Please send a message to contractsforexcellence@
Class
sizes are now the largest they have been since 2007 in grades K-3, and
are larger than they were when the state’s highest court said our
children were denied their constitutional right to an adequate education
in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, in large part because of
excessive class sizes. In addition, we believe that there is $180
million missing from the city’s CFE plan, compared to the $531 million
allocated by the state for this purpose.
We now have powerpoints showing the rise in class size in your district’s
schools, as well as other information how the city has failed our
children. (If you don’t see your district, just email me at info@classsizematters.org and we will send it to you.)
So
far, four different Community Education Councils have passed
resolution, protesting the increase in class sizes and DOE’s violations
of law: District 1 in Manhattan,
Districts 20 and 21 in Brooklyn, and District 30 in Queens. Some of
these call for City Council hearings and others for State hearings on
the matter. If you would like a sample resolution for your CEC or PTA,
let me know; the one just passed by CEC 21 is here; CEC 1 is here.
Again, the deadline for comment is tomorrow night Wednesday, Nov. 23, and DOE is supposed to send all the comments to the State Education department along with its proposed C4E plan. It is important that the state Commissioner know how dissatisfied parents are with the Bloomberg administration’s dereliction of duty to our children.
A
sample email is below; feel free to change it in any way you would
like. Do it for your child, and/or all NYC public school children.
And then have a happy Thanksgiving.
Thanks, Leonie
As
a parent, I would like to protest that class sizes have now increased
four years in a row, citywide and in my child’s school, despite the fact
that the city was mandated to reduce class size in all grades starting
in 2007. This is the final year of the city’s five year class size
reduction plan, and class sizes in the early grades are now the largest
in eleven years.
DOE has failed to allocate a single penny specifically towards class size
reduction and instead has cut repeatedly cut school budgets, even when
they received millions more from the state in C4E funding and overall
education aid. The city’s refusal to reduce class size has severely damaged my child’s opportunity to learn.
[optional: My child is in [ fill in name] school, in district [fill in number], with a class size of x in [fill in] grade. ]
The state should immediately
force the city to revise its Contract for Excellence proposal, by
allocating the $180 million missing from the plan that the state
provided, and use it to hire more teachers. The state should also
implement a corrective action plan that would require the city exercise
proper oversight and start reducing class size, instead of continuing to
slash school budgets, eliminating thousands of teaching positions and
wasting precious education dollars on failed programs that do not help
our children learn, like more testing, technology, consultants and
bureaucrats.
Otherwise, the state as well as the city will have failed to do its duty by NYC’s children.
Yours sincerely,
You name, child’s school and district
Email address
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on the right for important bits.
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