Letters 98
EPP March 1998 Letter on the Class Size Reduction Initiative and Special Education Reform

March 13, 1998

Hon. Rudolph W. Giuliani
Mayor of the City of New York
City Hall
New York, NY 10007

Dear Mayor Giuliani:

On behalf of our member organizations, we would like to congratulate you on your re-election to a second term. As you may know, the Educational Priorities Panel is a coalition of parent organizations and civic groups that work together to monitor the impact on New York City public school children of budget decisions at the federal, state, and city levels.

In looking forward to the negotiations over the state budget, we want to draw your attention to two important proposals that could dramatically improve the educational outcomes of New York City students, reassure both small and large employers that they will have a competent local labor pool in the future, and help to retain working class and middle families in New York City. The Panel would like to meet with you or a member of your staff as soon as possible to discuss these two issues at greater length:

I. Reduction of Early-Grade Class Sizes
State funding to reduce class sizes in kindergarten to third grades, scheduled to be allocated in the 1999-2000 school year, provides a direct and tangible benefit to students and teachers. Two research studies, one conducted for Tennessee and the other by the Educational Testing Service, show a powerful relationship between student achievement and class size. EPP members strongly believe that class size reduction is a real step forward for public education in the city. The state’s plan, if embraced by your administration, could be the beginning of a turnaround in the public’s perception about city schools, similar to the turnaround in the perception of public safety. EPP does not underestimate the difficulties of implementing class size reductions in New York City, but it will also be a "dress rehearsal" of the positive changes that will come about should the Campaign for Fiscal Equity law suit succeed. It will be proof to state legislators that New York City will direct additional state funds to classrooms for direct benefit to children’s learning. The Panel has these specific recommendations:

Begin the implementation of class size reductions in the 1998-99 school year for all SURR schools, most of which are underutilized. We urge you to support this limited phase-in of class size reductions for schools on the state’s list of "Schools Under Registration Review" because studies show that smaller class sizes increase the efficiency and effectiveness of teachers. These young children should be given help to raise their academic achievement levels as soon as possible and cannot wait three years until their school is taken off the list or reorganized. Since New York City has 98% of the state’s SURR elementary schools, moving up implementation for these schools will mean that the city’s most vulnerable and needy children will get the additional instructional resources they desperately need to help them learn. Since most of these schools are not overcrowded, the requirements for additional resources for capital repair, leasing, or modular classrooms will be lower.

Support the Board of Education’s concept of providing additional state funds to build Early Childhood Centers for children from pre-Kindergarten to third grade. Because these new schools are smaller than elementary schools, they can be built for less money and in a shorter time period. There also might be a possibility of finding more appropriate leased space for these smaller schools. As presented by BOE, these Centers will help solve the challenges posed by Universal Pre-Kindergarten and the Early Grade Reduction Class Size programs as well as serve as a location for providing family social and health services. In other states, these types of centers have proven successful in the integration of family services and the elimination of duplication. Early-grade schools have already proven to be very popular with New York City parents. Another advantage for the creation of these Centers is that overcrowded community school districts, such as those in Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and the Bronx will be able to fully benefit from the state’s class size reduction initiative.

Begin a coordinated plan as soon as possible to create school building capacity to accommodate the additional classrooms needed to meet the targets for class size reductions in the years 1999-00, 2000-01, and 2001-02. Our assumption is that Board of Education officials are already in the process of assessing these needs in formulating the BOE’s five-year capital plan. We ask that you consider increasing funding for the next capital plan. But given the high debt burden of the city, the Panel also urges that the Board of Education and the city look at ways in which student overcrowding can be reduced through better use of school buildings. In some community school districts where residential patterns have changed, underutilized elementary and middle schools could be consolidated, freeing up buildings for conversion to small high schools to alleviate high school overcrowding. Conversely, in other areas dysfunctional high schools could be converted into several small middle schools to relieve overcrowding in the lower schools. The high school "choice" system should be perceived as a method for providing more flexibility in the configuration of schools.

II. Special Education Reform EPP
would like to point out that special education funding reform and reduced class sizes are interrelated. If more special education students are to be integrated into general education classrooms, there will be justifiable resistance by parents if class sizes continue to be high, especially in the early grades. In turn, the successful inclusion of more special education children in general education classrooms will also free up classroom space. Even more important, data on class size reductions in Tennessee show that fewer children were referred to special education from smaller classes. These quantifiable cost savings in Tennessee’s pilot projects resulted in the statewide implementation of smaller classes in the early grades.

The Panel has long shared your goal of reforming special education. Last year, the Panel strongly supported the NYS Board of Regents’ proposal that school districts receive funding for special education based on naturally occurring ratios of children with disabilities, which they suggested be estimated at 12% of a school district’s enrollment. The Regents also proposed an index for poverty that would supplement this funding for districts with at least a 20% poverty rate. Both of these reforms would have been advantageous to New York City, since our school district has a lower proportion of students in special education and high poverty rates. For reasons that we do not fully understand, the Governor’s proposal for special education reform would have disadvantaged the New York City school district.

With the passage of the reauthorization of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1997, the possibilities of securing special education funding reform in New York State have been improved. EPP has reviewed this year’s Regents’ proposal and supports the overall concept and two specific proposals: 1) additional state funding for pilot programs in 100 school districts (including community school districts) to encourage lower placement rates and less segregated classrooms and 2) additional state funding for services in all school districts to prevent unnecessary referrals to special education and to provide services to children without classification, called "Prevention and Support Services Aid." However, we were also taken aback by significant changes in the Regents’ reform proposal. Instead of phasing in school district funding for a naturally occurring student disability ratio of 12% over a four-year period, the Regents’ are now proposing a seven-year implementation period. Starting in the 2001-2 school year, 20% of a school district’s special education funding would be based on total student enrollment and its poverty index. By the seventh year, all school district special education funding would be based on student enrollment (85%) and poverty rates (15%). While last year’s proposal would integrate general and special education funding, this year’s proposal would retain two different funding streams. The new formula is merely a method of allocating special education funds. Since so much of current special education funding is on a reimbursement basis, we have some difficulty figuring out the consequences of an annual appropriation for special education. The Panel urges you to ask your budget staff as well as the task force on special education reform to review this new funding formula as soon as possible to evaluate its implications for the New York City school district and whether it meets your administration’s goals. Our concern is that this proposal will be adopted by the legislature to meet the IDEA deadlines before it is fully understood. This concern has been heightened by our discovery that there is such a rush to achieve an early agreement on the state budget that there has not been much discussion of these changes in the Regents’ proposals.

We will call your office next week to see whether a meeting with you or your representative can be scheduled. We want to know your administration’s position on the Regents’ special education funding reform proposal before we urge other civic groups to support this state initiative.

In closing, the Educational Priorities Panel would like to thank you for the Preliminary Budget proposals adding another $25 million for arts programs in the schools and providing $7 million in funding for additional instructional services for students in their fifth, sixth, and seventh year of high school.

Sincerely,
Marilyn Braveman, Chairperson
Noreen Connell, Executive Director

CC
Deputy Mayors Segarra, Levine, Mastro, Washington
Peter Powers, Task Force on Special Education
Herman Badillo, advisor to the Mayor on education budgeting
Robert M. Harding, Intergovernmental Affairs
Joseph Lhota, Office of Management & Budget
Chancellor Rudy Crew

 

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