New York Family: Does Class Size Matter?

Smaller Classes Are Becoming The Norm Across the Country — Except in New York City. What's the Hold Up?

By Nick Bedell and Larissa Phillips

Dilsea Pena was upset. The Bronx mother of a second-grader knew that PS 194, a school that opened in 2003, had its growing pains. But, when she heard that her daughter's classroom was hosting two classes, separated by a room divider, she made an appointment to visit. "I wanted to see if they could overhear the other kids," she said. What she discovered was unsettling.

A class of 28 children was on one side of the room, and 27 on the other. A room divider separated the two groups. Children were reading aloud with their respective teachers. Others were meeting with ESL tutors inthe same room. "The day I was there, there was this enrichment program," Pena says. "Half the class was taking ESL. The other teacher was telling this teacher to lower her voice. It was unbelievable."

Pena's subsequent efforts to address the problem of 55 second-graders in one room?mirror the efforts of parents and educators throughout the city who have tried to address the problem of crowded classrooms. She appealed to the principal, the?parent-teacher coordinator, the regional superintendent, even the fire department, citing safety issues when the classroom had a hard time managing fire drills. Almost everyone she spoke to referred her to someone else or simply refused to get involved. "They suggested I transfer to a private school," she says.

It might be easy to dismiss Pena's experience as a rough story from an economically struggling borough. But, in Soho, a world away from the Castle Hill section of the Bronx, mother Karen Romeo is also upset. "My child has 33 children in her class," she says. "Next year, the class is going to have 36 children. The principal is being forced to take these children. This makes it extremely difficult, no matter how good the teacher is."

Romeo, who otherwise considers IS 89 a great school, had to hire a math tutor to keep her daughter from falling behind. "Frankly," she says, "in a room full of 33 children, how can the teacher see if a child is getting it? It's physically impossible."

Thousands of parents throughout the city are coming to the same conclusions that Pena and Romeo have: The city's classrooms are overcrowded and something has to be done. But, as they have learned first- hand, recognizing an issue is just one of many battles in the war to improve the city's schools. And, the obstacles along the way come from some surprising sources.

Smaller Class Benefits

Research is almost unanimous in its conclusion that reducing class size has significant benefits. A recent study released in the Journal of Educational Psychology concluded that small class size in elementary school increases the likelihood that children will graduate from high school. The study, which tracked nearly 5,000 Tennessee children, found that there was an 11.5 percent increase in graduation rates. When the study looked at low-income families, the effect was even more pronounced, with graduation rates nearly doubling.

"There's so much research and evidence out there to support the impact of smaller class size on student achievement," says Jan Atwell of New Yorkers for Smaller Classes. "The children who benefit the most are the children with the greatest needs."

Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters agrees. "Kids who were in smaller classes did better in every possible way that could be measured." Quoting a U.S. Department of Education study in recent testimony before the City Council, Haimson observed that, "After controlling for student background, the only objective factor that correlated with higher student success was class size -- not school size, not teacher qualifications nor any other variable that the researchers could identify."

Educational research teems with literature about small class size. Parents talk about it. Schools build their reputations on having it. At least 32 states in the U.S. have made it law. Gifford Miller, Speaker of theCity Council, has launched a campaign called 17 Seats, a plan to lower class size across all grades. Organizations as varied as Central Brooklyn Churches, People for the American Way and United Federation of Teachers have joined coalitions to advocate for it. But, if it is such a widespread concern, with so much research supporting it, why is it not universally supported? And, why is New York City lagging in adopting the kind of charter amendments that other school districts have?

The Issue Heats Up

People have been complaining about the city's crowded classrooms for decades. The city has the largest classes in the state and some of the largest classes in the nation. Only half of the city's children graduate from high school. For decades, the city's underfunded, overcrowded classrooms have been a factor in many families' flight for the suburbs.

There is nothing new about these facts, but recently, the issue seems to have rushed to prominence in the city, for several reasons. Most important is the fact that the city has money coming its way. Several years ago, the Campaign for Fiscal Equality (CFE) brought a lawsuit against the city. New York state's highest court, in a 2001 landmark decision, ruled that the state had been depriving New York City schools of their fair share of funding -- and children of their constitutional right to an adequate education. The state was ordered to pay $5.6 billion to city schools, plus $9.2 billion in capital funds for school facilities. These funds are expected to begin flowing in the next year or so.

For the last several months, the City Council has been holding hearings to figure out how best to implement the CFE funds. Hoping to strike while the iron is hot, small class size advocates have put forward a ballot initiative that would revise the city's charter, mandating smaller classes and requiring that 25 percent of the CFE money be dedicated to class size reduction. (As of press time, the current administration's proposal is that 2 percent be dedicated to reducing class size.)

