New York State told New York City to shrink its class sizes, and the city just released a draft plan for how it will do it. The plan calls for $1.5 billion in capital funding for school space and $244 million to hire more teachers, aimed at meeting the state’s class-size mandate by 2030.

How much this matters to you depends on where you live, and nowhere is it more pressing than in overcrowded Queens. Districts like District 26 and secondary schools across the borough have spent years packing too many kids into too few rooms, in neighborhoods like Flushing, Corona, and Elmhurst where the population keeps growing and the school buildings do not. Smaller classes are one of the few education reforms that nearly everyone, across the political spectrum, agrees helps kids learn. The catch has always been that they are expensive, because fewer kids per room means more rooms and more teachers, and both cost real money.