Posted on 02/23/2006 10:03:29 PM PST by Coleus
"If anything, reduced class sizes seem to work best in kindergarten through grade four where young, impressionable students need greater teacher attention."
I found that class size made a big difference teaching science and math in high school too. As a student in physics and class sizes dropped from 250 in freshman phhysics down to an average of 6 in upper grad school classes it made quite a difference.
Back in the 1950's & 1960's we had 60 kids in one kindergarten class w/o an aide, all learned how to read by the end of the year. During the baby boom years, schools were at their highest enrollment in 1973-74, we all learned. Today, enrollment is down below the 1973-74 numbers.
If is isn't class size it is standings nationally. The educational establishement uses everything in its arsenal to go after more money and more teachers. The only thing they don't use is the quality of education which is spiraling down.
what i don't get is
why would anybody thing a government could run a business ?
when in the history of the world have they ever been effective in doing so.
Maybe if you spend enough money the government can figure out how to blow up some bridges, but nothing else.
I agree with you. However, the government can run a business because it is not concerned with loss. You, me and 200 million other people will pick up that tab.
First of all the only thing government has ever proven itself good at is collecting money.
I think small class sizes are probably a good thing when your younger, but once your in middle school or junior high, class sizes should be larger. In my middle school and highschool classes where around 25, maybe 30 if there was only one section open, and even then one on one instruction was non existant. What do teachers need to talk to one person for when most of what they do at that level of education is lecture, and assign homework. Then again maybe I'm too used to college where my smallest class this semester is 100 people.
When I went to school in the 40s-60s class size was never an issue and we had 25 or more in all classes. You are right about the lectures and homework. We can only guess at what the lectures are about. That is the norm today.
Try again. School class size is not te issue. When I went through school in the 60s, class sizes averaged 30 - 35 students with no TAs or other assistants in the classroom. Despite the class size, we were better educated and had higher graduation ratios.
Perhaps this red herring has been tossed out by the NEA to cover up the fact that today's teachers are lazy, poorly educated themselves and many are far dumber than their students.
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The group is pushing a proposal to limit the number of students per class to 25. To do so, the town would have to hire an additional 20 schoolteachers, at a conservative cost estimate of nearly $800,000 annually in salaries and benefits.
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Amazing! Kids in senior year of government high school need small classes, but the following year their parents pay big bucks for them to sit in huge college classes of a hundred or more.
The group is pushing a proposal to limit the number of students per class to 25.
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Of course, no one in the education-industrial-complex would ever suggest firing an assistant principal or two.
I'm not so sure it is an absolute. I spent most of my career in a school where the administrators sometimes used discipline as a tool to bribe teachers and students.
When class size got above 24 or so, the game stopped, and discipline support became excellent. Result...the students excelled.
In the SAT prep courses I've done, large class size sometimes brings a wider variety of knowledge to the environment. Also, the students don't think they "own" a lot of time.
Size matters, sure. But sometimes smaller isn't better.
I was going to say the same thing about science at least. I taught biology in HS and it was very difficult to have large lab classes (especially when our labs were designed for 24 students, and we had over 30 kids per class). There are lots of considerations, but one of them is space. If you stuff too many students into too small an area, you are bound to have some problems.
Additionally, the number of students with some sort of special needs is an issue that is rarely (if ever) mentioned in these discussions. I can easily teach 40 students if they are all at about the same place (reading level/background knowledge/etc) and only a small number have special educational needs (need to sit in the front of the classroom or be near the teacher, special behavioral programs, cannot read at grade level, must be giving instructions several times, do not speak English, etc).
However, I have had classes of 30 where almost half had some sort of special modifications, and I can tell you,that what happens is the whole class slows down and I do believe education suffers. I don't think class size is the problem tho. I think the biggest issue is the ADA and the fallout from that well intentioned law.
susie
Yup, it's all just stupid, lazy teachers. (I do so wish for a rolling eyes emoticon here). Stupid lazy parents, stupid laws, unhelpful administrations, none of those enter into the equation...... (yes, this is sarcasm).
susie
On the surface, your comment makes sense. However, you have to bear in mind that public high schools must teach EVERYONE. Most of the kids that require extra help in HS do not go on to college, and of those who do, I suspect they are just there to sink or swim. Unless things have changed dramatically since I was last in college (late 90s) the professor doesn't much care if you pass/fail, turn in your homework, study, etc.
susie
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