TESTIMONY
Educator from Edward R. Murrow High School Advocates for Smaller Class Sizes in New York City Public Schools
2:37:02
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4 min
An educator from Edward R. Murrow High School cites studies and personal experience to advocate for smaller class sizes in New York City public schools.
- Begins with a personal anecdote about their daughter’s schooling experience in Manhattan, contrasting it with larger class sizes they teach.
- Calls out the common excuses used to argue against smaller class sizes, such as budget constraints and teacher availability.
- References multiple studies, including the Tennessee student teacher achievement ratio project and a Wisconsin experiment, that show improved student performance in smaller class sizes.
- Criticizes the city’s funding priorities, specifically the planned investment in a new magnet school over reducing class sizes in existing schools.
- Urges city officials and stakeholders to prioritize education investments that provide individualized attention and better educational outcomes.
UNKNOWN
2:37:02
Thank you.
2:37:04
Good afternoon.
2:37:05
So I'll start with the store with my daughter who attended 1 of the New York City public schools in Manhattan.
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She worked very hard to get into that school.
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She tested in.
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She was able to sit in classrooms.
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With 5 to 10 students, which led me to believe as an educator who was in a school where my classes had 34 students that it was actually possible to fund schools so that we could have smaller class sizes.
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So many opponents of smaller class sizes have always given the same excuse because they realize that it drives or promotes fear in the minds of the taxpayers, and the policy makers alike, they use money to limit these decisions.
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They continue to say we don't have enough money in our budgets to do this or we don't have enough teachers to successfully achieve this.
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However, I'm an optimist.
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As an educator who loves what I do and continue to love my students to acquire and utilize knowledge in a meaningful and impactful way.
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I say nothing should limit or prevent us.
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From truly giving our children and future leaders of this country the very best education that having smaller class sizes can achieve.
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In 1985, the student teacher achievement ratio project was launched in Tennessee where they performed an experiment where 7000 kindergarten students in 79 schools were assigned to classes of varying sizes.
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They followed the progress of these students for 4 years and found that the students who had been placed in smaller classes were between 2 to 5 months ahead of their peers who were in larger class sizes.
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Even after those students who started out in the smaller classes were returned to full science classrooms.
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They continued to show the benefit of starting out in the smaller classes.
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By the time they got to the 8th grade, they were still ahead of their peers.
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Wisconsin conducted a similar experiment in 1996, targeting schools where the population was of low income students.
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They compare classrooms with 12 to 15 students with classrooms that had 21 to 25 students.
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We're at the end of this experiment, they found that the students in the smaller classes achieved higher test scores.
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From 2009 to 2013, a study of class size reduction by Michael Gilraine found that there was substantial improvement in student achievement in classes that were substantially lower.
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By the way, this study offers meaningful advice and strategies as to how we can achieve smaller class sizes in New York City.
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I can go on and on and show different studies that have been done in New York City Public Schools and strategies that have been suggested.
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However, I think, councilwoman, you know, that these strategies can overall improve the the impact in our students even today.
2:40:13
In reducing class sizes, we know that the knee there needs to be and investment in our schools.
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We need to invest in proprietary programs and impactful professional development for our teachers.
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We have heard the chancellor's announcement that they plan to open a $30,000,000,000,000 magnet school.
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Imagine that.
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We have $30,000,000,000 to open a new school, but not to invest in the ones that currently exist in order to achieve smaller class sizes.
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We need to stop the wasteful spending of creating new things while allowing the old things to go by the wayside.
2:40:51
We don't need a new magnet school program.
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We need an evaluation of the programs we currently have, the class sizes that currently exist, and invest at $30,000,000 in making those programs better and reducing class sizes.
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It is up to us everyone on this panel, all stakeholders, including the chancellor and the mayor, to realize that the importance of giving each individual child in this city, the individualized attention and educating them that they need and deserve will only be successful in our city.
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Let's stop crying poverty.
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Let's ensure that we provide the most critical important expenditure with the greatest return to the education of our children.
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We know better, so let's do better.