Almost a quarter of a million students sitting in classes so large they violate the union contract
Yesterday, Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, along with Manhattan Borough President Stringer (who will also be our next City Comptroller) and Class Size Matters held a press conference, to announce that
6,313 classes throughout the city are in violation of the contractual class size limits – 25 per class in Kindergarten, and 32-34 in most other grades. (For the exact limits by grade, see our fact sheet here.) Of course, these limits are far higher than the Contract for Excellence goals of 20 in grades K-3, 23 in middle schools, and 25 in high schools that the city promised the state to achieve by 2012.
The number of classes that violate the union rules is 200 more classes than last year at this time, and an estimated 230,000 students are now sitting in ridiculously large classes that the DOE takes up to six months to address.
See Daily News and NY1 on this issue, including interviews with some of the affected students at Cardozo HS in Queens, who don’t yet have desks or a set schedule.
Though Queens HS are the most affected because of overcrowding, the DOE plans to put more co-locations in some of these high schools next year, which will cause even MORE overcrowding– a critical impact that is completely unmentioned in the Educational Impact Statements DOE is required to produce. Below is what I said at the press conference:
When Michael Bloomberg ran for office in 2002, he promised he would reduce class sizes in Kindergarten – 3rd grade in all schools to 20 or