TESTIMONY
Steven Stowe on the Proposed Amendment to the Class Size Law
3:38:42
·
4 min
Steven Stowe presents a compromise on the class size law, advocating for its amendment due to potential negative impacts on specialty classrooms, immigrant families, and educational equity.
- Stowe proposes extending the implementation of the class size law to 10 years, applying it only to grades K-3, and focusing on schools in dire need.
- He voices concerns about the loss of specialty classrooms and the displacement of students from their preferred schools.
- Stowe highlights the challenges immigrant families may face due to the distance to underutilized schools and the disproportionate effects on under-enrolled schools with lower academic performance.
- He draws parallels with California's experience, arguing for a phased, targeted approach rather than a broad implementation.
- Stowe stresses the need for a more deliberated law reform to ensure educational equity and address the varied needs of New York City schools.
Steven Stowe
3:38:42
Good afternoon, chair of Joseph and other members.
3:38:46
My name is Steven Stowe.
3:38:47
I am President of Community counsel in district 20, and I served on the class size working group as well.
3:38:54
After hearing a lot of opposing comments here today, it's no secret that this is a controversial I'm very proud of a possible compromise from our CDC that I feel could bring many of the groups here today together.
3:39:06
In January, our CDC approved a resolution by a vote of 8 to 1 calling on the state legislature to amend the class size law.
3:39:13
We are asking for implementation to be extended to 10 years from 5 years to only implement the law in grades K33 in line with the actual research that has been conducted And finally, in line with many of the comments that have just been made, recommend only implementing the law in schools which need it most.
3:39:30
Those are that are both low income and lower academic performance.
3:39:35
That's our CDC's position.
3:39:36
The remaining comments are my own.
3:39:39
I've spoken to many principals about this.
3:39:41
They have the data.
3:39:42
They know the impact the law will have on their school.
3:39:44
Painful trade offs are about to occur.
3:39:47
The first casualty many principals tell me will be the specialty class rooms, art rooms, dance rooms, music rooms, make our labs, greenhouses.
3:39:55
Billies will all be repurposed into general education classes, but it doesn't solve the problem at many schools in my district.
3:40:02
For these schools, it will be time to tell many families owned for their school that they can no longer attend.
3:40:07
In comparison to the very powerful United Federation of Teachers, I want to uplift the voices of parent stakeholder groups, especially parents of kids not yet in the system, but who have moved to a school zone they like.
3:40:19
In the next few years, many of these parents are going to be informed that cannot attend their local school, but instead must go to another school.
3:40:26
And it's not as simple as simply opening new programs in nearby underutilized schools.
3:40:30
In districts like mine, over 75% of schools are over the In many cases, the closest underutilized school is miles away.
3:40:38
This will be especially difficult for many working immigrant families whose children are brought to school by grandparents.
3:40:44
Another group of stakeholders that gets hurt very badly by this law are students and schools which have lower academic performance.
3:40:50
Many of these schools are also under enrolled.
3:40:53
It couldn't be more simple.
3:40:54
If these schools are under enrolled, they will see very little benefit from a law designed to send more teachers and build more schools in the over enrolled areas.
3:41:04
Teachers throughout the city will transfer to districts in Northeast Queens South Brooklyn and Staten Island.
3:41:10
Left behind will be Central Brooklyn and the Bronx.
3:41:13
If you care about educational equity and if you care about focusing our resources on students with the highest academic needs, you should be very concerned about this law.
3:41:22
California tried class size reduction years ago.
3:41:25
They later gave it up.
3:41:27
A consortium of policy think tanks evaluated the program and wrote the following, quote, implement of CSR occurred rapidly, although it lagged in schools serving minority and low income students due to lack of space.
3:41:38
They also said, Our analysis of the relationship of class size to student achievement was inconclusive.
3:41:44
They also said, class size reductions associated with declines and teacher qualifications and a more inequitable distribution of credentialed teachers.
3:41:52
They also wrote classroom spacing dollars or taken from other programs to support CSR.
3:41:57
The Public Policy Institute of California writes that learning gains were wiped out by the decline in future quality.
3:42:02
They recommend, quote, a better approach to class size reduction would have been to reduce class sizes in a subset of schools each year starting with low performing schools serving high poverty populations.
3:42:13
This would have limited the departure of teachers for newly created jobs and suburban schools, lessen the overall competition, and reduce inequality and academic perform performance.
3:42:22
This is exactly what we're recommending in our CEC 20 resolution, a careful phased approach.
3:42:29
I'll skip to the end.
3:42:30
Thank you.
3:42:32
I just want to point out some of the political context.
3:42:35
This law was passed very quickly in 2022.
3:42:38
With no hearings or deliberations like we're having now.
3:42:40
I believe previous speakers have mentioned that.
3:42:43
It relies on a very popular policy, but was written with no consideration of the practical impact on New York City schools, with the evidence strongly mixed on class size impact and significant financial and operational complexities.
3:42:54
The only responsible course of action is to reform the law take a phased approach.
3:42:58
I ask for your support to lobby Albany to reform the law.