Leonie speaks with Carol Burris, the executive director of the Network for Public Education, who explains how the new federal regulations will help minimize waste and fraud of charter school funding. Then she interviews Jabari Brisport, a former New York City public school teacher, who was elected to the New York State Senate in 2020, who explains why he ran for office and how parents can help ensure that the class size bill is signed by Governor Hochul.
NPE reports on the fraud and waste involved in the federal charter school program are here and here.
A third NPE report details how many for-profit management companies evade state laws banning for-profit charters.
Washington Post What the Biden administration’s new rules for charter schools say
Letter to Gov. Hochul from over 35 elected officials and advocacy groups, urging her to sign the class size bill.
Petition to Gov. Hochul , signed by more than 8,000 of her constituents.
You can also call her office at 518-474-8390.
Leonie Haimson, The moment to cut class size is now, Daily News oped.
Talk out of School Podcast 7.9.2022
53:21
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Charter Schools, State Education Department, People, New York City, Bill, Students, Regulations, Grants, School, Education, Mayor, Teacher, Class, District, State, Year, Funding, Public Schools, Charter, Run
SPEAKERS
Host Leonie Haimson, interviewing Network for Public Education Exec. Director Carol Burris, and NY State Senator Jabari Brisport
Leonie Haimson00:00
Hello everyone, my name is Leonie Songhai Welcome to our show Talk out of School on WBAI radio 99.5 FM, and wbai.org, where we focus on issues affecting public schools here in New York City, the state level and nationally. Our show is also available for download as a podcast.
Today we have two wonderful guests, Carol Burris, the executive director of the Network for Public Education, who is an expert on the waste and fraud involved in the federal funding of charter schools, and who has good news to report as regards this issue. M
My other guest will be Jabari Brisport, a former New York City public school teacher, who was elected to the New York State Senate in 2020. And took office on January 1 2021. He'll tell us why he ran for office, what he's achieved so far and why he's supporting the class size bill that passed in early June, but that the governor still hasn't signed.
But first some education news. Governor Hochul signed the bill renewing mayoral control with a few minor tweaks, but so far has refused to sign the accompanying class size reduction bill, which was passed at the same time, which would obligate New York City to phase in smaller classes over the next five years. Her Failure to do so is despite the fact that the class size bill passed with an even greater supermajority of the legislature than the mayoral control bill and a petition we posted with over 8000 signatures from her constituents urging her to do so. There was also a letter from over 35 elected officials, including state legislators, city council members, and Congressman Jamaal Bowman, asking her to sign that bill as soon as possible, as well as 1000s of phone calls to her office.
Yesterday, the mayor said he is in negotiations with the governor to change the bill so that he can focus his efforts instead on lowering class size and struggling schools. But if that's really his aim, I wonder why he's cut the budget for nearly all New York City schools for next year, including hundreds and hundreds of struggling schools, which will cause class sizes to increase sharply instead of decreasing. Moreover, if we really want New York City schools to be world class in quality and start attracting more families to enroll their kids, or persuade them not to move to the suburbs or put them in charters or private schools, we have to offer them an incentive and there's nothing more discouraging to parents and to hear that the class sizes in their children's school will go up to 30 or more next year, including in the early grades.
As one parent put it on Twitter, “I've been told to expect a class of 32 for my son's first grade experience in September. That is insane. One more reason to consider relocating my family out of New York City. How many straws until the camel's back breaks.”
When campaigning for the continuation of mayoral control. Mayor Adams argued that this would ensure mayoral accountability, but with the savage cuts to school budgets, which will inevitably cause class sizes to increase. One wonders where the accountability really lies. I'll put links to news articles about the mayor's comments on the class size bill and the budget cuts. He's enacted in the resources section of WB AI and the podcast.
Leonie Haimson03:06
Now I'd like to introduce Carol Burris, the executive director of the Network for Public Education and an expert on how much of the millions of dollars spent by the federal government on charter school expansion has been subjected to rampant waste and fraud and how the government is now taking steps to minimize this for the future. Full disclosure: I'm on the board of NPE, which was founded by Diane Ravitch in 2013 and which works to support our public schools. Carol, welcome to talk out of school.
