Monday, June 10, 2019

RALLY TUESDAY AT NOON AT CITY HALL FOR LOWER CLASS SIZES

This rally is mainly for the retirees and non-teachers among our readers.  ICEUFT blog supports the rally to use specific city funding in the budget to lower class sizes in September.


MEDIA ADVISORY



NYC parents, kids, advocates, union members and elected officials will rally for smaller classes  



WHAT: Parents, students, advocates, elected officials and union members will gather to urge the NYC Department of Education and the Mayor to allocate specific funding in next year's budget towards reducing class size. 



WHO: The rally is co-sponsored by Class Size Matters, NYC Kids PAC, the UFT, Local 372, the CSA, the Education Council Consortium, and many other parent and advocacy organizations.



WHEN:  Tuesday June 11 at 12 noon



WHERE:  Steps of City Hall in Lower Manhattan


WHY:  
Although the state’s highest court concluded in 2003 that NYC public school classes were too large to provide students with their constitutional right to a sound basic education, class sizes have sharply increased since then, especially in the early grades. More than 336,000 students were in classes of 30 or more this fall.  Reducing class size is also among the top priorities of parents on the NYC

Department of Education’s surveys every year. Yet the Mayor has allocated no city funding to reduce class size during his administration.





For anyone interested in our plan to start to lower class sizes on the cheap, continue reading.


Lowering class size long term would take a commitment from NYC in its capital plan to build more schools but short term much could be accomplished by changing the culture at Tweed.

1-Assign the ATRs to teach and there is a small reduction in class sizes right there.

2-Reassign to other city agencies 295 of the 300 DOE lawyers.

We have just added a thousand positions and probably saved money as the new teachers will cost less than the lawyers. I am just getting started as there is plenty of low hanging fruit.

3-For every school that has more than one assistant principal, reduce by attrition the number of APs.

4- Why do NYC schools need an Office of Special Investigations and a Commissioner of Special Investigations? Consolidate into one department. Office of Equal Opportunity could be moved here too.

5-Why do schools need superintendents and support networks? Consolidate into one and let Superintendents provide support to schools.

6-Quality reviews are double bureaucracy. Let Superintendents review schools. Save a little more. In fact, get rid of the entire data driven nonsense and put the amoney back to classrooms.

7-Go to everyone who is not in a classroom position at central, district and schools and ask: What do you do? We could cut many consultants and others and nobody would notice.

8-For real savings, incentivize lower class size for principals. Give a bonus for those who meet class size goals from c4e instead of test score results. Watch how fast class sizes lower even in large schools.

9-Make annexes for so called successful schools in underutilized buildings. Space can be more efficiently utilized for sure.

10-Ask retired teachers to come back. Tell them the atmosphere is now teacher friendly at the DOE. They did this for Carmen Farina to be Chancellor. Why not for teachers?

11-No expansion of pre k or 3k until class size issues are addressed k-12.

Except for the retirees who would probably not come back except for a few, I don't think we spent a dime and we just lowered class sizes.


2 comments:

A Voice from the hills said...

Moronic. Why hold a rally when the clearly effected can not attend. This is the sad and pathetic state of this union's leadership.

ed notes online said...

They can attend. That is why they picked this day to hold the rally.