Some Progress Made
UFT: Many Schools Still Overcrowded

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Two reports on class size released in late September showed some improvement in the most overcrowded high schools but sluggish progress in the lower grades.

RANDI WEINGARTEN: Quantity affects quality.

The United Federation of Teachers' annual class size survey documented 4,303 classes that exceeded the union's contractual limits of 32 students in elementary school classes, 33 in middle schools and 34 in high schools. The number of overcrowded classes was down by 31 percent compared with last year, but the data shows that more than 120,000 high school students are still in classes with 35 or more students.

DOE: Slow But Steady

A separate study by the city's Independent Budget Office used Department of Education statistics to document minimal progress in reducing class sizes in kindergarten through 8th grade. DOE officials maintained that they were making slow but steady progress. More than 22 percent of students, or 297,000, sat in classes with 25 or more pupils last year, a decline of 0.6 percent from the year before.

UFT President Randi Weingarten noted that more than 60 percent of kindergarten through 3rd grade classrooms exceeded the state's early class-size standard of 20 students.

"There is universal agreement on class-size reduction in the early grades," she said in a statement. "The question is, why is it not happening for all the city's students in kindergarten through third grade and how do we make it happen?"

Give 'Subs' Classes

One suggestion from the UFT is to utilize the Teachers who are currently assigned as permanent substitutes to form new classrooms in schools where there is heavy overcrowding. Most of those Teachers, known as absent teacher reserves, lost their jobs after their schools were closed or student enrollment dropped significantly.

DOE officials asserted that class sizes in lower grades have been dropping since Mayor Bloomberg came into office, and on average are nearing the 20-student mark. In 2002, kindergarten through 3rd grade classes averaged 22.1 students; last year that average dropped to 21.1, according to the Mayor's Management Report.

Last year the city received $107 million in Federal funds and $88.8 million in state aid for reducing class sizes in kindergarten through 3rd grade. DOE officials said they used the money to create more than 1,600 new classes.

State Questions Claim

But a state audit in 2005 disputed past claims by the DOE that it created so many new classes, charging that it was using money to fund classrooms and Teachers that would have been created regardless. For example, during the 2004-2005 school year, DOE officials claimed they created 1,586 new early-grade classes, but the state audit authors disagreed and found that the city created 1,566 fewer than it should have by law. The State Comptroller, whose office performed the audit, also asserted that the total number of new early-grade classes peaked during the 2000-2001 school year before Mr. Bloomberg took office, when 896 new classes were created.

The UFT's own report, however, focused on the largest classes, those with more than 32 students, and found the bulk of them in the upper grades. Queens and Manhattan were the hardest-hit, with 1,630 and 1,065, respectively. Francis Lewis, Bayside and Richmond Hill high schools, all in Queens, had the most violations. Citywide, there were almost 3,200 high school classrooms with 35 or more students.

The union also reported that 196 classes in the early grades packed in more than 32 children.

UFT officials have filed grievances over each classroom that is above the contractual limit, as they do each year.

"When Teachers have 150 to 170 students a day, they are limited in terms of the attention they can devote to each student," said Ms. Weingarten. "We should add enough educators to keep class sizes manageable so that students as well as staff can benefit."