Carol Burris03:35
Thank you, Leonie. It's so nice to be with you today.
Leonie Haimson03:38
First, can you tell us what the federal charter school program is when it started? How many charter schools have been funded through the program and what the problem with the program has been in the past?
Carol Burris03:49
Sure, I'd be happy to the federal Charter Schools Program began shortly after charter schools began in the late 1990s. I believe it was 1995 was the first year of the program. And it started out very, very small. It was there were grants that were made to states and then the states would take money from those grants to provide seed money to start charter schools. What's happened though, over the years, because of the charter lobby, the program has expanded to a $440 million a year program that has a variety of aspects. There are still the state grants, but now there are also grants to charter management organizations to individual charter schools. There are facilities grants, as well as other grants to supplement the work of for nonprofits that want to support charter schools. And over the years, what's happened to that's very concerning. Is that the regulations became looser and looser.
So that, for example, you had to be an authorized charter school originally, in order to be able to get the money. But that changed so that even people who just want to start a charter school, without even having a charter can now tap into those funds. In addition, what happened was it used to be that only state education departments could get the funds, and unless they brought in that, so that if the State Education Department says, you know, what, we have enough charter schools in the state, we're not going to apply for the grant, a nonprofit can swoop in, get the money and start charter schools, in terms of how many charter schools have actually gotten the money, that really is hard to say, because the record keeping in the beginning was absolutely atrocious. It wasn't until about 2006, that the department started keeping good records. But we know now that approximately 40% of all charter schools that start now to get CSP grants.
As to the question of waste, it's been horrific. We did a report in 2019, actually, two reports. And we estimated that a billion dollars have been spent on charter schools over the years that either never opened up, or that have since closed, the Department of Education, also recently did a study and they looked at charter schools that never opened, or charter schools that opened and shut down before they even spent the money in the grant, which means in less than the first three years, and they found 100, hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on even that small sector of the charter school population.
Leonie Haimson07:09
And do we know what happened to that money? I mean, is it possible for people to say they're opening a charter school, get the money and then run away with it?
Carol Burris07:18
Yeah, actually, it is Leonie. I mean, because we looked, we did a deep dive into how the money was spent in the state of Michigan, thanks to the help of the President of the Michigan State Board of Education, because Cassandra Ulbrich, who now is also a member of the NPE board. But even prior to that she was investigating it. And what she found was that people were creating invoices and paying themselves as well as a lot of the money going to the same vendors for things like buying six laptops. Now, I have no idea why anybody would need six laptops, in order to be able to open up a charter school. But that's what would happen. And then the charter school would never get authorized, and that money would not be returned.
Leonie Haimson08:15
So, your NPE reports really brought a lot of attention to the issue of the waste and fraud associated with this program. And alerted I think the general public as well as the media and the and the Department of Education itself to many of the problems associated with it. So, I heard that they proposed regulations recently to try to cut down on this waste and fraud. Can you explain what the initial proposed resin regulations said?
Carol Burris08:48
Yes, the first group of regulate of changes, I'll put them into sort of three buckets.
Carol Burris08:56
The first was for charter schools that want to get CSP funds to have to do what they called originally an impact analysis. And that was about proving that the charter school itself would be needed. And there were several aspects of that. One of the aspects was they had to do an enrollment analysis. And that had to report what the charter school enrollment was going to be, but also what was happening with the district enrollment. Another aspect was they had to make sure that their charter school was not going to increase segregation in the district. And that entailed having, providing what they thought the demographics of their district of their charter school would be around race and socioeconomic status, and also what the demographics of the district would be
Carol Burris10:00
around race and socioeconomic status, then they also had to do things like hold public hearings and provide a lot of information about what the charter school would be and who it would serve. The second bucket was around for profit charter schools or charter schools that are run by for profit organizations. And that involved reporting lots of reporting on if your charter school was going to be run by a for profit, who are your board members, who the owners of the for profit, we're, who they're different, who the different vendors would be information regarding the real estate companies assurances that the for profit organization would not have a contract whereby it would just roll over without affirmative action of the board, and other assurances, as well as regulations.
