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Top state and city education leaders raised serious doubts about whether New York City schools will be able to meet the mandates requiring them to reduce class sizes.
New York State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa and New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels testified Thursday at a hearing held by state legislators in response to the executive budget Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed last week.
Both officials said that the city would need a significant increase in funds, building space, and teachers to meet targets in a state law that requires schools to limit classes to between 20 and 25 students, depending on the grade. The law mandates that 80% of classes meet the limit next school year. State officials can withhold funding if the city’s Education Department fails to comply with the law.
The class size law, which was enacted in 2022 with a five-year implementation plan, requires city schools to ensure that the number of classrooms meeting the mandate increases by 20% each year.
New York City met this year’s target of 60% compliance, but only after declaring thousands of classes exempt from the cap, a Chalkbeat analysis found. The city spent approximately $450 million on a teacher hiring spree this fall to help meet that target.
“We are going to have a major difficulty getting to 80%,” Rosa said.
The city would need $602 million annually to hire 6,000 additional teachers on top of its standard annual hiring needs, Samuels told legislators. Even with that funding, there are not enough teachers in the workforce pipeline to meet the mandate and achieve the state’s class size goals, he added.
In addition to hiring more teachers, officials previously projected that the city would need to spend up to $18 billion on construction to create space for additional classrooms.
Samuels told legislators the city was looking for ways to better utilize existing school space, including by merging schools that have underutilized space with those that are overcrowded. The chancellor also said that of the city schools that don’t have enough space to meet the mandates, 25% need just one to four additional classrooms. So there may be solutions that don’t require new construction.
In response to legislators’ questions, Rosa repeated her previous concerns about the class size law’s unintended negative consequences for high-poverty schools. A 2023 Chalkbeat analysis found that because poorer schools already have smaller class sizes, they stand to benefit least from the cap. When there are hiring sprees, high-needs schools are also at risk of losing teachers to schools with more resources.
If new construction is targeted in neighborhoods with the highest enrollment, lower-income districts could lose out, Rosa said.
Beyond the class size cap hurdles, Rosa and Samuels also raised concerns about the state’s Foundation Aid formula, which accounts for the majority of education spending. Because of changes made to the formula last year, New York City lost out on $314 million it would have received without the changes, Samuels said. Barring legislation that would tweak the formula again, the city will take a similar hit this year.
Samuels called on the state to adjust the formula to provide additional funds for students in temporary housing, English language learners, and students with disabilities, as well as better accounting for the higher cost of doing business in expensive districts like New York City.
Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.
