Posted on 04/22/2008 11:05:39 AM PDT by GoldwaterInstitute
Emphasizing class size over teacher quality is a poor choice
Matthew Ladner, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, April 21, 2008
Indiana Jones returns to the big screen this summer. In Indy's last movie, he was in pursuit of the Holy Grail. The ancient crusader guarding the Grail revealed that one could gain it only by drinking from the correct cup.
The villain drank from the most ornate cup and suffered a horrible death. Quoth the crusader, "He chose, poorly." Indiana Jones chose the simplest cup. The knight noted approvingly, "He chose, wisely!"
When it comes to education, we have chosen poorly. A September 2007 report by McKinsey & Company, titled "How the World's Best Performing School Systems Come Out on Top," contains an especially interesting discussion of South Korean schools. South Korea spends less per pupil than the U.S., has average class sizes twice as big as ours, and their students clobber American students in international comparisons.
How do they do it? They only recruit teachers from the top five percent of university graduates and pay them well. South Korean teachers get paid almost two and a half times per-capita GDP -- a comfortable professional salary. The United States pays teachers roughly the per-capita GDP.
A South Korean official interviewed for the report noted that "the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers." Teacher quality trumps class size, just as Indy's pistol trumps a scimitar. South Korea chose wisely. When the U.S. elected to emphasize class size over teacher quality, we chose poorly.
Dr. Matthew Ladner is vice president of research for the Goldwater Institute.
Koreans, from what I can tell, are culturally somewhat different than kids here. For instance, they can sit still, listen, and shut up. My classes are comprised mostly of Latinos, some born here, some immigrants... and they are like puppies on acid.
You confirm what I was thinking. It’s not class size, or, within limits, teacher quality. It’s student quality more than anything else.
Class size is the same class of intellectual disease as is global warming. It can’t be proven empirically but there are numerous ‘studies’ by interest groups touting its important.
And both could be solved by the same easy method - simply ignore them and they will go away.
No small classroom with a stupid teacher is better than a large classroom with a teacher who can read, write and perform mathematics equations (or could spell ‘mathematical equations’). Until we can test teachers, we should be completely uninterested in the size of the class they teach other than to invite the fear of how much damage a bad teacher could do to a large classroom.
What’s really miserable here in public school hell is that we are not allowed to even remark upon students’ basic abilities. The fact is, some of these students have IQs under 90. This is absolutely taboo to acknowledge. They might have “special needs” or certain “areas that need strengthening” but it all boils down to what effective, magical lesson plan/seating arrangement can the teacher come up with to make it all work.
Who cares? What really matters is, how is their self-esteem?
Make that rude little fiends on acid and I would agree. AP kids vs. ESL kids are night and day.
Having parents that want their kids to learn, and who support the teachers who WANT to teach, is an important element too.
Just ask any teacher who entered the profession with high ideals and became burned-out over parents who see teachers as somehow “picking on” their precious kid because they expect the brat to behave and learn!
I’m in my early 60s- none of my classrooms contained fewer than 35 students, in high school we had trailers to hold the overflow, non-airconditioned, in Florida - and we all managed to learn what we were taught and to go on to the next grade. In those days, you were actually held back if you did not make passing grades (what a great concept!)
In one state, the schools were so crowded that my class was bussed to one elementary school, then bussed to a fire station where we attended school with a wonderful teacher named (I still remember her well) Mrs. Kitchen - at noon we walked several blocks to another elementary school for lunch.
We had no textbooks due to the large number of students. We worked with mimeographed workbook sheets.
All of us learned and went on to the next grade - and no parent thought to complain about the class sizes or lack of amenities.
Of course, the teachers could actually exercise control over the classroom. The year I went to school in the fire house, when we misbehaved, Mrs. Kitchen sent us to the firemen’s kitchen (they lived in the building, and actually used a firepole when the sirens went off - very cool).
WHen I hear parents & students complaining, I wish they all had to go to high school in a converted tobacco warehouse in Izmir, Turkey, where we had very few amenities.
There is an excuse for every student who does not care to do the work - and I am sick and tired of hearing them.
Classes with 25 or fewer students + quality teaching + motivated students = quality education.
Does not take a five-million dollar study to draw the obvious conclusion.
Yes, I’ve covered a few AP classes and I’m always blown away by how HUMAN they seem compared to what I’m accustomed to. Don’t get me wrong, in every class I have at least 4 or 5 kids that are gems. But the other 27 are somewhere on the stupid-to-evil continuum, and it’s nonsense to claim that 27 little monsters are no harder to handle than 17.
Those teachers with 'education' degrees should be reserved for the little darlings who insist on disrupting the class and ruining it for everyone else.
Once parents learn that their children have been kicked out of the good class and can't get back in unless they spend two months with perfect behavior, they might make them behave instead of arguing with the school.
Yes. It’s miserable how much damage the little monsters can do, and nothing happens to them. One kid I had, he had stolen another girl’s wallet, was disrespectful and truant all the time, and then got caught red-handed with a big bag of pot. One day suspension and right back in my class. Thank God his father in another city finally had him come to stay, and he transferred. I really disliked that kid.
“Having parents that want their kids to learn, and who support the teachers who WANT to teach, is an important element too.
Just ask any teacher who entered the profession with high ideals and became burned-out over parents who see teachers as somehow “picking on” their precious kid because they expect the brat to behave and learn!”
EXACTLY!!
But there will soon be those here that will argue that the teachers are after nothing but indoctrinating the children and money. Or simply state that all teachers are bad period. (Only being slightly sarcastic.)
My kid is somewhat trouble in school, but part of my son’s problem is the nonsense he is being taught. For example, when they were studying Indonesia/SE Asia in his world history class the lessons stopped at 1973. My son pointed out how convenient that was since the teacher did not have to teach about The Killing Fields that resulted from our abandonment of anti-communist regimes in the area nor did the teacher have to mention the Vietnamese boat people (two of whom he interviewed for his unit project).
On the other hand, if my son has no interest in doing something, he won’t do it short of actual physical punishment. At a smaller, rural district, we had an agreement with the VP that my son got two spats from the school for every paper not turned in on time and satisfactorily completed. The current district
will not do that and my son has gone from straight A’s to barely passing. (He still gets walloped at home, but it seems to make less of an impression than getting it both places.)
My granddaughters 7th grade class was studying the Revolutionary War...England ya know...So they learned about King George and the History of England. What they didn’t teach her?? There IS a LIVING Queen of England...and a Prince and his two sons. Geez...I could have screamed.
My wife had a kid like that in her class - called the parents in for a PTC.
The mother stole my wife’s paycheck out of her purse, during the conference.
Exactly. In my brief public high school experience, I was in lots of ‘small’ classes, ranging from 18 students in my art class to 4 in my AP physics class (both numbers include me), all over I had an average class size of 13 but a median size of 6. In my programming class, one other student and I loved the material, worked hard, and wound up working ahead of the cirriculum, another student did what he was supposed to and was about at the pace the teacher had planned for, and the remaining two spent their time looking at weapons on ebay and ‘borrowing’ each other’s clothing, iPods, or girlfriends. They either didn’t pass or just barely did... my friend and I, on the other hand, passed with flying colors and grades in the high 90’s. So, given a decent teacher, it all depends on the students. Small class sizes won’t be a magical panacea if there are kids who just don’t care.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.