CLASS SIZE MATTERS URGES US TO CALL LEGISLATORS ON CLASS SIZE; WHERE IS THE UFT PUSH?

This email came yesterday from the Executive Director of Class Size Matters, Leonie Haimson, asking us to  call legislators to get class size reductions from Contracts for Excellence in the state budget.

James,

1. In 2018, nine parents, Class Size Matters and AQE sued the Department of Education to force them to lower class size and abide by the Contracts for Excellence (C4E)  law.   We are now preparing to file an appeal in the case. Yet the NY Senate and the NY Assembly in their deleted any mention of C4E or NYC’s obligation to lower class size from their one-house budgets. If this language is absent from the final budget, our lawsuit is dead.

On Monday we traveled to Albany along with NYC Kids PAC, urging key legislators to ensure that the C4E language is restored in the final budget where it belongs, along with more education funding.

Please call your legislators today and urge them to put C4E back into the budget. You can find your Assemblymember’s phone number here and your Senator’s phone number here.  But please do this today!

Here’s the script: “I urge you to restore the Contracts for Excellence language in the state budget, including NYC’s obligation to lower class size.”  A memo on our lawsuit is here.

After you call them, please fill out this 30-second form to let us know who you contacted so we can follow-up.I 

2.  On Saturday, I appeared at an Education Town hall in Jackson Heights Queens with assorted luminaries, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Diane Ravitch. Videos of this terrific event are here, including my five-minute presentation on how class size must be lowered to provide true equity for NYC students, and how you can help make sure this happens.

But please call your legislators today!

Thanks, Leonie

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters

Why isn't the UFT hitting us with texts, emails and phone calls urging us to bombard the State Legislature with phone calls to make sure the lower class size numbers from C4E are in the state budget? I have an answer.

I believe the UFT is really aligned with education reform with the exception of vouchers (public money to attend private schools). I recall AFT President Randi Weingarten back when she ran the UFT even said the union is open to any reform idea except vouchers.

Go down the list of  some of the education deform ideas and look at the UFT positions:

Rate teachers based on student assessments: ✔

Charter schools: ✔  (UFT even opened two of them.)

Common Core: ✔ (President Mulgrew once threatened to punch anyone who messed with Common Core.)


Standardized tests for students every year: ✔

Oppose or say nothing about parents opting students out from state testing: ✔ (If UFT supported and encouraged opt out in NYC, test and punish education reform would probably be dead in a year.)

Class size doesn't matter: UFT does give lip service to lower class sizes but when it comes to mobilizing members to actually fight for lower class sizes, it has been years and years since the Union has done anything.  NYC still has the highest class sizes in the state. I think we can give a ✔ here too based on lack of action. Wait, we did get labor-management committees on class size in the new contract. We shall see where that goes but they are trying to get maximum class sizes down to 34 in high schools and they are mostly dealing with schools that flagrantly defy the contact's already too high limits.

The evidence on education is there: The UFT is pretty much still aligned with the corporate wing of the Democratic party. We are the strongest union still clinging to major parts of the corporate reform agenda.