TESTIMONY
Navid Hassan on Proposals and Impacts of Reducing Class Sizes in NYC Public Schools
3:08:16
·
162 sec
Navid Hassan testifies on the importance of reducing class sizes in NYC public schools and the impacts on student welfare, education, and socioeconomic integration.
- Hassan, a parent and co-chair of the budget subcommittee, discusses a comprehensive report on reducing class sizes across the system by fall 2028.
- Highlights include the systemic benefits of smaller classes, such as making schools more attractive to parents and improving socioeconomic integration.
- The testimony stresses the need for proper funding for class size reduction law implementation.
- Hassan also emphasizes the struggle of schools in maintaining viability with low overall enrollment and how smaller classes can help address the educational needs of students in temporary housing.
Navid Hassan
3:08:16
Thank you.
3:08:17
Thank you, Chair Rudy Joseph and City COUNCIL MEMBERS FOR HOLDING THIS VERY CRITICAL HEARING FOR THE WEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS.
3:08:24
MY NAME IS NEVIR DASAN.
3:08:25
I'M A PARENT OF TWO KIDS.
3:08:26
At an Uptown Title 1 public school.
3:08:28
I also served on the NYC Public Schools class size working group as cochair of the budget sub committee.
3:08:34
We spent 9 months with dozens of colleagues working on a comprehensive report detailing proposals to help reduce class sizes across the system leading to full implementation by fall 2028.
3:08:44
I want to highlight a few aspects of class size and its impact on the ability for the system to work and teachers to do their jobs well.
3:08:52
1, It has often pointed out that many high need schools already have small classes.
3:08:56
The law is therefore somewhat redundant.
3:08:58
I don't agree.
3:08:59
However, what is what what isn't captured in the simplistic view is that many of these high need schools are only incidentally in compliance whether due to under enrollment or lack of demand due to parent choice.
3:09:09
It is unclear how these school budgets are viable in the long term with their schools too low overall enrollment and inability to attract more students.
3:09:17
Under fair student funding, per per student funding determines overall school budgets to the greatest extent.
3:09:23
We have to look at how to support the smaller classes and not just say that they're small right now.
3:09:29
2, we hear a lot of coverage on this issue that many high need schools already have smaller classes.
3:09:35
And that in complying with this law, we will be very inequitable because a small minority of slightly wealthier schools are over that are overcrowded benefit the most.
3:09:43
I want to point out that as a public school system in comparison to non public education, the public system is much poorer overall.
3:09:49
Almost 90% of our public schools are fed old title 1 high poverty schools.
3:09:54
This is a system wide economic and poverty.
3:09:57
We need many, many more of our schools to be in greater demand reducing socioeconomic segregation across the city schools.
3:10:03
Reduced class sizes, as known to the public, will create more attractive school choices for parents when they think about where they want to send their children.
3:10:11
Long longitudinal studies on economic mobility all show that early socioeconomic integration is the most impactful factor in accelerating upward movement for children in later life.
3:10:21
3.
3:10:22
There are well more than 115,000 students in temporary housing, including approximately 35 and newly arrived immigrant students.
3:10:29
Almost every one of these children are highly traumatized, and there's absolutely no way to appropriately serve these students under the old maximum class sizes.
3:10:38
I wanna stress here how much more of a difficult time our public schools have presented to them as opposed to local private schools where they have luxurious small classes of 8 to 12 students.
3:10:48
We must make sure to properly and completely fund the implementation of this class size reduction law to allow public schools to offer effective and more attractive school choices for all families.
3:10:58
Thank you.