Mike Klonsky writes a post with one of the best titled ever.
He tries to figure out why reformers don’t care about class size. They say there’s no evidence for smaller classes. Well, there is plenty of evidence, but they brush it aside.
It turns they don’t care about evidence. They are not data-driven. They want to take your funding and your schools. They want to save money, but not to spend it on smaller classes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Truth, integrity, the first casualties of reform.
Someone’s saying that class size doesn’t matter is a clear sign that he or she has nothing INFORMED to say about education.
Teachers know that class size matters. It matters a LOT.
Sorry about the harsh language, but some idiocies have to be called out because they are extraordinarily destructive. This notion that class size doesn’t matter is one such.
Consider, example, the undeniable fact that one-on-one tutorial is the best kind of instruction and that anything short of that is a compromise.
Or consider this nifty calculation: I teach 7 classes with an average of 28 students per class. I am required to post 2 grades per student per week. There are 36 weeks in a grading period. So, 7 x 28 x 2 x 36. That’s 14,112 pieces of student work to grade in a school year, or 65 and a third pieces to grade every day (assuming a six-day work week). Gee, let’s give each of those pieces of work by students the attention that it deserves.
That articulated bus jackknifed, skid through an embankment and dropped one hundred feet into a deep river. According to paid observers it reached its destination without incident.
LOL. Exactly.
Common sense tells me that the reformistas’ goal is something other than improving public education and once you understand that everything they do, and all the rhetoric they use to disguise their true goal, makes perfect sense.
The only people who exhibit a severe lack of common sense are the people who still “assume good faith” on the part of the reformistas.
They start with belief and emotion and try to build and argument from there. If Mitt Romney or Bill Gates says it, it is that sympathetic vibration that rings true, even if the tone is out of tune.
When it comes to vibes, Love and Mercy it ain’t, though there is one character in that they do bring to mind.
Class size matters, because students’ behavior varies so widely and has far more impact on the overall classroom climate and efficacy than academic/intellectual differences. A large group of well-behaved and cooperative students requires less time spent on discipline/behavioral distractions to the instructional time of the classroom. If students actually came to school “ready to learn” and teachers could just focus on pedagogy, not on areas that used to be the domain of the family, class size wouldn’t matter. Give me 60 respectful, well-behaved, motivated and cooperative students over 20 students, of which half are behaviorally dysfunctional. Teachers in the current era are expected to be all things to all people and have been thrust into the parental role of inculcating morality, as well as psychoanalyzing and policing. ‘Nuff said.
There really is a maximum limit, though. Trust me–I’ve taught huge classes. I have taught honors classes, and over about 33 is when any class becomes unmanageable. Part of it is the volume of work that must be graded. I had 275 students this last year up from 190 in 2008. I would really prefer the 190
If you don’t mind my asking TOW, what do you teach?
8th grade U.S. History, 9th grade Geography, and AP Human Geography. I taught honors 8th grade U.S. History before I took on AP.
If you just mean bodies in the room and the paperwork and workload that goes with each student, then yes, I agree, there can’t be a limitless max. A few years ago, I started with 31 students, with about a third having various behavioral issues. I received 4 additional students after reorganization (our grade level decided to get rid of a split grade class and absorb the extra students). Those 4 additional students were all respectful and cooperative, so they did not adversely impact either my instruction or classroom management, or the other students–they were a benefit, because they all served as role models. But, yes, I did have the additional paperwork and grading to do, so your point is well-taken.
Wow, TOW, that’s an average of 55/class if you teach five classes a day and 46/class for a six class day.
The adminimals who expect a teacher to handle those loads and who foists those conditions onto the students should have their administrative certificates revoked, and the politicians who do not provide adequate funding should by driven out of the state capital tarred and feathered.
We are on a modified block schedule, Duane, so I teach 8-9 classes (out of 10–5 per day). My class sizes are usually about 33-35
About ten years ago, we went through accreditation and one of the top recommendations from the visiting team was : “reduce teacher load”. The response from one of our admins (voted down unanimously by the faculty, which due to collective bargaining had the right to a vote on scheduling changes) was that we go to an A, B schedule. We would alternate 5 classes every other day: 5 groups on the A days, and 5 different groups on the B days. The impact was that each teacher would have 10 groups of students, and this fool tried to sell this to us as reducing class size.