And finally, there was an assurance that the for profit would not fully or substantially control the nonprofit charter school. And then the third group of regulations had to do with transparency. And these were both regulations and assurances, transparency, that if there was a for profit, and it was not substantially controlling, you would have to post the contract of the for profit, that the charter schools now who got grants would have to post on their website, whether they required uniforms, what their discipline code was going to be, whether they required whether they would provide free or reduced price lunch, whether they would provide transportation, as well as another as other transparency reporting mechanisms that were that were going to be involved if you took this money.
Leonie Haimson12:22
So, at that point, when the federal government posted the proposed regulations, what was the reaction of the charter school lobby?
Carol Burris12:32
Well, the charter school lobby went crazy. I led by the National Alliance for public charter schools. I mean, they, the first thing they did, which was really pretty terrible, was they misrepresented what the regulation said, for example, they said that it was going to be mandated that only in places where there was over enrollment in the public schools that a charter school could start. That was never the case, what the department had said, was that you had to provide meet, to show that the charter school was necessary. And that one of the ways to show that was to show over enrollment.
But it also said that what charter schools could do is they could provide, for example, that they had a special program, right? So that that would be need. And they even further clarified that things like waiting lists could be included. But they still continue to spread that propaganda. And you would see it appear, for example, in op eds in major newspapers. The other piece of false information that they spread was that charter schools would have to enter into an agreement with a public school to have some kind of joint services or joint programs, and that they would need to cooperate. That was never a mandate. That was a priority.
And they knew full well that priorities could fall into one of three candidates, excuse me, categories, one category being that it was mandated. But they're almost never mandated. In fact, I only found one instance where there was a mandate and that was around having high quality authorizers they were more likely going to fall into one of one of two other buckets, one being priority, where they would out a competitive priority where a charter school could get extra points in the application, which really doesn't amount to much of anything in the long run. Or it could be an invitational prize. already, there was never any intent for it to be a mandate, but they pretended that it was going to be a mandate in order to stir up opposition to the regulations.
Leonie Haimson15:14
And so, they also ran TV ads and had a very, very active social media campaigns to try to get the federal government to weaken the regulations. Is that right?
Carol Burris15:26
That's correct. They ran TV ads. And they also paid for people from all over the country from charter schools to come to Washington DC for a protest. So, they sunk a lot of money into this.
Leonie Haimson15:41
So, what were the rules that the feds ended up with? What did they what did they change?
Carol Burris15:48
Well, they really didn't change very much. They made it clear in the regulations that there were other ways other than over enrollment, to show that the charter school was necessary, they change the term impact analysis to needs analysis. I have no idea why. But I guess they felt that that would be more acceptable. They did take away the need for the charter school to do an enrollment analysis of the district. But the charter school must still do its own enrollment analysis and show how they did it.
And they also added something and, and, you know, forgive me for not mentioning this before, because to me, it was one of the most important gains. And that was the charter school having to show that it would not increase segregation in the district, if the district was desegregating, through its own efforts, or through mandated efforts, and to also show that it would not increase racial isolation. Well, that was still kept in in the analysis.
However, they made it clear that if a charter school had a special mission, that might inadvertently increase segregation in the district, that that would be allowed, before example, a special mission. Like if there was a charter school in a diverse district, that promoted Native American culture, and therefore became a charter school, that was predominantly Native American students. And that might affect racial balance in the district that that would be okay. In the end, they kept the, the priority for districts and charter schools to cooperate, but they made it an invitational priority for this year, why leaving the door open for it to become a top priority by which you could accrue points in a later year?
Leonie Haimson18:12
So, one of the issues that we have with charter schools here in New York City and New York State is they make all sorts of promises that they don't come through on and they make all sorts of claims about waiting lists and, and attrition rates, et cetera, et cetera, that are never checked, and are never audited.
So, the question that I have is, if the charter school makes all sorts of promises about not increasing segregation, not pushing kids out? Not, you know, not overcharging in terms of the rent and making its management company rich, through various means. What kind of oversight or enforcement or penalties are there if they don't fulfill those promises?
