The Class Size Scandal

My daughter has 32 kids in her class this year. I’m not panicking.

I have been somewhat hesitant to post this one because I feel like it’s courting controversy, but here goes…

No school year starts without some kind of scandal, and this year at PS6 it’s about my daughter’s class size. Enrollment and DOE funding converged in a way that put 32 kids in every second grade classroom.

Parents are, to put it mildly, irate. Of course big classes aren’t unusual in New York City schools, but 32 far exceeds the roughly 25 kids per class we’re used to, and it is way more than what the state’s new class size mandate allows.¹ I get why people are concerned. They worry about how their kid will learn in a classroom that’s loud and crowded, and they don’t trust that the teacher will be able to give the students personalized attention.

At the same time, I think the panic is overhyped. PS6 has so many resources that most schools don’t, and the principal has developed a strong plan to support the kids. Here’s how I’m thinking about it.

Some backstory: In 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Class Size Reduction Law, capping New York City public school classes at 20 kids in grades K–3, 23 in grades 4–8, and 25 in high school. Initially, full compliance was expected in the 2027-28 school year, but that quickly proved unrealistic (more on that soon), and the deadline was pushed to 2029-30.

The class size mandate followed years of advocacy by the UFT, who argued, reasonably, that smaller classes support both teaching and learning. The Education Law Center called the mandate a long-overdue step toward the “sound basic education” promised by the state constitution.

However, when the state passed the mandate, they didn’t say how to pay for it. In order to meet the caps citywide, the DOE needed to hire over 10,000 teachers and build hundreds of new classrooms. By 2025, the city had spent $137 million, which may sound like a lot, but it was really only enough for about 1,300 teachers. Few schools received enough funding to create new classrooms, and many actually saw their budgets shrink. Even the UFT, the mandate’s biggest champion, admitted that the law’s future depended on staffing, space, and money that the school system didn’t have.

That shortfall launched many heated discussions about trade-offs, and it became clear that enforcing compliance would result in unintended program cuts. Which, like, duh. Why is this a surprise? Resources are always finite, so we need to think about how to get the biggest bang for our buck. Unfortunately, the evidence for small classes is less compelling than many assume.

To be fair, smaller classes do help. Teachers can better differentiate instruction, manage the classroom, and get to know each kid. But benefits have to be weighed against what they cost, and a recent-ish high-quality literature review suggested that class size effects, while real, are modest and expensive, so class size reduction efforts should be targeted at disadvantaged schools rather than applied as a rule everywhere.

Also, teacher quality is far more important for student achievement than class size is. And, though nobody has done a direct comparison, it seems logical that a low student-to-teacher ratio would provide many of the same benefits as a small class, for way less money. So, rather than adding classes, we could spend money on teacher training and hiring additional staff who can pull small groups within the spaces we already have. PS6 is already doing basically that. We have amazing teachers and low ratios. Between the head teachers, the paraprofessionals on staff, and the associate teachers funded by our PTA, my daughter has five warm, skilled adults in her classroom this year.

And finally, though it’s tempting to storm the superintendent’s office and lobby our state assembly members, this is (thank goodness) not going to be a particularly compelling political cause. The truth is we are so fortunate, and the DOE has bigger fish to fry. Let’s remember that, no matter our class sizes, PS6 is a high-performing school in a wealthy neighborhood. Even when the DOE shortchanges us on funding, we have in spades the things that predict outcomes more than almost anything else: high socioeconomic status and lots of social capital.

So, as I continue to watch our grade WhatsApp chat, I want everyone to take a deep breath and remember: we already have amazing teachers, we have one of the lowest student-teacher ratios of any public school in the city (besting even many private schools!), and our kids have every advantage a high-SES zip code provides. As key stakeholders, we want funding to go where it will get the biggest return on investment, and that is (bites tongue, knocks wood) not reducing class sizes at PS6.

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Instead of a video, I’d like to share the information about my book launch! Please join me on October 13 at the JCC!

1. It’s worth keeping in mind that PS6 hasn't received any funding from the DOE to reduce class sizes, so we're not required to comply this year.