If TOW had such an evil schedule, her per student class load could be about 27.
That’s exactly my schedule! I teach 9 of 10 total periods. The only reason the number per class is a bit lower is because my AP class was small.
Or do you mean 60 compliant, obedient, unquestioning, lobotomized kids?
I wrote “respectful”,”well-behaved”, “motivated”, and “cooperative”. You wrote “compliant” “obedient”, “unquestioning” and “lobotomized”. If you think any of the words you selected are synonomous with any of the words I selected, please immediately consult an English language dictionary–my fifth grade classroom dictionaries would suffice. Since when does being respectful, cooperative,and motivated preclude critical thinking–can’t one ask questions and see things from multiple perspectives in a respectful and well-behaved manner? Can’t one follow simple classroom rules that are set up for the harmony and safety of the classroom, and at the same time, be a critical thinker? I have students who do it all the time, but I know they come from parents who have high behavioral expectations of their children Parents are the first–and most important–teachers. Sadly, not all children have families who impart the universal values all people need to function well in their given society.
Your use of the term “lobotomized” is just perjorative and insulting, and it’s too bad you didn’t respond to my argument more cogently.
In the final analysis, VALUES determine every type of behavior.
“Give me 60 respectful, well-behaved, motivated and cooperative students over 20 students, of which half are behaviorally dysfunctional.”
Unfortunately, NATB, life doesn’t work that way.
Your statement reeks of elitist edudeformer clap trap! Something is telling me that you’ve never even taught a class of 20 much less 35 or 50 at a public K-12 school.
Is that you Billy G????
Duane–
See my above comment to Dienne By responding to me as “elitist, edudeformer claptrap” and not responding to my arguments in a cogent or intelligent manner, the other readers can fill in the blanks as to your teaching expertise and experience. When you can’t pound the facts, just pound the table..
As a matter of fact, I am a 27- year public school “veteran” teacher in the second largest urban district in the country, who has taught all sizes of classes–from 25 to about 80. I’ve also taught larger classes in afterschool programs and in nonpublic settings, ie. parochial, charitable, etc. I volunteered at a family shelter and taught an origami/art workshop for about 40 kids of all ages, which was one of my alltime favorite classes. I had very few problems, because it was so much fun for both the kids and me, and the kids could “make and take” their projects to teach to others.
BTW I’m not Billy G, whoever the heck that is, LOL.
Are you an art teacher? Art was my favorite subject as a sub. The kids were engaged almost from the moment they walked in. No one was playing the “How can we make the sub’s life miserable?” game because they had more important things to do.
NATB,
Read again what I wrote. I said that your statement, what you wrote sounded like “elitist edudeformer claptrap” and it most certainly does as that is the kind of statement that someone, an elitist edudeformer, Billy G would say. Oh, that Billy G = William Henry “Bill” Gates III. I did not say that you are an elitist edudeformer, as your work experience shows that you are not.
What classes did you teach in the public schools that had from 30-80 students? Not that it matters (unless it was a choral/band class and even then the students are being under-served by only having one teacher) because, even though you may have thought you were teaching well, the students could not be “learning” as well in a class with that student/teacher ratio-no way! See my response to Threatened Out West above about class size.
I currently teach a self-contained fifth grade class, but I’ve also taught 6th, 4th and mixed aged classes (once I taught a GATE 4-5-6 class–yikes!) My avg. class size now is about 30, but in the past, when we used to departmentalize, I had double classes of at least 60 students each. It was most challenging because of behavior, not because of academic differentiation. Effective classroom management is vital, and sadly, most of the teacher ed. schools are more concerned with political indoctrination than the practical, but necessary tools a teacher needs, such as management. I am strong in that area, but it took years to hone my skills. Add to that the nonsupport and cowardice of administrators, which are now, more than ever, BUREAUCRATS not EDUCATORS. Thank goodness for people like Diane Ravitch, whose insight is indispensable to those of us having to deal with the “Reform/Deform” era. Today, it’s even less about political indoctrination (which is bad enough), but more about following the money and connecting the dots.
The fact teachers can not negotiate class size means class size matters. Otherwise, the Reformers would not have to muzzle educators.