Carol Burris19:09
Well, it depends on whether or not those promises are it depends whether or not the charter school has a CSP grant. So unfortunately, New York State now is still giving money out from its 2018 Charter School Program grant, and it will not be eligible for another grant for five years. The truth of the matter is, if they're still giving money out from the 2018 grant, that's going to be exempted from these new regulations. However, if a CMO in New York State applies in this new cycle, for example, a KIPP or a Success Academy you If they apply for a grant in this new cycle, they would be subject to these new regulations. I do not know of any regulations that are in there about things like pushing kids out or attrition rates, but it will have some effect. For example, let's say Success Academy gets one of these grants, it will be obligated to have a hearing in the local community, where it's going to be putting in a charter school.
And it will have to record the comments of the local, hearing, memorialize them and put them in the application for the CMO grant. So, if they decide that they don't have a local hearing, and that's reported to the US Department of Education, they would be putting those funds at risks or at risk. Another thing that I think is really important Laney is that they're going to the State Education Department now is going to have to post all of the information about all of the schools that they give grants to in 2019. I FOIAed the New York State Education Department to find out which charter schools were getting their grants and to see their applications, I am still waiting for response to that FOIA. At the same time, I void, the Department of Education. And within about a month got all of the information that I needed. The New York State Education Department has still not responded. Many states post on their websites North Carolina does, who got the grants, the reviews of the grants and the applications they submitted. New York State has been very secretive about that. This will change the next time that they apply for a grant.
Leonie Haimson22:11
I've had my own problems with foiling the State Education Department, I strongly suggest that you do appeals and keep on fighting for the information.
Already in state law in New York State, the charter school has to hold public hearings in the community in which it intends to locate, though in some cases, they've been allowed to do that according to borough rather than districts. So that they apply in one district, have the hearing in that district and then switch to another district in the same borough. And that's how the law has been interpreted up till then. So that's an issue already, because we don't really believe that the authorizers take any of the comments into account when they authorize the expansion or the replication of charter schools or even new charter schools in the state. I'm still concerned about the problem of oversight. And also, the issue of attrition rates. Because what we have found in New York City is that many of the higher performing charter schools do have very high attrition rates, especially for special needs students and students with behavior issues. But there doesn't seem to be anything in the new federal regulations that would provide any guidance or oversight or regulation on those issues. Is that right?
Carol Burris23:40
That not that I know of at least not up front. However, with most of these grants, what happens is they get to spend it over a period of time. And each year they have to report and part of the reporting that they will have to do will be on attrition rates. Now the oversight for that will be with the New York State Education Department. Now, I think one of the things too, that's also positive. And this speaks to the whole idea of trying to stop some of the abuses is what we found when we did our report that probably the worst oversight was provided by the states in the State Education Department. That's where we saw the most charter schools that for example, failed.
They put in new regulations, that the state education departments have to do a few things so that if New York State Education Department wants to grant what they have to do is they have to talk about what their review process is going to be, how they're going to select peer reviewers, how they're going to continue to monitor these schools, and how they are going to select some schools that they are concerned about for in depth monitoring. So, from what I understand, at least is that this state education department is going to do is it's going to, excuse me, this federal education department is going to do is it's going to hold the State Education Department far more accountable than they've been held in the past.
Leonie Haimson25:23
Okay, I hope that's true. The enrollment decline is something that you mentioned earlier, that's a huge issue here in New York City, and many, many places across the country where enrollment was already declining, because of demographic factors. But the COVID pandemic has accelerated that enrollment decline. And of course, as charter schools, or new charter schools are started. And existing charter schools are expanding the latter happening very rapidly. In New York City, though we have a cap on the number of new charter schools that can start. They are taking away students and thus funding from the existing public schools. And in fact, our schools are facing hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to their budgets next year, because the mayor says they have lost enrollment. So, what can we do in that area? If that if that part of the regulation was weakened? Is that right? In the second round? Are there any objections we can make, to the expansion of charter schools, the continued expansion of charter schools in in New York City based upon the fact that enrollment is declining overall?
Carol Burris26:37
Well, in terms of the state entities, probably not Laney, because those that 2018 grants that your state got, that's going to be exempt from these regulations. I think the only thing that is in there that might be helpful would be the public comments that they would have to report. But really, it's going to be up to the state to take that into account. When it approves expansion. And unfortunately, I have found the present state education department to be almost as charter friendly, as the state education departments in the past. And then, of course, Sunni, which is the other authorizer of charter schools and in New York State is a very, very friendly, a charter authorizer. So, until we get laws changed, or people in both the Sunni charter authorizing body and the State Education Department to take this problem more seriously. I am not hopeful.
