Report: NYC class sizes still too big, ten years after historic court ruling
$3 billions still owed to city
Class sizes in New York City public schools are now the largest in fifteen years, exceeding the levels ordered in a 2003 court ruling, according to the Education Law Center, a public interest law firm specializing in education.
In the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) ruling, the New York Court of Appeals ordered New York State to provide funds to city schools to reduce class size, reasoning that overly large classes impair children’s ability to learn. The court noted, “The number of children in these straits is large enough to represent a systemic failure.”
According to the Education Law Center, in 1998, over half of New York City students in kindergarten through third grade were in class sizes of 26 or more and “tens of thousands are in classes of over 30.”