Instructors Say Cuts May Undo Progress in Schools

The Chief-Leader/David Sims 'A CHALLENGE TO TEACH': Luz Minaya, a Spanish Teacher at I.S. 528, said overcrowded classrooms have made it more difficult 'to service the needs of the kids.'

As they descended on Washington D.C. last week to lobby for stimulus money that would bolster education, many city Teachers said that even before any cuts are made, their schools are being pushed to the limit by overcrowding and a lack of resources.

"My school is tiny; it's 270 students for 25 Teachers," said Luz Minaya, who teaches Spanish at I.S. 528 in Washington Heights. "Eighteen of those are in classrooms, the rest of them are not… there's 31-32 kids to a class. That's high, especially when you consider the size of the building, which is really small. With the kids, when you have 30 packed in a room, it's like, you can't move. That's a challenge."

Feeling Crowded

Ms. Minaya, an 11-year veteran whose compact-sized school engenders close contact with her students, said that the self-contained nature of I.S. 528 was "fortunate," but led to severe overcrowding issues. "We're just three floors, four classrooms per floor, so it's very narrow, space is an issue. I'm sure if they decided to increase the class size, it'd be very difficult for us," she said. "We don't have that many Teachers to start off with to service the needs of the kids."

Another concern at schools in tougher neighborhoods is that sizable numbers of new Teachers, especially those coming through the Teaching Fellows and Teach For America programs, are assigned to them in droves. "In my district, close to 50 percent of Teachers have between zero to three years of experience," said Ms. Minaya. "That's a major concern, because if they decide to get rid of first-year Teachers, you're talking about a lot of Teachers."

Tiffany Braby, who works at M.S. 319 in the same district and came through the Teaching Fellows program, agreed. "They recruit highly for those communities," she said. Ms. Braby, who teaches English as a second language and social studies to English-language learners, also said that schools with high numbers of ESL students were only staying afloat because of special funding.

Classes Doubled Up

"The research shows that in order to be an effective Teacher in an ESL classroom, your class size should be 12 to 15 students," she said. "The average ESL classroom in a bilingual school is 31, 32. I have 30 in each of my classes. It's really tough…but right now we have Title 1 funding that allows us to split our classes. We can do a 20-20-20 split, so that each Teacher has 20 students, instead of 30. We were able to hire extra Teachers to do that. With cuts, we're not going to have those funds."

Ms. Braby said that the smaller class sizes helped her differentiate between immigrant students who spoke English well and those who had almost no English at all. But while Title 1 funding helped in that regard, the school had other setbacks, she said. "We have no [resources]. Teachers are buying everything out of their pockets. We've asked the students to bring in reams of paper. We're in bad shape—we don't want to sacrifice the children for paper."

Barry Greenberg, who teaches at P.S. 126 in Chinatown, said that the issue of limited resources had recently come up at his school as well. "We make do; Teachers are resourceful," he said. "A lot of the little things that Teachers spend money on, daily things for their classroom, we ask the parents for it, that really helps a lot." Mr. Greenberg said that his class sizes were still within the legal limit of 24, but that just a handful of kids made the difference. "It's legal, but a class with 20 kids gets much better teaching done," he said.

One Chair Short

Carl Cambria of Wadleigh Secondary School in Harlem said that an addition to his class had made a crucial difference. "I have 31 students with 30 desks, so students are fighting over folding chairs," he said.

Phyllis Newman, a second grade Teacher at P.S. 215 in Gravesend, Brooklyn, said that not only were her classes crammed, but she and her colleagues were also weighed down with Department of Education-mandated paperwork.

"It is taking away from the education kids are getting. We're setting goals for every child in every subject, and all of this takes a lot of time," she said. "We'd like to go back to teaching, and not doing paperwork. Classes are so big now—28 to 29 kids in an elementary school classroom is outrageous."

With stimulus money apparently on its way to rescue city schools, Teachers may not have to fear further cutbacks. But the general feeling among educators who went to Washington seemed to be that while schools are staying afloat, more and more will be needed, on every level, to maintain and build on the gains that are slowly being made.