There was a special rule passed in Illinois on class size: only in Chicago can it not be negotiated as part of collective bargaining.
Class size caps in New York City public schools are determined by collective bargaining with the United Federation of Teachers, and the caps have not budged in decades. Furthermore, in the most recent contract, the UFT successfully negotiated the end of a popular small setting (12:1 student/teacher ratio), 4x per week, 37.5 minute extended day period that was of great help for the kids who needed it the most.
I’ll take your word for it that teachers believe class size matters. Going by the actions of the union that represents them in New York City, reducing class sizes is not a priority: 25 kids in K, 33 in grades 1-6 (30 for Title I), and 34 for high school is fine.
At least New York HAS a cap. Utah has never even bothered with one–even to ignore it.
Tim, do you get paid time and a half for union-bashing on the weekend, or are you a supervisor not entitled to overtime? Or are you just paid a piece rate? If only you had a union to represent you, I’m sure they would wrest more money from your well-heeled employers for you. With union representation, pay and benefits, you’d be much better off, more rested and with time to come up with better stuff than this. As time passed, and you got better at your job, your pay would go up and you wouldn’t have to worry about getting fired to be replaced by cheaper, less qualified flacks.
Are you seriously arguing that teachers in NYC don’t want smaller classes? And that the 37.5 minutes small group sessions were popular?
Class size maximums have not budged in the NYC teachers’ contract, but who was responsible for that? Every teacher I know longs for smaller class size. It’s what they complain to parents about most. It’s what parents complain to them about. Were the defenders of the class size maximums the teachers, or the NYC administrations of Bloomberg and deBlasio, with inadequate capital plans and limited budgets for hiring teachers? Or was it Gov. Cuomo, who failed to provide the court-mandated funding for NYC that could have paid for an adequate capital budget for the space for extra classrooms?
And who says the 37.5 min extended study session was popular? With whom? Teachers at my kids’ school told me that the kids who were supposed to be going to the small group sessions were not doing it. The principal tried various methods to get the kids to the sessions, and they just did not show up, or showed up so late it was hard to get anything accomplished (even when the sessions were at the end of the school day). When the sessions were before school, parents would not get their kids there on time, if they brought them at all. She eventually got permission to use the extra 37.5 minutes to keep all kids in class that much longer four days per week. It was the only way to keep the struggling students at school for some extra face time. The 37.5 minute session for struggling students was an experiment that did not work, and it was ended, and now the Chancellor is using the time on “parent engagement.” I’m hoping she has better luck with getting parents into school than NYC had getting struggling students into school for extra work.
NY Parent, if it is so important to so many teachers, then why has the UFT seemingly abandoned the issue in contract negotiations going back as far as anyone can remember? This really undercuts your argument about how I would benefit if I were in a union: if they can’t do something about an issue that’s allegedly a top priority for their working members, then what are they good for?
Your complaint about state funding is a red herring: city taxpayers have stepped up to replace all of the missing money and a whole lot more. You can thank Mike Bloomberg for that, as well as the UFT for making sure much of it was diverted to retirees.
We can trade anecdotes on extended day: the families, teachers, and administrators at the Title I schools my kids attend, as well as a handful of teachers I know who work at other high-poverty schools, found 12 students/1 teacher extended day to be valuable. The 80-minute PD session that replaced it is a joke, and the parent engagement Tuesdays are mostly worthless for working parents.
In the past, parent responses on NYC DOE surveys indicated that only a weak plurality–20-24%–felt that class size was what they’d most like to fix at their child’s school. We won’t be able to track that going forward, as de Blasio and Fariña have scrubbed that question from the survey.
Teachers care about class size because it’s a fundamental working condition. But their union does not prioritize it.
Political posturing about data-driven instruction is just that.
I have discovered by pure accident USDE funded studies that contradict USDE policies.
USDE policies that purport to be evidence-based are proving to be large-scale experiments with little or no evidence in support of them.
In a belated recognition that something may be amiss, USDE decided to commission a study for the purpose of getting “rigorous” evidence on whether the evaluation systems called for in federal policy have their intended effects on teacher and leader performance and student achievement (American Institutes for Research, 2012, February).
