The state budget was finalized on Saturday, more than two weeks late, and to the surprise of many, Mayor Adams was successful in getting Mayoral control renewed within the budget.  He did not get four years, as he and the Governor wanted, but he got two years, which flies in the fact of what nearly all the Legislative leaders had said about the importance of keeping school governance outside the budget.  As Sen. John Liu said, The proper way to do this is a thoughtful deliberation and hearing more voices in the process — taking into account more opinions from education stakeh ..read more

Online Forum: No More Student Data Sales! WHEN May 06, 2024 at 7:00pm - 8pm WHERE Online via Zoom: register here: bit.ly/5_6_24_webinar Test companies like College Board and ACT, Inc. are illegally profiting from the sale of student personal data when their tests are assigned to students to take in school. Learn how this were stopped in New York State, and what we can do to push other states to end this practice too. Virtual Forum No More Student Data Sales!  How Test Companies Profit from Illegal Student Data Sales & How We Can Stop Them Monday May 6 2023 8pmET - 7pmCT - 6pmM ..read more

A week ago, the NY Post featured an article about a new AI program call Yourai sold by a company called LINC, or The Learning Innovation Catalyst, that the DOE is piloting in some Brooklyn schools.  The product is supposed to help teachers develop their lesson plans.  On Twitter last week, I pointed out the idiocy of the DOE administrator who claimed this would help teachers "think creatively." What? “Teachers can enter students’ needs and the standards they want into the app and a lesson plan will be generated, Ross explained..She called it a “game changer” that will give teacher ..read more

Check out the latest Talk out of School featuring a discussion of NYC's most widely used reading program, HMH Into Reading, with NYU researcher Flor Khan, Brooklyn parent Alina Lewis and teacher Martina Meijer.  Below is a short summary of Alina's concerns, along with some comments from fifth and 6th grade students at the Brooklyn School of Inquiry. Below that are some newsclips related to the reading curriculum as well as other news items mentioned on the show. ____ In May of 2023 we were informed that our school, the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, would need to replace our existing litera ..read more

 Note: Gary Rubinstein writes about this issue on his blog as well. About a month ago, teacher and blogger Gary Rubinstein sent me an email, asking if I knew that Success Fort Greene Middle School had closed, and asking me if I knew where to access their test scores and past enrollment.  I sent him some data showing their declining enrollment, and then went on a search myself to try to find out more information about this school, but what I discovered was very confusing and contradictory. It is true that Success Academy seems to have quietly closed their Success Academy Fort G ..read more

 Assemblymember John Zaccaro Jr. and Senator Luis Sepulveda The Bronx Times reports  a new bill that would supposedly provide more "equity" by making NYC DOE cover the rental costs for all NYC charter schools. A law passed the Legislature in 2014 required NYC to provide space in DOE schools for all new or expanding charter schools or help pay for their rent, while getting 60% reimbursement from the state. NYC is the ONLY district in the state and even the country with this unfair obligation, where we have some of the highest rental costs in the nation.  Even with state ..read more

  Today, I  heard the tragic news that James Eterno, NYC teacher, had died, after a major stroke last spring.  He was only 63 years old.   I got to know James first because of his strong advocacy for smaller classes, and support for the work of Class Size Matters.   I got to know him even better through his valiant efforts to save Jamaica HS from closing in 2009-2010 He organized and spoke up at rallies, the PEP, and City Council hearings, the last I recall where he brought students to testify why the school should be saved.    Here is a video of James ..read more

Yet another great hearing where the vast majority of speakers, parents, teachers and students speaking out against Mayoral control.  You can watch the video here.  My three-minutes are below. My name is Leonie Haimson, and I am the Executive Director of Class Size Matters. There are many myths surrounding Mayoral control, including that it somehow provides more accountability.  Yet as we have seen over the last twenty years, when it comes to class size and the basic conditions in our public schools, one-man rule has not provided even the most minimal accountability. When he fi ..read more

Last night,  hearings were held in Brooklyn on Mayoral control.  About 70 people spoke, most of them extremely eloquently, passionately, and on point about how this essentially autocratic system of governance has seriously damaged our schools and NYC children. More than 90% said they opposed the current system, and the few that said they supported it mostly worked for DOE, including three Superintendents whose main argument seemed to be that this was a good system because they might not have been appointed otherwise. Most surprising were the number of parents, teachers, and literacy ..read more

Along with a generous donation, I found this copy of a letter to Commissioner Rosa in an envelope sent by Al Kurland, a long-time youth advocate, urging her to require DOE to develop and implement a real class size reduction plan, in alignment with the new state law. AQE and Class Size Matters sent a similar if longer letter to her a few days earlier, pointing out how as of yet, DOE had done nothing to enable schools to meet the benchmarks in the law starting next year.   Al's letter is so wonderful I thought I'd share it, as it resonates with everything we know about why smaller c ..read more