, in Brooklyn, which has passed a resolution advocating smaller classes in New York City. I’m also the mother of two boys, in 3rd and 5th grades, who have benefited greatly from their school’s commitment to small classes.

Classes in my district average just over 22 students in elementary school—2 or 3 more than the rest of the state—and almost 27 in middle school—about 6 more than the rest of the state. (Our council doesn’t represent high schools.) Some of our classes are as big as 34 students, which is a lot to cram into a classroom that’s about 25 by 30 feet. I’m sure some people in this room got a good education in a class of 40 or more. But classrooms now have computers and libraries as well as desks. They have a rug or other meeting area for the children. Teaching methods have changed too. Students don’t sit in rows, and teachers don’t lecture. Instead, they work with each child at his or her own level, so the smarter kids can move fast, and the slower ones can make progress at their own pace. It’s a big improvement, but it’s a lot more work for the teacher, and a smaller class makes a huge difference in the amount of attention he or she can give to each student. One principal told me, “The kids work in groups now. You don’t want a group bigger than 5, and if you multiply that by 6 or 7 groups—which is what we have—it’s just nuts.”

It’s not good for any school district to have larger classes than the state average. But the children in District 15 actually need smaller classes than average. Seventy-eight percent of them qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, compared with 35 percent in the rest of the state. Fourteen percent of our students are still learning English, compared with 1.2 percent in the rest of the state. Many more have parents who don’t speak English—which means they have a hard time helping with homework and communicating with teachers. These are precisely the children who need small classes—the only intervention proven to make a conclusive difference in academic achievement, especially for poor and minority students.

District 15 ranks in the top third of city school districts, though that’s not great. On the state English Language Arts test last year, only 57 percent of our 4th graders scored at grade level, and 43 percent of our 8th graders. We do a little better in math: 72 percent of our 4th graders are at grade level, and 44 percent of our 8th graders. But these are essentially failing scores.

The amazing thing, though, is that they are 15 to 30 percentage points higher than in 1999. That was the first year that New York State provided funding to reduce class sizes in grades K through 3. Unfortunately, the other classes are as big as ever—which surely contributes to the falloff in test scores between 4th grade and 8th grade. As one middle school principal told me, “With this many kids, you’re always missing 15 to 20 percent of them. You can’t stay on top of them for lateness, for not doing homework, for cutting class.”

Even the good kids get missed. A friend of mine sent her daughter to a prestigious middle school in another district. In 7th grade, the girl had 34 children in her class. She had a 97 percent average, and the school said her parents shouldn’t come to parent-teacher conferences, because they had to focus on the children who really needed help.

That sort of triage is unacceptable. That is not a “sound, basic education.” If New York City doesn’t use the CFE money to substantially reduce class sizes, we’ll be back here in another 10 years, trying to figure out how to allocate the money from another lawsuit. And we will have failed 10 more years of children. Therefore, I urge the city to spend as much of the CFE money as necessary to reduce class sizes to at least the state average, and to less than the state average in high-needs schools.

In the words of another principal in my district, “You can build your team, you can cheerlead, you can do all these things. But until we get class sizes down, schools are always going to be fighting an uphill battle.”

My own children’s school has a long-standing commitment to small class sizes, but it comes at a cost. This year, the principal is paying for 7 more classroom teachers than are covered by the head-count budget, plus another 1.5 cluster teachers. Conservatively, this takes about $400,000 out of the rest of the school budget—money that is therefore not available for a second science teacher (for our 500 students), a second art teacher, an after-school program, enrichment programs, extra help for struggling students, etc.

About 85 percent of the students at our school qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, so the PTA, dedicated as it is, can't raise nearly enough money to fill in the gaps. Many of our students have behavioral and/or academic issues that make small classes essential. But those same issues mean that they really need the “extras” too.

Such a choice should not be forced on any school, and with your help (and that of the state and city governments), I hope it will no longer be.

Thank you.