This five-year, $16 million study of Teacher and Leader Evaluation Systems will be completed in 2017, long after teachers and principals in almost every state have endured the requirements of evaluation systems known to be unreliable and ineffective as means to improve educational outcomes. The evidence against USDE policies was overwhelming, some of it funded by USDE before the AIR study.
So when someone says “research shows…” get out your skeptic’s hat and look at the citations yourself.
In the “Social Sciences” (an oxymoron), valid research is that which confirms wisdom and common sense. Invalid research does not. How pathetic it is, that in the 100+ years of “progressive” (as opposed to “classical”) education in the U.S,, the Powers That Be in the Liberal Arts have always sought the imprimatur of “science” to disciplines that are anything but scientific (that is, follow the rules and methodologies of the hard sciences–physics, chemistry, etc.) There are predictable patterns in human behavior, but also many, many unpredictable variables, not to mention many intangibles. So, yes, always take “Research shows..” with a huge grain of salt, especially right before public funding is requested.
Common and sense will make you think.
Now where’s the ₵ent¢ in that?
Common and Core is such a bore.
But rheephorm wallets get fat!
$tudent $ucce$$…ain’t it grand?!?!?
😎
Good work! Taking lessons from our poet I see. So let me fill in with an old dead Frenchman: “Common sense is not so common.” Voltaire.
The children in my child’s former public classroom were starved for personal one on one help in the classroom. Each time I entered the room their eyes lit up and there hands waived in the air signaling to me that they needed help. I was lucky in that our school had a very open door policy for parent volunteers. Sadly as the children got older the number of parent volunteers seemed to dwindle. I would say only about thirty percent of the children seemed self sufficient but seventy percent needed a lot of one on one assistance. What if parent volunteers were not allowed or what if there were no parents to volunteer? This is more often the case. Volunteering at my child’s public school profoundly changed my views on education. I’m am absolutely certain that the number one problem with our schools is class size. The reason why politicians do not want to mention this challenge is because they know more teacher aides and smaller classes will require more tax dollars. Demanding more tax dollars would risk them votes. We need more people to run who are not scared of being one term politicians because they know the interests of our children should come first. We must fall on the sword for our children. It should always be about what is best for the next generation. This to me is common sense.
Here is the wording of our Class Size Amendment to the state constitution:
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=1000-1099/1003/Sections/1003.03.html
JEB! Bush has never forgiven the FEA (Florida Education Association) for leading the parents and citizens of the state to pass this amendment twice against his direct command and after spending buckets of money against its passage.
The legislature went after it again, for the 8th time since 2002, according to this article:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/after-a-dozen-years-class-size-foes-may-finally-prevail/2224068
They’ve used an ‘average’ which counts coaches, guidance counselors, and other such non-classoom personnel as ‘teachers’, they have indicated they won’t enforce the fines for districts who don’t comply, they are doing everything they can to circumvent the large majority of voters who passed this referendum TWICE after Bush tried to undo the first and was smacked down by the state Supreme Court.
The excuse is always that it is ‘too expensive’ yet businesses were given huge tax cuts again this year and people who purchase yachts were given a huge tax break. School funding was cut again and we remain in the bottom of the nation in per pupil spending.
Working with disturbed and disadvantaged Title I students for 20 years gives me all the research I need to know that smaller class sizes are crucial in helping these children succeed in school.
Yet I was told to expect at least 25 kids in August when school resumes despite the law saying no more than 18 and 3 extra allowed for the first two and a half months only. We were told to prepare for up to 30 students since our budget is inadequate to fund another teacher for each primary grade level.
Set up to fail? Yes, both teacher and students, not to mention school. With our among the lowest in the nation salaries, the punitive school grading system, bizarre testing scheme that is politically manipulated several times a year, and the corrupt VAM system with mandatory loss of teaching credential after 2 years of low ratings anyone who comes to Florida to teach must be a little mad and a little masochistic at this point.
How many of the fifty publiic schools Chicago closed were on the south and west sides? How many did they claim were underutilized?
cx: public Dang! I thought I beat the post comment button.
The only ones for whom large class size is not a problem — indeed, is a plus — are folks like Bill Gates and companies like Apple, Microsoft and Pearson who charge per head and stand to make a killing on computers, OS, educational and testing software
Money not spent on teachers is money that is available for corporations.
