Sign our petition against any more charters that will take space from our public schools!

In NYC, our public schools are increasingly overcrowded, a crisis made worse by the insistence of the NYC Department of Education to continue placing charter schools in our district school buildings. This has led to class size increases, the loss of art rooms, science labs, libraries, and preK programs, as well as special needs children receiving their services in hallways and in closets in our district schools.

NY charter authorizers will be voting in the next few weeks on several charter schools, whose founders have stated that they intend to be located inside our already overcrowded public schools.

Please sign our petition to urge the the SUNY board of trustees, the State Education Department, and the Board of Regents, along with their advisers, not to approve any more charter schools in NYC, unless they have a plan to be located in their own space, separate from our existing infrastructure.

The petition is here, and when you sign it, it automatically sends an email to the above decisionmakers. Please also feel free to adapt the message however you like. Thanks!

Send a message to the Regents about harmful changes in special ed

The Board of Regents are considering adopting a number of "cost-savings" changes to special ed, including increasing the number of special needs students that can be enrolled in CTT or inclusion classes.

More and more in recent years, DOE is pushing students with disabilities into these classes, with no evidence that that they will meet their need for extra attention and support.

Right now, there can be only 40 percent sped students in these classes. CTT classes are already too big in NYC schools, even with two teachers; they are allowed to be as large as regular gened classes, with as many as 25 students in Kindergarten and up to 34 students per class in high school.

The ARISE coalition has written a letter to the Regents, pointing out how many of the proposed changes will be harmful. Among their comments:

...no studies have been conducted or offered to demonstrate whether the current ratios and class size limits for integrated co-teaching are even effective and whether students with disabilities in those settings are making the educational strides anticipated. How can NYSED propose altering those ratios and limits without conducting such research?

Not surprisingly, Chancellor Klein supports these changes.

Send a message to the Regents now; let them that these proposed policies are simply unacceptable. You can find their contact information here.