Leonie Haimson28:00
So, there was a bill in the state legislature that I don't think passed, which would take away the power of SUNY to authorize new charters, because one thing that they did this past year is they authorized a new charter and claimed it was the simply the expansion of an existing charter school. So, they are trying to get around the cap that New York City has reached in that way. So, we have to do everything to support the passage of that bill. But also, I think, the passage of stronger charter school regulations in the state of New York, how can people keep up, keep abreast of these issues about the federal rules and what they include and make sure that they're not weakened by the House or the Senate? And how can they help with the efforts of NP II to make sure that the amount of waste and fraud is minimized?
Carol Burris28:55
Yeah, well, I would really encourage folks to go to our website, network for public education.org. And sign up, there's a little signup box, it doesn't cost you a penny to become part of the movement. Though we're always happy as a nonprofit to get donations. But what will happen then is you'll get our alerts. Later on today , I am going to be sending out alert, an alert that will go to both the President, the Vice President, as well as members of Congress, telling them to continue to support the regulations of the US Department of Education. We know that the charter lobby is not happy. This was always about more than just the two big public objections. They want for-profits to be able to run charter schools. And so, what we need is to continue to fight because there are a variety of mechanisms that they can use to try to either defund these regulations, there was already one attempt in the House budget to do that by Republicans, and also to see if they cannot review the regulations and somehow weaken them.
So, we have to continue to make sure that they stay in place, we will always this is one of the major fights of NPE, we will always be making sure that we stay abreast of this and also fight for more regulations. And not only sign up for the Network for Public Education, but also for NPE action.org. That mailing list as well because that is our 501C4. And we do even additional lobbying on that website.
Leonie Haimson30:52
So, it's really important that people want our public schools to survive and thrive, that we support the organizations that are working towards those goals. And unfortunately, the charter school lobby has billions of dollars literally at their disposal, because many of the wealthiest individuals in this country, from Wall Street and from Silicon Valley, are very aggressive and trying to push the expansion of charter schools and the further privatization of our public schools in every way they can. I want to thank you, Carol, for your tremendous work. And your really important victory, with making sure that the federal government is, is doing its due diligence to try to minimize the fraud and waste associated with charter school expansion. Hope you might come back to talk out of school and another time soon.
Carol Burris31:45
Thank you, Leonie, I'd be happy to and just a very quick warning to everyone. The charter school movement is now taking a sharp turn right? We're seeing that all over the country. And we're going to have a report on that soon. Right Wing charter schools are becoming the new expansion of the charter school movement.
Leonie Haimson32:05
We have to talk about that soon. I'll have you back. And thank you again for being here today and your terrific work.
Carol Burris32:12
Thanks, Leonie. Bye bye now.
Leonie Haimson32:15
This is Leonie Haimson , host of talk out of school on WBAI radio 99.5 FM and web api.org. And now I'd like to introduce Jabari Brisport, who is a former New York City public school teacher who was elected to the New York State Senate in 2020. And took office in January 2021. To bar thank you so much for being here. Thanks. So first, can you explain a little bit about your background? How long you were a teacher and where you taught?
Jabari Brisport32:45
Yeah, so I was a middle school teacher at Medgar Evers prep in Crown Heights. I taught math to the most darling, sixth and seventh graders in Brooklyn. And it was honestly a huge centerpiece of my campaign for State Senate, which was the lack and disinvestment of funding for our schools and knowing what it meant to teach in an overcrowded school and underfunded school. And what that meant for student outcomes, their student experience, and, you know, even the well-being of teachers as well.
Leonie Haimson33:25
Oh, how long were you a teacher?
Jabari Brisport33:27
I was a teacher for two and a half years. And I was a career changer through the NYC men teach program, which seeks to get more men of color into our public schools. I answered the call. You know, I remember when I was a student from kindergarten through 12th grade, I think I had one teacher who was a Black man, and all those 13 years. And I know what it means to have someone teaching you who looks like you. And I want it to be that for young men growing up in Brooklyn.
