New York State is mandating smaller classes in its schools, but that may not benefit those most in need, especially in New York City.
The new law says by 2028 classes must be limited to between 20 and 25 students depending on the grade. In New York City this may actually result in an exodus of teachers from poorer schools.
“What we found is that the highest poverty schools are the most common source of those teacher transfers,” said Matthew Chingos of the Urban Institute, who studied the likely fallout from the mandate. “So when you have transferring happening within the system it’s contributing to those higher attrition rates, those higher turnover rates at higher poverty schools,” he said.
Chingos said since wealthier schools tend to have more students, they will need to hire more teachers and may get them from poorer schools.
He said the mandate is a mixed bag. “We have to confront these different tradeoffs,” said Chingos. “If I want smaller classes I have to pay my teachers less. Or if I want smaller classrooms for the main academic subjects I might have to fire my social worker and my guidance counselor. And so these are the tradeoffs that New York City is now confronting because of this mandate,” he said.
“An unintended consequence of these mandates is it makes it much more difficult for principals to manage their own schools,” said Chingos, “because in the past 21 kids in a second grade class was okay since you don’t want to have to hire a third teacher and fire your social worker. But now the state’s coming in and saying, no, you do have to pick someone else to get rid of because you have to create this third classroom.”
City officials say they’ll need to hire at least 10,000 new teachers, at a cost of up to $2 billion.