The New York State Comptroller just released an audit (pdf) showing that New York City has failed to comply with the state’s class size reduction program, despite getting $88 million a year, every year, to bring kindergarten through 3rd grade class sizes down to 20.
According to the Comptroller’s press release:
– The DOE provided 1,566 fewer K-3 classes than it should have under the law, based on the money it got from the state;
– Almost 60 percent of the city’s 13,287 early grade classes in the city had more than the state goal of 20 students;
– 21 percent of K-3 classes had 25 or more students
The Independent Budget Office (under its Education topic) made a similar finding back in September.
Yet the DOE, in a written response to the audit (Appendix B), blithely explains that they just count differently. They start at an average 25 kids per K-3 class, and using that baseline they have actually created more classes than the law requires.
As a kind of personal challenge, you could try to understand the DOE’s 11 single-spaced pages about how the city actually exceeded the program goal, but the Comptroller does not appear to buy it (Appendix C) and neither should anyone else. The bottom line is the DOE spent the state funds on something other than class size reduction, leaving 184,974 small children in classes larger than their taxpaying parents paid for.