Leonie Haimson34:03
There's actually a lot of very good research that shows it makes a huge difference for Black kids to have Black teachers in terms of the trajectory of their educational success. What did you do before you became a teacher?
Jabari Brisport34:19
I was an actor and also just running a several other side jobs as well. I was a bartender, a waiter. I was tutoring, test prep, the LSAT and the SHSAT. And bouncing around between a lot of different gig work like that.
Leonie Haimson34:38
So, like AOC you were a bartender. Maybe you should have formal tenders. Yeah. Club for legislators. Yeah. Why did you decide to run for state senate and how has experience been compared to your expectations?
Jabari Brisport34:55
I decided for a few reasons. One was the lack of investment in my School and schools at large. Because with a lot of problems, you know, a lot of people think it's just happening to them. But when you realize they're systemic, it makes you want to fight for systemic change. So, I knew my school was way overcrowded. And I knew that this was a systemic issue. And that overcrowding is due to lack of funding. You know, if you don't build out the extra schools and hire the extra teachers, you get, you know, increasing numbers of students crammed into the existing school buildings.
So it was that sort of disinvestment in education, but also for housing. You know, affordable housing is there's really almost no, a truly affordable housing. In New York City. Brooklyn is rapidly gentrifying to meet gentrifying and losing black people, specifically. You know, you hear the statistic, one in 10 students are housing insecure or homeless, and you can tell that, you can see that, with the students who had this one girl who, she was always tired, she was falling asleep in class, I checked in with her. And, you know, she would tell me Well, last night, she was sleeping at her aunt's house or the other night, she was sleeping at her grandma's house, and you know, it was always some other Palace be and you know, it, it didn't take much to put two and two together that she has no house of her own, you know, or no bet of her own. And that's heartbreaking.
Because you know, I can give her the extra time to you know what to do and give me the extra class time to help her make sure she learns a lesson. But you know, as a teacher, I can give her a home. As a legislator, I can fight for policies that keep more people into their homes and keep them more stable. So, there were those, you know, it was it was education, it was housing, I believe the criminal legal system is deeply bankrupt. And mass incarceration is the direct result of racist policies that have targeted black and brown people for decades and wanted to see drastic change in that. And climate. Planet climate was top of my mind that we weren't doing enough to fight against climate change. And I was worried that my little sixth graders would not have a livable planet, by the time they were my age.
So, my experience since I've been in office, you know, I, it's definitely been a steep learning curve, there's a lot to learn about the intricacies of Albany about the way that power moves and the way that knowledge moves. You know, part of being a teacher was accepting being a lifelong learner. And I think, you know, that's something to take into politics as well, that there's a lot to learn about that. There's always more to learn about my district as well and more people to meet. But truthfully, you know, I don't think I would trade it for anything else, because being given this incredible opportunity to help, you know, the hundreds of 1000s of people in my district and the millions of people of New York, with this position is so invigorating. And it feels truly like I've been given an opportunity to do a lot of good by a lot of people.
Leonie Haimson38:00
So, let's drill down a little bit on the issue of class size. I know you're a big supporter of the class size bill that was passed overwhelmingly by the legislature at the beginning of June. Can you talk about the class sizes that you experienced in your school and why you're such a strong supporter of this bill?
Jabari Brisport38:21
Yeah, so I taught in a crowded classroom. So we were, you know, we even had in my school, we were trying to figure out ways to deal with overcrowding, especially in the high school level in the middle school, you know, I taught classrooms of 25/6 graders and 37th graders, which is really pushing the limit, and this class size bill would reduce it to lower than that threshold, but you can tell and, you know, if you're not a teacher, just, you know, the notion of trying to keep track of 30 people in, in a room is impossible. And you there is no way to give every child the attention they truly deserve.
And you find yourself doing things to fill the gaps, right, you make time after school to help the students that are falling behind you set up, you know, will be a lot of teachers call a parking lot where students can ask a question that they didn't have time to ask a question during, you know, class with a little sticky note there so you can like email them later or talk to them later. And you try and build all these but But ultimately, you know, you want as much learning to happen as possible in the classroom. And that truly can't happen when there's just so many students there that you know, you can't meet the needs of all of them at once.
