Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Friday, the 13th, that 73.4% of New York City public school classes meet the state's class size law. The New York Post noted that the target was lowered, the deadline was extended and the counting method was changed.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Friday that 73.4% of the city's public school classes meet the state's class size law, exceeding the 70% target for the 2026-27 school year. According to the New York Post, the announcement was made together with Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels.
The law requires the city to bring class sizes down to grade-level caps across all classes citywide by the 2029-30 school year. The caps are 20 students in kindergarten through 3rd grade, 23 in grades 4 through 8, and 25 in high school.
However, the New York Post reported that the City Hall press release left out some context. After Chancellor Samuels acknowledged in March that it would be "very difficult" to comply by the 2027-28 school year, the city won a two-year extension. The state also lowered this year's compliance target from 80% to 70%.
The counting method changed as well. According to page 7 of a November Department of Education report cited by the Post, this year's count included "cluster" classes such as gym, music and technology, which are taught by someone other than the regular classroom teacher, and added test-prep courses in middle and high schools. Chancellor Samuels told Chalkbeat, which first reported the story, that the compliance rate would have been 69.5% under the previous method.
The number of teachers, meanwhile, has fallen. According to the Post, the city said it spent $244 million on hiring teachers to meet the requirement, but it has 500 fewer teachers than last year's 69,900. An October report from the city Comptroller found that public school enrollment fell by nearly 22,000 students last year, the biggest drop since the pandemic, and by 187,000 since the 2013-14 school year. City Hall and the Department of Education did not respond to the Post's request for comment.