The Class Size Controversy
Experts agree that smaller is better, but the city’s plan to empower principals is sparking debate
By Susan M. Sipprelle
Last year, when Leonie Haimson picked her third grader up from his first day of school, she asked his teacher how the day had gone. “Oh, it was OK,” Haimson remembered the New York City public school teacher answering, “but when I found out my class size this year, I cried.” There were 28 students in her third grade classroom. Haimson, founder of the nonprofit advocacy group Class Size Matters, wasn’t surprised by the teacher’s reaction.
“We’ve been fighting with the city about
class size for years,” she said. “New York
City has the largest class sizes in the state
and among the largest in the country.”
Although the city has reported a
decline in class size over the last five
years, average class size in any grade has
not dropped below 20 students. That’s the
point at which researchers begin to see
academic benefits, especially for younger
children, as well as immigrant and minori-
ty students. But despite studies showing
that smaller classes produce academic
gains, the tricky part of reducing class size
is getting it right when schools face real
world constraints, such as the availability
of qualified, experienced teachers and
adequate space to open new classrooms.
As the 2007-08 school year begins this
week in New York City for its 1.1 million
public school students, the subject of
class size looms large. New York City will
receive $3.2 billion from the state for edu-
cation over the next four years—about
$700 million for this school year—as the
result of the settlement of the 14-year
Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) law-
suit. Part of the money is supposed to be
used to reduce class sizes. The final exam
question hanging over this reallocation of
funds is: Will smaller classes be the
answer to boosting city students’ aca-
demic performance?

Class sizes much larger than 20 stu-
dents are commonplace for many city
schools. The twin sons of Patrick J.
Sullivan, an Upper East Side resident
who serves on the borough president’s
panel for educational policy, shared their
second grade public school classroom
with 26 other students last year. Seth
Pearce, 17, Dana O’Brien, 16, and Lorenzo
Mendez, 17, all seniors at Fiorello H. La
Guardia High School of Music and
Performing Arts on the Upper West Side
and members of the NYC Student Union,
said that their classes are usually 30 to 34
students in size. They said that their lab
classes sometimes swell to close to 40,
making it impossible for many students
to either see demonstrations or partici-
pate in lab work.
Research studies on the relationship
between class size and academic benefits
have generally shown:
• Class size should be fewer than 20
students to achieve academic benefits.
• Gains are highest in earlier grades,
kindergarten through third.
• Minority and immigrant students
show the strongest gains.
• Gains from smaller classes in early
grades last into upper grades.
“The most important thing in a stu-
dent’s education is a highly qualified
teacher, and the second most important
thing is a small class size,” said City
Council Member Robert Jackson who
helped initiate the long-running Campaign
for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. The suit charged
that the state’s method of allocating funds
for public education did not provide ade-
quately for New York City children.
Haimson, as both a parent and advo-
cate, faces her son’s new fourth grade
school year with trepidation because she
has been told that the size of her son’s
class will be comparable to last year’s
classroom of 28 children. She withdrew
her daughter, now a senior in a private
school, from the public school system in
seventh grade because she said her
daughter wasn’t getting noticed in overly
large classes.
Her unease about large class size is
widely shared by both the public and
teachers. A 2005 Newsday/NY1 poll of
more than 1,300 registered voters found
that class size was identified as the
biggest issue facing the city public school
system. The National Education
Association supports a class size of 15
students in regular programs and even
smaller in programs for students with
exceptional needs. The American
Federation of Teachers recommends a
class size between 15 and 19 students.
“If you want to help kids, you reduce
class size. Arguments against reducing
class size are hogwash,” said Randi
Weingarten, president of the United ers. “Some of those settings probably
weren’t very good learning environ-
ments,” said Aaron M. Pallas, professor of
sociology and education at Teachers
College, Columbia University. The result:
California’s class size reduction plan did
not yield the improved aca-
demic achievement that the
state had expected.
New York City Schools
Chancellor Joel Klein has said,
“Any fool can lower class size
by the numbers. The question
is, can you lower class size at
the same time you maintain
and improve teacher quality?”
The city took a stab at answer-
ing that question in a five-year
class size reduction plan it had to submit
to the state this past July. The plan had to
be aligned with the city Department of
Education’s capital spending budget in
order to avoid creating the same prob-
lems that arose in California.
But small class size advocates, who have
fought for reductions for more than a
decade, aren’t satisfied with the plan, which
relies on individual school principals to
allocate limited resources to create smaller
classes. They also wonder if enough new
space will be added to meet the demand
created by smaller class size requirements.
Still, the Department of Education has
defended its proposal.
“Principals are in the best position to
determine how to reduce class size in the
context of their schools’ overall need,”
Debra Wexler, a department spokesper-
son, wrote in an e-mail. She pointed out
that the city’s plan offers principals
coaching to help them make informed
decisions about class size reductions that
will balance the needs of students, as well
as the space, teachers, time and money
available in their individual schools.
At press time, the state had not yet
approved the city’s plan, although the
deadline was Aug. 15. State officials had
also requested more information from the
city about the plan’s details.
“We’re pleased that the state did not
rubber stamp the city’s plan,” said
Helaine K. Doran, deputy director of the
Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which con-
tinues to push for smaller classes. “It’s
critical to be on top of what’s being done
with the money,” she said, adding, “We
now have to be sure that the money is
being spent well and has impact.”
Pallas, of Teachers College, agreed
that the city’s Department of Education
hasn’t been clear about how much
money will get to schools and how those
funds will be spent. He also wonders if
the new influx of dollars, which is sup-
posed to be targeted at higher-
needs schools to avoid the prob-
lem of spreading the money too
thinly, will even come close to
being enough. “The city schools’
resource needs are so great,”
Pallas said, “that even the
Campaign for Fiscal Equity money
feels like a drop in the bucket.”

Meanwhile, this past summer
LaGuardia high school senior Dana
O’Brien got her first taste of smaller
class sizes. O’Brien, who has attended
New York City public schools since
kindergarten, participated in a program
at Northwestern University where class-
es were capped at 16 students. “I’ve never
been in classes with 16 students before,”
O’Brien said. “When there are only 16
kids, there’s no way to escape engage-
ment.”