And then beyond even just the classroom it's you know, the overcrowding spilled over into other places as as well you know, we had the, the cafeteria itself was not large enough to you know, basically a seat all the other students that would be assigned there at at a time and you would have students you know, coming to eat their lunch in classrooms or, you know, or other places we You had to have students do gym and hallways, sometimes it was it was its ordinance and comes to a lack of a lack of funding. So, this class size bill sets new and lower thresholds for classroom sizes around New York City.
Leonie Haimson
Class sizes.
Jabari Brisport
Thank you, I please, please stay on me about that we definitely want to shrink the classrooms, we want the same classrooms, smaller classes. And gives a five year timeline 20% You know, with every every year, another 20% of New York City class says classes must meet the thresholds until we get to 100%.
Leonie Haimson40:38
So not only did you have large classes, but how many classes? Did you have to teach four or five?
Jabari Brisport40:44
Yeah, that's exactly a four or five. So, I would have, you know, 100 250 students, you know, that I was working on, you actually learn very quickly as a teacher how to be efficient, you know, for your 100 papers to grade 100 test to grade the difference? How do you do it? Yeah, you, um, a few different ways. One was, you know, setting up, you know, ways to win, we went virtual with, with COVID, shifting a lot of things to auto grade on, on online platforms.
But even before that, like looking for ways to have homework, I have homework being being done through online platforms that could auto grade it, I would sometimes do peer grading and let you know, people's peers, you know, when we would go through the test together afterwards, and you know, pass it on to your partner, they would they would do the grade for you, which is not ideal, to be honest, because people want to keep their very private. So, you know, that wasn't ideal.
There's a variety of tactics you can use to make up the time, because truthfully, the difference between taking a minute to grade something and three minutes to grade something when you have 100 of them to grade is just the difference in hours. Yeah, and it's and again, going back to smaller class sizes, you know, I, and I was a math teacher, like, if I don't even know how English teachers do it like math, it's pretty I can go, you can go pretty quickly. Like it's either the answer is either 100. Or it's, you know, 50. Right, but having to read through essays, and it's a lot trickier.
Leonie Haimson42:15
Yeah, no, I mean, what English teachers told me is that they simply don't assign as many essays as they would otherwise, because they simply don't have the time to grade them. And when they do give feedback, they don't give the level of feedback that they really feel that they should be given because they have 150 essays to, to correct and to give feedback on so it really does diminish the amount of support and feedback that students get. At the same time. You're a big supporter of the class size. Bill, I know that you voted against the mayoral control bill that would extend mayoral control for another two years. Can you talk about this?
Jabari Brisport42:52
Yeah, there were two reasons I voted against that bill. One was a sense that the mayor wanted to control because he wanted control. And not necessarily because he had the best interests of schools in mind, and why questions whether or not he had the best interests were twofold, one in a lot of his language on the campaign trail. And even when he first one is primary, it sounded like he wanted to cut the budgets for schools. He was he would repeatedly say that the outcomes of schools were poor, and then also complain about how much money was being spent, it was being placed in the daily budget and consistently contrast those things, the amount of money spent, and the poor outcomes, and it seemed like he was gearing up to reduce funding for schools.
And then in addition to that, in terms of him coming up to lobby or sending his team to lobby the state legislature regarding mayoral control, it didn't happen until, like, May, like basically, when we were near the end of the session, it seemed like an afterthought. So, there were those and then also, I did a large listening session with the various CECs of my district with parents and teachers in my district to hear their thoughts. And whereas the mayor was asking for a four year extension, with no changes to the current PEP or, you know, framework for control, the consensus that by a large margin from this listening session I did in my own district, because that that was not on the table, that at most one year extension with a commission set up to exploratory little, totally new model of governance. And so I wanted to be accountable to the people in my district. And you know, I, I was clear, I would not vote yes on anything greater than a year and so two years was a no for me.