Perhaps most important, though, is the fact that the charter revision would make class size a matter of law, not budget. It is just such a mandate that, in part, makes the issue controversial. As Carmen Farina, Department of Education's Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, has said, "I believe school leadership teams make better decisions than legally imposed mandates."

Benefits of Larger Schools

While Farina acknowledges the value of reduced class size, she is not in favor of across-the-board reductions. "It is not by accident that some of our best schools have larger classes," she said in her testimony to the City Council. She went on to describe her experience as Principal of PS 6 on the Upper East Side: "I knew that every child who enrolled in my non-Title 1 school brought dollars with them. By increasing class size by even one student across all my classes, I could increase my budget enough to add another out-of-classroom position to bolster my enrichment offerings or offer specialized intervention services. Classes got larger ... but learning got deeper and richer." (Critics of Farina's testimony contend that PS 6 was a highly-rated school in a moneyed zone, and that schools in higher- income neighborhoods can withstand the stress of larger classes.) Further, Farina pointed out, "We do not have the space in many of our schools to reduce class size."

Same Old Problem

Space, it turns out -- of course, in New York City -- is the most ticklish issue. Any system-wide reduction of class size will require the city to find or create more classrooms. Finding classroom space in New York's overheated real estate market is an enormous challenge for the Department of Education, and, at least initially, would require tough choices for every school. Opponents of the mandatory reductions imagine computer labs and art rooms being lost to create extra classrooms, and students being turned away from their zoned schools.

Jan Atwell is not deterred. "It's not all about building new buildings," she says. "Some of it is additions, annexes or a floor up on top. Leasing is another option that is underutilized." She also suggests resurrecting decades-old strategies such as requiring that new developments incorporate space for schools into their plans, in return for tax benefits. Office buildings, too, are able to -- and many do -- make room for schools. "There are solutions out there," she stresses.

Losing Teachers

In her testimony to the City Council, Carmen Farina expressed another common concern: finding experienced teachers to fill these new classrooms. "We often struggle to find quality teachers in the numbers needed in some of our struggling schools, in special education and bilingual classes and in specialized programs such as gifted and talented," she said. She referred to a statewide program in California that "resulted in an exit of qualified and certified teachers from the poorest districts where they were most needed."

Leonie Haimson calls the worry about finding and keeping qualified teachers a "red herring." She notes that "follow-up studies in California show that the percentage of certified teachers in high-needs districts rose, and transfers to affluent suburban districts declined." She believes the same will be true for New York City teachers whose primary complaints, when surveyed, are small salaries and high class size.

Jan Atwell adds that class reduction is a reform that should go hand in hand with other reforms. "Paying teachers well is one of them," she says. But, she adds, "The research has shown that, regardless of teacher quality, when you reduce the class size, the students gain. It makes a good teacher better."

Losing Support Staff

But, even some teachers are opposed to mandatory reductions in class size. As Farina pointed out, fewer children means fewer dollars, which can result in reduced support staff for teachers. "Some teachers are worried about losing specialty teachers," says one elementary school teacher. "They would rather have a slightly larger class with more support staff." It is true that, at least initially, schools might lose support teachers such as reading specialty teachers or conflict resolution teachers. But, cluster teachers and other support teachers would remain, as would the contract-mandated break times for teachers.

Jan Atwell questions why New York City cannot have both support teachers and smaller classes. "We should not have to make those Hobbesian choices," she says. "Outside of New York City, they have both. We've proved in court that the city is being shortchanged. We should be able to have both."

Mandatory Reductions: Yes or No?

If this issue seems like a maelstrom of opinions and politics, with different factions shouting out slightly different solutions, that's because that's exactly what it is. Just about everybody involved, from parents to teachers to principals to politicians, wants New York City schools to be better, even to be excellent. Everyone wants to make the achievement gap -- between

"The evidence is not clear on any other issue," says one parent-activist, mentioning past strategies such as vouchers and charter schools. "It is clear that reducing class size leads to enormous gains. It's the oneintervention that evidence shows makes a difference."

This fall, proponents of mandatory class size reductions will be fighting to keep the charter amendment on the ballot. It was kicked off in 2003, the last time it came up. With money coming this way, and the schools still bursting at the seams, the stakes could not be higher, for the schools, for the city, for the kids.

It's an issue that all New Yorkers should sound off on, regardless of their preferred strategy. As Karen Romeo puts it, "The country began with the very new and revolutionary idea that children deserved to go to school. I don't think it's any less vital today. We're leaving our children with a lot of problems to solve. Are we going to leave them these problems without an education?"

Nick Bedell is an adult educator in New York City. Larissa Phillips is the editor of New York Family.