The controversial state law requiring New York City public schools to reduce class sizes across the board could become more problematic and reduce “equity” for the neediest students amid budget cuts proposed by Mayor Eric Adams, according to a new report.
“The state legislature did not provide funding to implement the mandate, so the city will have to find new revenue sources or reallocate existing funds,” says the analysis by the Urban Institute, an anti-poverty group.
The report says that without a change in the way funds are distributed, “funding equity”, which aims to direct a higher percentage of education funding to disadvantaged students, will be reduced.
Instead, more funding will go to public schools in more affluent white and Asian neighbourhoods, the report says.
“This additional cost [to reduce class sizes] would reduce funding equity, as measured by the average funding of schools serving low-income students compared to schools serving higher-income students,” the Urban Institute said.
“Under current school funding policies in New York City, the average low-income student attends a school with a per-pupil funding level that is 7 percent higher than the school attended by the average higher-income student. Adding the estimated cost of class-size reduction reduces this measure of funding equity to 5 percent,” the report adds.
“The costs would also reduce funding equity for students when funding levels are analysed by race and ethnicity. The average black student’s school currently receives 13 per cent more funding per pupil than the average white student’s school, and this would fall to 10 per cent. For Hispanic pupils, it would fall from 7 per cent to 5 per cent.
The lead researcher on the analysis questioned the wisdom of imposing costly class-size reductions across the board, rather than targeting reductions to the neediest students.
“I don’t think the research on class size is strong enough to support the state telling local schools what their class sizes should be. Instead, districts/schools should decide how to allocate resources between class size, teacher salaries, non-teaching staff, etc.,” Urban Institute Vice President Matthew Chingos told the Post on Sunday.
“If a state wants to pass a class-size law, it should target it at the most disadvantaged students if its goal is to close achievement gaps. That would be the sensible thing to do,” he said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature – after intense lobbying by the United Federation of Teachers – passed a law in 2022 requiring New York City schools to reduce class sizes to a maximum of 20 students in grades K-3, 23 students in grades 4-8, and 25 students in grades 9-12 by the 2027-28 school year. Adams fought to delay implementation.
The law will require up to $1.9 billion a year to hire additional teachers.
Fully implementing the class-size caps in grades K-5 under current school enrollment and programming would add an additional $2,625 per student in those grades, an increase of about 9 percent over current spending on those students, the report said.
The report says the Mayor and Council could level the playing field by implementing class size reduction through the Fair Funding Student formula, which takes into account factors such as poverty and the percentage of special education students.
“Under this approach, schools with a greater need to reduce class sizes would spend more of the additional funds for that purpose, while schools that already have smaller classes could use the funds for other purposes. But this would be more expensive than funding only the schools with the greatest need for class size reduction,” the analysis said.
Chingos made other suggestions that could curb compliance costs, such as using an average class size rather than requiring every classroom to meet the benchmark.
Albany could also amend the law to raise the cap on two-teacher classes by 25 percent – from 20 to 25 students in grades K-3 – which would cut the per-pupil cost of implementing the law by 54 percent, from $2,000 to $3,000.
by 54 percent, from $2,625 to $1,197.
The UFT defended the law, saying there should be no excuses for circumventing it.
“Every student in New York City deserves smaller classes – a reality that students in the rest of the state already enjoy. Just as it is the city’s responsibility to use the money the state provides to implement this law, it is also the city’s responsibility to fairly fund its public schools,” a UFT spokesman said on Sunday.
A spokesman for the city Department of Education and City Hall said the city is complying with the first phase of the law this year, which requires class sizes to be reduced in 20 percent of classrooms.
But DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer welcomed the Urban Institute report for highlighting the funding challenges.
“To fully implement this law, we need the resources to hire additional teachers and build additional classrooms – there is no magic pot of money available,” said Styer.
“The Urban Institute, the NYC Independent Budget Office, and others who have studied the data have shown that the costs associated with this law are large, will make our schools less equitable, and that the funding does not currently exist to implement the law – pretending otherwise does a disservice to everyone.”
State Senator John Liu (D-Queens), who chairs New York City’s education committee, said Albany had provided the city with the funding it needed to meet the lower class-size requirements this year.