Leonie Haimson44:40
I don't want you to divulge more than you feel comfortable to talk talking about. But what were the discussions like in your in the Democratic caucus in the Senate about the extension of mayoral control was the issue of a commission ever seriously considered
Jabari Brisport45:00
You know what, in terms of the issue of a commission, I don't not many people pushed for that, to be honest. And there were it was a there was a strong range of opinions, even with some people, completely siding with the mayor and saying they agreed a four year extension, alternating opinions on the the PEP in the composition and how more parent involvement could be included, and just more people can be brought into it. But in terms of the commission, I mean, the the mayoral control bill has a loose version of the committee. It's not really a full commission to examine new governance. But essentially, it says that the one person, the commissioner of education for the state will, at the end of two years, evaluate how it went, which to me is a far cry from someone from a group of people developing a new model. So that's that's sort of what we got in the bill.
Leonie Haimson46:00
Yeah, I mean, we've always been against mayoral control, no matter who was mayor, because there are no really effective checks and balances at the local level. And because the Panel for Educational Policy, which is our Board of Education, is composed with a supermajority of mayoral appointees, they generally rubber stamp whatever he does. And the city council has very limited authority to make law when it comes to education. And what the new bill did is expanded the Panel for Educational Policy, I think to 23 members, but it didn't really change the overall ratio, in terms of mayoral appointees versus appointees by either parent leaders or by the borough presidents.
So we are, even though I mean, I think the the tweak that the governor has negotiated with the mayors that they will delay, the new composition and the expansion of the Panel for Educational Policy. There aren't really a lot of strong substantive changes to those, those those outlines or that framework. Now. In the negotiations over the class size bill, Senator John Liu, who was the main sponsor of I think both bills in the state senate, the class size and the mayoral control Bill said, we are going to take a look at what the mayor is doing in terms of class size, and in terms of these new budget cuts that he's imposed on schools, in deciding whether to renew mayoral control after those two years are over, which I guess is like an implied threat. What do you think of that?
Jabari Brisport47:39
Yeah, I'm a big fan of Senator Liu and really appreciate his leadership.
Jabari Brisport47:45
On this, you know, I from the get-go, was why the reason I had to forgive for one year over anything else was my organ was that you can, if we like, what's happening after one year, we can always extend it, but we shouldn't lock ourselves into to more than that, in case we don't like it. And I think if within a month of extending mirror control, the mayor cuts the budget. I think we're already a place where we don't like what's happening. So I'm glad we're reevaluating. I mean, it's, it's good, we need to do that. And I would I do think we should consider trying to install some kind of some sort of commission next year.
Leonie Haimson48:24
What What should our listeners do to try to keep the pressure on the governor to sign the class size Bill sooner than later, which would also help prevent some of these damaging cuts that the mayor is making to school budgets, that will, in effect, make class sizes go up rather than down next year?
Jabari Brisport48:44
Listeners can do a few things. One is just to directly call or email the governor's office and demand that she signed the class size Bill immediately. Another thing would be to email the office of the mayor, you know, he has the ear of the governor. And you know him in in in the past, he has been against the class size Bill has called it an unfunded mandate, which is not true. It's funded through the campaign for fiscal equity, the billions of dollars that the state is, you know, giving to public schools that are that are owed in New York City so it is funded. So getting him to publicly come out in favor of reducing class sizes and put pressure on the governor would be helpful as well.
And then in addition to that, in terms of what you can do with your state representative, earlier this month, Senator Ramos gathered a bunch of senators with an assembly woman gathered legislators to still do a sign on letter to the governor to sign the bill immediately. So if you if you don't see your Senator or assembly member on that sign on letter, ask them to co-sign it and speak up more to the governor to sign the bill. So from every angle, we will get that bill signed.
Leonie Haimson50:05
Yeah, we'll put a link to that letter in the resources section of the podcast as well as contact information for the mayor and the governor urging them to to to actually do what they know they should be doing. There's no excuse for hat for New York City continuing to have by far the largest class sizes in the state. It's highly inequitable, and it really violates the decision of the state's highest court in the campaign for fiscal equity lawsuits. So I want to thank you so much, Senator Bridgeport for being with us today. I want to thank you for your work both as a teacher and now as a state legislator and hope that you might come back to to our show talk out of school sometime soon.
Jabari Brisport50:49
I'd love to, thanks so much for having me.
Leonie Haimson50:51
Thanks again. Bye. Bye.
Leonie Haimson50:54
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