Mike keeps fiddling as class size soars

By Juan Gonzalez

When my youngest daughter Gabriela started kindergarten last September at the Amistad Dual Language School in Inwood in upper Manhattan, there were only 16 children in her class.

Within a few weeks, class enrollment had swelled to 25. As I drop Gabriela off at school each day, her room feels more crowded, her fellow pupils seem more restless, her warm-hearted teacher - the children all call her Luci - looks a bit more frazzled.

Forget all the nonsense you've heard about what ails our public schools.

Good education begins with class size.

The smaller the class, the easier it is for teachers to teach and for children to learn.

This has been proven over and over again, yet Mayor Bloomberg, who fancies himself the education mayor, can't seem to add two plus two.

Our mayor spends all his time trying to give away hundreds of millions of dollars to the Jets for a Manhattan stadium that is sure to make fellow billionaire Woody Johnson even richer.

But when it comes to reducing class size - which affects the future of a million children - Bloomberg screams we can't afford it.

Why can we afford money for a private stadium but not for smaller classes?

This week, a new long-term study that tracked thousands of children in Tennessee concluded that low-income students who are placed in smaller classes from kindergarten through third grade, reduce their high school dropout rate by half.

Nearly two years ago, the state Court of Appeals - in deciding the landmark Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit - ruled that state officials failed to adequately fund a decent education for New York City public school pupils.

In its decision upholding a lower court ruling, the Court of Appeals made clear that, "holding other variables constant, smaller class sizes in the earliest grades correlate with better test results during those years and afterwards."

From kindergarten through third grade, the courts found more than half of New York City schoolchildren are in classes of 26 or more, and tens of thousands are in classes of more than 30 - excessive class size that affects learning.

But it's not just the state that failed to fund city schools properly. The courts also found City Hall underfunded its public schools for many years, when compared with school funding by other municipalities in the state.

The courts have repeatedly ordered that billions of dollars in additional funding be given to city schools by the state Legislature. Anyone who has studied those rulings knows that a sizable portion of that extra money will have to come from the city.

Proper funding for city schools is the huge elephant in the room that Bloomberg, Gov. Pataki and the state Legislature keep ignoring.

It's as if they think it will magically go away.

The city has been getting $88 million a year in state money to create 1,500 new classes in lower grades. Bloomberg's education team claims they've met that goal, but the city's Independent Budget Office says the number was closer to 500 last year.

In his proposed budget for next year, Bloomberg has not set aside any new money to reduce class size.

City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, on the other hand, wants to provide $200 million next year and $400 million the year after specifically to lower average class size from kindergarten to third grade to 17 pupils, and slightly higher in the later grades.

Miller, one of the Democrats running for mayor, would pay for the smaller classes by retaining a surcharge on personal income taxes for the small number of New Yorkers who make more than $500,000. That surcharge is set to expire this year.

Miller sees it as part of the downpayment for money the city will have to pay anyone in the school lawsuit.

Another Democratic mayoral candidate, Fernando Ferrer, has proposed bringing back a transfer tax on Wall Street stock sales to provide additional money for city schools and to cut class size.

Without top-quality schools to educate our children, more middle-class families will keep fleeing to the suburbs, and too many of the city's young will be condemned to dead-end jobs.

Someone tell this mayor that thousands of smaller classes all over this city are worth more than a big Manhattan stadium.

Originally published on May 12, 2005