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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. When school starts up again in September, 72 schools in New York City will be taking part in a pilot program to test the effects of reducing class size. It's about giving kids a good education, not just socially distancing them because of COVID. Now, City Council Education Committee Chair, Mark Treyger along with some of his City Council colleagues has introduced a bill to mandate smaller class sizes city-wide by 2024. It's about public health, it's about reducing disparate outcomes, it's politically difficult, and it's expensive.

With us now is New York City Council Education Committee Chair, Mark Treyger. His own district covers Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Gravesend, and Sea Gate in Brooklyn. Councilman, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Mark: Great to be with you, Brian. Thank you so much.

Brian: Let's start with the current rules. How big could public school classes be in New York City pre-pandemic?

Mark: You know, Brian, this is interesting because we looked at the city administrative code to look at the occupancy space requirements inside of a school building. The first thing that really jumped out at us was that the last time this code has really been updated was around 1938 before the start of World War II. During that time, there were concerns around tuberculosis. Thankfully due to vaccines, they were able to really address that. I would argue that it's time to an update to this code, but that code talked about having around 15 square feet per student.

Currently, the DOE is using around 20 feet per student. This is for grades 1 to 12. Under my proposal that we've introduced to the City Council, we would update it to 35 square feet per student. The average classroom size physical space in New York City average is between 500 in square feet to 750 square feet, which would bring down the maximum number of students to around 14 students if you're talking about a 500 square foot space to around 21 students to 750 square foot. I do believe we need an update from 1938, Brian.

Brian: This is per square foot. This isn't a number of students per teacher, right?

Mark: Correct.

Brian: Because going into the pandemic at least, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, was it 28 max in the lower grades and 33 or something like that students per classroom in the upper grades?

Mark: 34 upper grades. I was a high school history teacher and 34 students were the max but at times due to overcrowding, I even had 40 students in a class sometimes. Yes, 34 for the upper grades, Brian.

Brian: Have there been specific rules for in-person learning during the pandemic that have brought those down to a number that you could state?

Mark: Brian, they talk about the three-foot rule and trying to apply the guidance from CDC and from public health experts. In reality, not a week goes by that I don't hear from a principal in New York City, not just in my district really, across the city that they are just not able to comply with this three-foot rule. It's not realistic. They don't have the space. The government is telling the public that we have all these health guidelines in place in our school communities, but there are still very packed classrooms. They're using hallways, they're using common spaces, art rooms, and so forth just to be able to accommodate the number of kids in buildings.

We need a plan, Brian, that the world has changed. We need a plan. We cannot basically dump this onto individual school communities to make miracles work here. Inevitably, right now we're dealing with the Delta variant. As we've heard from public health experts, there are more pandemics along the way. One of the challenges that we have faced during this entire pandemic for us in our school communities is the issue of class sizes, the issue of overcrowding. This is not a new problem for New York, we've been dealing with this for decades, but we need a plan finally in place to have a permanent solution to this ongoing challenge, Brian.

Brian: Before we get to the pilot program for this fall and your bill for permanent smaller class sizes, I'm curious if there is any data showing in-person students in these smaller class sizes during the pandemic are learning more or better than before. We talked so much about the challenges of remote learning. If small class sizes are a plus factor compared to normal times, are the in-person kids doing better than before? Is there data?

Mark: This is just happening. Obviously, there's a lot of data to still compile. I am arguing this point from a public health standpoint. I think the instructional benefits are a separate point. I can tell you, Brian, just as a former teacher, when you have a class of over 35 to 40 students, it is certainly a challenge to provide individualized, customized instruction to meet the needs of every kid. There are certain kids that need more support than others, you have a certain amount of time with them. It is a challenge during the course of the school day to do that.

My bill is more about the public health aspect here. Certainly, there's no question if you speak to educators. If you can reduce class size, you can provide more targeted, customized, personalized instruction to identify areas of weakness or areas of strength to build upon for students. I think that goes without question.

Brian: Listeners, if you have a question or a comment for New York City Council Education Committee Chair, Mark Treyger, on his bill to reduce class sizes in New York City, 646-435-7280. Teachers, is this the best route to public health protecting your students? Teachers, is this the best route to helping the largest number of your students succeed? Is this the best way to spend money to reduce racial disparities in educational outcomes as opposed to other things that the same money could be spent on in your experience as teachers? Parents, your questions or comments, welcome too. 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Councilman, how many teachers does the city employ today, and how many would it need to for the same number of students under your bill?

Mark: We have well over 80,000 -- it could be now somewhere close to 90,000 actually, Brian, educators in New York City. There's no question that we will definitely need to hire more teachers. As matter of fact, we just approved a budget where we provided over $605 million in fair student funding across our schools to get every school 100% fair student funding which are city tax levy dollars for schools to hire additional teachers, to hire additional staff. There's no question that under my proposal we'll need to hire more teachers. We'll also need to get more space.

