Editorials

Another mammoth exercise

Oct 5, 2006 5:29 PM

It’s not as bad as it was in 1996; it’s not even as bad as it was just two years ago. But by any measure, more than 6,000 classes that are over the maximum class size two weeks after school started is, well, more than 6,000 too many.

Schools have 10 days at the start of the school year to remedy the problem. There shouldn’t be a problem in the first place, since the UFT contract clearly spells out the class size caps for each school level. But all right, there is some confusion at the start of school, there are unexpected over-the-counter registrations and other administrative crises, so that 10-day grace period is appropriate to make corrections. This year, according to the UFT’s analysis of school registrations, some 2,000 classes that were over the contractual cap were, indeed, reduced. That’s good, but that’s not enough.

So the union has filed grievances under the expedited procedure that was initiated in 1996 when there were more than 17,000 class-size cap violations. And it went public to call attention to the ever-present problem of classes that are just too large. (They are too large even when they comply with the contract, which is why the UFT and its parent and community group partners have been working to get smaller classes mandated by law — but that is another story for another time.)

Surprisingly, a spokesperson for the Department of Education called the UFT’s figures “unreliable,” and maintained that the “vast majority of initially oversized classes were addressed during the first two weeks of school, as they always are.” Surely the DOE has access to the same registration figures in the schools that the UFT has from school secretaries. So this attempt to blow smoke at the public, rather than cooperating in the effort to reduce the oversized classes, is not encouraging.

Yes, this is a contract issue, but more importantly, it is an education issue. Classes that are too large do not serve students well. Teachers are overwhelmed and cannot provide students with the kind of individual attention they need and deserve. Kids feel lost in the shuffle. Look at the story on page 2 about the protest at the Taft HS campus where students joined educators on the picket line. “How would you like to have to share a desk with someone?” was a sign one youngster carried.

Newer teachers, especially, feel swamped — and let’s remember that a third of all the teachers in the system today are relatively new. See the comments in the “New Teacher Diaries” on page 35 where one confessed: “It’s an awful thing to say as a teacher, but for my own sanity and for the benefit of my students, I almost hope that half my students don’t show up.”

More than 8,000 oversized classes two years ago, more than 5,000 last year and the 6,000-plus this year: Is the school system making progress? The vast majority of class-size grievances are invariably arbitrated in the union’s favor. But we shouldn’t have to go through this mammoth exercise year after year. Smaller classes — and certainly class sizes that do not violate the contract — should be high on everyone’s agenda. We call on the DOE to collaborate with us on this.