HOCHUL NOW SUPPORTS LOWER CLASS SIZE BILL, BUT...

 Feedspot, where we are on the list of top 25 NYC Education blogs and websites (readers, your tons of comments, even with me insisting you stay close to the topic, should move us higher than 15 on the list), sent me to a very good Chalkbeat article covering Governor Kathy Hochul's appearance on the Brian Lehrer show. Hochul now is inclined to sign the lower class size bill for NYC, but...

Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Thursday that she supports sweeping legislation that would establish more aggressive class size limits in New York City’s public schools, the strongest comments she’s made since the bill was overwhelmingly passed by the legislature last month. 

“I’m looking closely at it. I’m inclined to be supportive,” Hochul said on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, adding she spoke yesterday with Mayor Eric Adams and expected a resolution in the coming days. “I just have to work out a few more details with the mayor.”

The Adams administration has opposed the bill, warning that the legislation would cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year to implement and could detract from other funding priorities. Hochul suggested that funding was a sticking point and is considering “chapter amendments” that would allow the legislation to go into effect now but with changes that would be taken up by the legislature next year. 

“There might be something about a funding source or a responsibility that’s, you know, on the shoulders of the state right now — and I have to make sure I’m protecting the state taxpayers as well,” Hochul said. “So there are some loose ends, but philosophically it’s something I’m supporting.”

The bill would cap NYC public school class sizes at 20 for grades K-3, 23 for grades 4-8, 25 for most high school classes, and 40 for performing arts and phys ed. There are some exceptions and it would phase in through 2027. Only four state senators and two assembly members voted no so it has overwhelming support in the State Legislature but Hochul hasn't acted yet mainly we believe because of opposition from Mayor Eric Adams.

However, perhaps Tuesday's Senate primary election results in New York City are helping to persuade the Governor that she should sign the bill. Ross Barkan reports that progressives may not have done too well in congressional primaries (see conservacrats Dan Goldman and Sean Patrick Maloney winning and leading progressive Alessandra Biaggi losing badly) but in the State Senate, progressives did just fine. We reported on Robert Jackson's win on Wednesday over a conservacrat candidate who had a six-figure salary at the UFT. That is just one of the many left victories in the Senate.

From Barkan:

But down the ballot, in the State Senate primaries held across New York City, there was plenty of good news for progressives and socialists. The left possesses much more clout in Albany than at the national level, and after some impressive electoral performances Tuesday, there will be three members of the Democratic Socialists of America in the New York State Senate come 2023.

Kristen Gonzalez, a tech worker from Queens, beat back Elizabeth Crowley, a former city councilwoman and the first cousin of Joe Crowley, whom Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vanquished in 2018. AOC joined DSA in backing Gonzalez, who had to contend with Crowley’s heavy spending and outside PAC support. The real-estate industry, traditionally a powerful force in Albany, also invested in Crowley to little avail: Gonzalez won easily, 58 percent to Crowley’s 33 percent, in a newly carved Queens-Manhattan district.

One socialist incumbent, Jabari Brisport, obliterated a primary challenger, Conrad Tillard, who was endorsed by Mayor Eric Adams and funded in part by major players in the real-estate industry. Tillard’s history of antisemitic and homophobic remarks surfaced in the primary, probably contributing to his decisive defeat. Brisport broke 70 percent, a huge number that illustrates DSA’s growing popularity in the central Brooklyn district. Julia Salazar, another socialist Brooklyn senator, ran unopposed. Just south of Salazar and Brisport’s districts in Brooklyn, DSA came tantalizingly close to electing another socialist to the State Senate. In a three-way contest, David Alexis took 38 percent of the vote against Kevin Parker, a moderate state senator with a history of controversy; Parker finished with only 46 percent. Had another relative progressive, Kaegan Mays-Williams, chosen not to run, Alexis may have been heading to Albany next year.

Two progressive non-DSA state senators also thwarted challengers to their right. Although he’s not a self-identified socialist, the Bronx’s Gustavo Rivera has usually aligned with leftists in the State Senate, carrying a bill to create a single-payer health-care system in New York and loudly opposing centrists such as Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor. Running in a redrawn district, Rivera appeared doomed when the Bronx Democratic Party and the growing political machine cultivated by Adriano Espaillat, a more moderate representative, endorsed an attorney named Miguelina Camilo. Ritchie Torres, a young Bronx congressman who has clashed with New York progressives over the past few years, also endorsed Camilo, as did Adams. Most significantly, perhaps, major real-estate and charter-school super-PACs spent furiously to try to undercut Rivera, a pro-tenant and pro-labor lawmaker, as much as possible. But Rivera had Ocasio-Cortez in his corner as well as WFP and SEIU 1199, the powerful health-care-workers union. In the end, despite the daunting coalition aligned against him, he won 52 percent to Camilo’s 47 percent. Rivera will probably draw only closer to the left after surviving such an onslaught.

Barkan then covers Jackson's victory and his final sentence of that paragraph says it all: 

Insiders predicted Jackson would lose; instead, he crushed Vasquez 58 to 33. Given his margin of victory, Jackson will be further incentivized to work with progressives in Albany. Real-estate and charter lobbyists may not get their phone calls returned.

After Tuesday's victories for the left, progressives may not be in the mood to have their class size bill altered by Hochul. Senator John Liu who is the main sponsor of the bill to lower class size in NYC reacted to Hochul in the Chalkbeat piece:

“The governor should sign the bill now since the school year is about to start, and as is since the bill was passed nearly unanimously by both chambers of the legislature,” state Sen. John Liu, the legislation’s main sponsor, said in a statement. Asked about the governor’s suggestion that the bill be tweaked, a spokesperson for Liu wrote in an email that “the legislature can easily override a veto and therefore would not be inclined to accept the governor’s request for a chapter amendment.”

Elections do have consequences, ladies and gentlemen. Sometimes they are actually positive.