I remember when the mayor was very ambitious about UPK and how are we going to accommodate the 70,000 or so kids that we're going to serve for early childhood program. The mayor moved heaven and earth to find space across the city. He respaced, he built out physical space to have an early childhood and a universal pre-K program in New York. When you want to do something, you can move heaven and earth to get it done. Under my proposal, this would be a three-year phasing with certain goals and targets to meet each year. I'll tell you this, schools now have added resources to hire additional staff, not just teachers but also social workers, counselors, art programs, and so forth.

This is a plan and I also plan to have a public hearing. I want to hear from public health experts. I want to hear it from education stakeholders, educators, and so forth. We need a plan, Brian. Right now, the plan in New York City and the issue of class size is to schools, you're on your own. Develop your own plan. That is not a plan.

Brian: It sounds like you haven't costed it out yet in terms of how many more teachers by the time this is fully implemented in 2024 it would take in the city and what that would cost the taxpayers?

Mark: During the course of our process in the City Council, you're in the course of a public hearing, we have finance analysts, we need to collect a lot more testimony. The number 35, just to give you context that we're using in terms of the square footage per student comes from the City Code when it pertains to preschool. Currently, for preschool children in New York, that is the rule. One person per 35 square feet. Interestingly, the City Code doesn't really mention furniture. It's not just people in a classroom, there's furniture in a classroom, we would actually update the code to reflect that there's actually furniture; there's desks, there's other items in a class.

The number 35 didn't come out of thin air. We use it for preschool. I think we need to apply the standard and then during the course of public hearings and testimony and hear from experts, we will certainly close this out. We also have federal money, Brian. We have billions in federal aid and there's a lot of money still unspent. We have more work to do here.

Brian: Crystal in Williamsburg. You're on WNYC with City Council Education Committee Chair, Mark Treyger. Hi, Crystal.

Crystal: Hi, thank you so much for taking the call. My comment is that I hear what the Councilman is saying that administration is being asked to do the impossible with the space that they have. I would like to say in my years of experience in the school system as various roles right now, I'm an assistant teacher. Immediately following the exposure about lead dust in the buildings, I've seen holes in pre-K classrooms covered over. I've seen administration discourage teachers from talking to children's parents; children who clearly have special needs. I've seen special needs students not getting designated services. I've seen --

Brian: Crystal, let me jump in. Forgive me, but just for time, I think you're driving toward a point here that says who's going to enforce this distance between kids? Are they ever really going to enforce it? Is that where you're going?

Crystal: Yes. Thank you very much. Just very quickly, one other thing is the question of cost is that we are constantly recreating curriculums. This one's best. No, this one's best. No, this one's best. It's obviously BS. They can't all be one better after another better after another better and a lot of waste goes into that BS.

Brian: Crystal. Thank you very much. Councilman.

Mark: First of all, I appreciate Crystal's service to our city. I want to begin by saying that. I would just argue that right now, we just don't even have a plan, Brian. You mentioned earlier on the show about the pilot. I was involved in pushing for class size reduction targets in New York where they selected 72 schools. I think that's just not enough, but I would also argue that this is about public health. The public needs to know that the last time the occupancy rules, with regards to schools, the last time this has been looked at or changed in any meaningful way was 1938 before World War II. It doesn't sit well with me.

As far as enforcement, you have mayoral control of the school system. If you have a mayor and a chancellor in administration, that follows the plan. They will move heaven and earth to make this work. The reality is, right now we have not taken this issue very serious. It is a serious issue, both in public health and the instructional benefits I think are separate, but also meaningful, important conversation.

Brian: This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York. WNJT-FM 88.1, Trenton. WNJP 88.5, Sussex. WNJY, 89.3 Netcom, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are in New York and New Jersey public radio, a few more minutes with the New York city Council Education Committee Chair, Mark Treyger from South Brooklyn with his proposal for a smaller class size law for New York City schools. By the way, because there isn't enough breaking news this morning, we've already talked about Mayor de Blasio announcing a vaccine requirement to get into performance spaces and restaurants and gyms that he's announcing today.

Apparently, the New York State Attorney General Tish James, is going to make an announcement momentarily about her findings in the Governor Cuomo sexual harassment investigation. That's according to the New York Times. We are on it and we will bring you full details and a deep analysis later in the eleven o'clock hour if she does, in fact, make that announcement at 11:00 AM, which it is right now, by the way, as expected. Stay tuned for that.

Tish James reportedly going to announce her findings in the Cuomo sexual harassment investigation momentarily. Councilman Treyger, we're getting news whiplash here this morning between COVID vaccine requirements, the Cuomo investigation, and reducing class size. On your class size bill, you've been emphasizing the pandemic-related public health aspects of distancing. Are you not also arguing the case that we've covered on this show and that educators have been having for year after year, that smaller class size is one of the biggest things you could do to improve educational achievement and reduce educational disparities by race and income?

Mark: Brian, again, I am a teacher at heart. I taught in our public school system, and to me, there is no question that class size reduction has critical, vital, meaningful, benefits for students and for learning. I'm looking at this issue now from a completely different lens in terms of public health because of the pandemic that we're in. As a matter of fact, there's been so much talk about class size reduction in terms of an instructional goal the state set aside money through contracts for excellence to target class size reduction. Everyone talks about it being such an important strategy, but it's really never been tried before in a holistic system-wide scale.

