Relates to mandate relief in the city school district of the city of New York

Section 2 gives effective date.

Justification

In 1995, the State Legislature passed and the Governor signed legislation requiring the Commissioner to allow the School District of the City of New York to implement a fifty percent increase in the maximum size of an instructional group in a resource room program and the total number of students assigned to a resource room teacher. With this mandate relief measure, the default size of a resource room group in New York City increased from 5 to 8 and the default caseload of resource room teachers increased from 20 to 30 students at the elementary level and from 25 to 38 in departmentalized middle and high schools. In the rest of the State, for the past twenty-one years, the maximum number of students in a resource room or related service group has been 5 students and the maximum caseload for a resource room teacher has been 20 students at the elementary level and 25 students in middle and high schools. Although the fiscal conditions that were the impetus for the mandate relief have vastly improved, the New York City provision has stayed firmly in place.

Shortly after this measure went into effect, Mark Alter and Jay Gottlieb of New York University conducted a study on the impact of the increase in the group size on resource room students. The authors concluded that the increase from 5 to 8 had a detrimental impact on reading achievement.

Comparisons between the numbers of students with disabilities in New York City scoring at or above proficient (level 3 or 4) on the New York State English Language Arts and Math exams for the past several years demonstrate that students with disabilities in New York City need and deserve more instructional support than they are currently receiving. Overall, only 6.9% of students with disabilities in grades 3 through 8 scored at the proficient level on the 2015 New York State ELA exam compared with 36.8% of their non-disabled peers. The numbers are only slightly better for students with disabilities in Math, where 11.3% of students with disabilities scored proficient in 2015 as compared with 41.8% of their non-disabled peers. Moreover, the performance gap between students with disabilities and their

non-disabled peers is growing, not decreasing. Between 2013 and 2015, the gap increased 2.3% in ELA and 4.3% in Math.

Additionally, there have been multiple changes in the delivery of resource room services in New York City in the past twenty-one years. In fact, New York City no longer has a resource room program. In 2008, New York City was granted an innovative waiver to implement a service called Special Education Teacher Support Services. SETSS provides specially designed and/or supplemental instruction to support the participation of a student with a disability in the general education classroom and/or consultation to the student's general education teacher.

The combined effect of these changes has made the delivery of SETSS services to a group of eight students even more challenging than it was in 1995. One of the main casualties has been functional grouping according to academic, social and emotional, physical and management needs, required by the Commissioner's regulations and essential for effective small group instruction. Today, in New York City, functional grouping is nearly impossible to achieve. If we expect to improve the performance of students with disabilities on state ELA and Math assessments and close the achievement gap between students with disabilities and their non-disabled peers, it is imperative that they receive services matched with the intensity of their individual needs. The time has come to undo the detrimental impact after twenty-one years.

Legislative history

New Bill

Fiscal implications

To be determined

Effective date

This act shall take effect immediately