Department of Education Misses Deadline to Submit Stats

Five days after the New York City Department of Education was legally required to submit class-size statistics, parents, teachers, and educational advocates are still waiting for the data.

Visitors to the DoE’s Web site are greeted with a press statement that attributes the department’s tardiness to delays in processing the data. It has taken longer than expected to compile a complete, accurate, and thorough set, and the department will continue to withhold the numbers until they “are able to verify school-level information.”

To many activists who have made class-size reduction a focal point, the late statistics represent a setback for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has emphasized accountability as he has gone ahead with his latest plan to restructure the city school system for the third time in the past six years.

“We identified some errors with respect to the way we code special education students in classes,” DoE spokesperson Debra Wexler said. “We wanted to make sure that all the information was accurate before releasing the data.” Wexler added that the DoE hopes to release the numbers in the next few weeks.

Not all parents were surprised, “given the fact that they have refused to tell us a single school where class sizes have supposedly been reduced this year in response to the new state mandate,” Leonie Haimson, a parent and founder of the lobbying group Class Size Matters, wrote to Upper West Side and Morningside Heights parents in an e-mail.

The DoE recently released report cards assigning a grade to every school in the city. Haimson said that it was “interesting that they felt they had enough accurate data to assign grades to every school, but they are still working on providing accurate class-size information as required by a law passed by the City Council nearly two years ago.”

On Monday, the New York State Board of Regents also passed “Contracts for Excellence,” a set of state guidelines accompanying the distribution of increased school aid. These contracts mandate that school districts devote money to reducing class sizes, better teacher training, lengthening time in the classroom, and increasing teacher compensation.