The point I'm arguing here today on your show is that from a public health standpoint, this is now an issue of necessity, not just about a learning objective. This to me, this is a public health crisis. If you look at other crises that we deal with when it comes to the issue of resiliency or sea-level rise, New York City had to update its Code, or in the process of updating its Code for elevations and so forth to deal with that. [crosstalk]

Brain: Right, but if this doesn't really fully kick in for three years, you have to assume, don't you? That we're not going to be in the pandemic forever. I know right now with Delta coming back just as we thought we were getting out of it. It may not feel that way, but presumably, COVID-19 is going to fade as a prime directive in our lives. We're going to have to go back to debating whether this is the best way to spend money for the best educational outcomes, as opposed to other things to help kids learn. Aren't we?

Mark: Brian, I want to share in your optimism that we can eradicate COVID and all of these variants as soon as possible. I think the variants at this point are here. We're dealing with Delta now, we don't know the next one. We also hear from public health experts. We even hear from the governor and the mayor talking about there are more pandemics along the way. My team and I, we looked at the City Code and we just look realized that this has not been updated since, again, 1938. We're now in the year 2021, the world has changed.

To me, it's about setting in motion a permanent plan for now and for the future, because inevitably, we will be dealing with pandemics again. To go to your point about instructional benefits, I've seen it firsthand, Brian. I've seen it firsthand where I had kids with IEPs or multilingual learners when I'm able to provide that personalized instruction to create more time. It does make a tremendous difference. I'm just putting on the table there's a major public health aspect here, not just the instructional benefits.

Brian: Debra in Woodside, you're on WNYC with City Council Education Committee Chair, Mark Treyger. Hi, Debra.

Debra: Hi, Mark and Brian there. I just want to call to say thank you so much for promoting this idea of 35 square feet per person. I will tell you from my experience as a parent and an advocate for getting school space to be built. It's so necessary. One of the things that I want to give a heads up on is that principals find that their schools get so overcrowded and so popular that they bow to the union rules of the ratio of teachers to students, but at times, they have also put in two classes in one classroom. From our kindergartener experience in 2013, we had my daughter in one classroom of 18 sharing the same classroom with her best friend in another class of 18, so with two teachers and two parents in the room.

It totally did not comply with building codes, occupancies and this is coming after Sandy Hook's massacre [crosstalk] that happened in Connecticut. As a parent, you want your kids to be able to get out of the building safe under all sorts of circumstances from health and mental health issues. It's good to have teachers in smaller classrooms so that they can focus on so many different types of learning --

Brian: Thank you, Debra, I'm going to leave it there for time. All great points. Thank you very much and I hear how important it is to you as a parent. Let's finish up on this, Councilman. On the educational benefits, I know it's a big priority of the teacher’s union and obviously, they would get easier lives a little bit presumably, and more employees presumably and of course, parents intuitively love the idea, too, of small class size. There was an article in Inside Higher Ed last year, and you can find other things like this that say the whole issue is still open to debate.

This Inside Higher Ed article, June 18th, 2020, headline Much Ado About Class Size, and it says, "There's now a body of literature questioning the link between small class size and student success. A new study of interactions between different class sizes and more than a dozen other variables within Temple University's general education program further supports this small ain't all argument. It encourages educational researchers to look deeper at the effect of class size on student success, and to the effect of peers as well as teaching methods, especially in an era of constrained resources." What do you say to that and wrap up with anything you want to say?

Mark: I appreciate the opinions on this. I'm just sharing with you on your show this morning my personal experience in the classroom. I taught students that were mostly a class of immigrant students and multilingual learners. I've taught students in ICT classes. I've taught the gamut. What I'll tell you, Brian, when I walk around the classroom, I see firsthand that I have students learning at different paces. I have students who have very different unique learning needs and learning styles. In my school, in particular, we had a 48-minute learning block a period and it is a challenge when you have over 35 to 40 kids in a class, stop what you're doing and make sure that the student is up to speed and making sure that you are addressing those very unique needs.

Kids are not robots, they're not sardines. They are human beings. They have different learning styles, there's different paces, there are kids who are maybe a bit more up to speed on math, and maybe not so much on writing, and so forth. We have to meet kids where they're at. That's how learning takes place and it is a major, major obstacle and challenge when you have a very large classroom size. I have argued that for years, Brian. We have had our school budgets shaped in a way where the needs of the kids should be shaping our budget but the reality of our budgets had been shaping school policy and school budgetary choices and decisions. In my view, this is a major school improvement and learning improvement investment that pays great dividends if we value and treasure learning in a class, Brian. If I'm able to sit down with my students and being able to actually address some of the areas of weaknesses to provide growth and keep working with them on it, that's a win-win for them, for the class, and for the city as a whole. It is a challenge when you have over 40 kids in a class.

Brian: Mark Treyger, New York City Council, Education Committee Chair, thank you so much for coming on and laying it out.

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