And, of course, “Data and predictive analytics transform the experience.” Just ask IBM.
Here’s my theory for what it’s worth. The military industrial (now including) educatiional)makes it’s money on the production of stuff to cell. Programs that mostly require increasing the number of people have no interest for them. Hence war on drugs is rin more like a military operation they profit buy as opoosed to the more effective creating more treatment centers with more counselors. They benefit from selling tests, books ,test prep ,curriculu ,software, hence the emphasis of “educational reform.”. Small class sizes and adequate support means hiring people. They don’t make as money from that. I admit I am cynical
Average class sizes:
Lakeside (16)
Chicago Lab Schools (18)
Sidwell Friends Lower (11)
Sidwell Friends Middle (17)
Phillips Exeter (12)
Trinity (12)
Horace Mann (15)
Brearly (9)
Winsor (13)
Tuition range: $27K to $47K
For what seems like the hundredth time, let’s take a closer look at how these schools manage to achieve these class sizes:
1. No defined benefit pension plans or retiree health care: when teachers retire or quit, they are off the school’s books entirely. Contrast this to a public school system like New York City’s, where there are far more retired teachers on the payroll than active ones, and where the city is picking up much of the healthcare tab for retirees and their dependents.
2. Teachers pay for a big chunk of their fringe benefits–they get a 403b with a match, they pay a percentage of their health-care premium, and so on.
3. There are no salary scales, or work rules that divert resources from the classroom–these schools aren’t forced into hiring non-pedagogues rather than teachers.
4. A sizable chunk of the faculty works for a comparatively low wage–often these are younger teachers with only a BA who have no intention to pursue teaching as a career.
5. No time-consuming and expensive hoops to jump through to get rid of a teacher. Everyone’s an at-will employee (except at the Lab School, which is a division of one of the world’s wealthiest research universities).
6. No bloated administrative structures to support.
7. No students who require special education services, English language instruction, or other expensive interventions–or even kids who are deemed merely average. These kids are kicked to the public school system.
Replicating the conditions in elite private schools would involve making some very difficult decisions.
We had an in-service this year on poverty. The main point was that the effects can be overcome with better teaching strategies. So it does not matter about class size or kids with a myriad of problems, you the teacher can fix it all if you just could teach better.
Forget about hunger and illness? Just be a better teacher?
Yes…Eric Jensen book on Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind.
We were not impressed by yet another book written by someone with little to no public school experience.
And yet, you were very impressed with a guy who has long been cashing in on the unfounded “brain-based learning” craze. I teach brain-based learning college courses to teachers and have to spend a considerable amount of time warning them to be very critical of professional development presentations from snake oil salesmen like Jensen and his “certified” trainers, because their supposed miracles, however packaged, are cash cows for hucksters targeting teachers, as well as parents. See some sample articles on this matter at: http://www.illinoisloop.org/brain.html
Other countries have faced the same problem, such as England: “Beware ‘Brain-Based Learning” https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/beware-brain-based-learning/2009703.article?nopaging=1
If fixing poverty was just a matter of good teaching, the achievement gap between lower and higher income kids would not exist in EVERY country. “International tests show achievement gaps in all countries” http://www.epi.org/blog/international-tests-achievement-gaps-gains-american-students/
Since Jensen and others took their shows on the road years ago and have trained many teachers in other countries, if these programs really were miracles, at least one of those other nations should no longer have an achievement gap issue. However, the only country I know of with a low achievement gap, Finland, has a very low level of poverty and that is because their government sought to address equity issues decades ago, instead of scapegoating teachers and expecting them to fix poverty all by themselves.
They want you to drink the “no excuses” Kool Aid, or kill yourself trying to overcome poverty. It’s called brainwashing. Even before I left five years ago, the principal started things like,” we can’t control how a student lives so we have to focus on what we can control.” If I’m an ostrich with my head in the sand and a wild animal is heading my way, I can ignore it, and the wild animal will disappear?
“Nonsense”
Makes no sense
But lots of dollars
Seeking rents
Instead of scholars
From “A DAMthology of Deform”
Of course, all teachers are well aware of this. We have more behavioral problems, more challenging families, and with Common Core, more challenging teaching. Class sizes of over 30 students of 7 & 8 yr. olds, makes it very difficult to do any “differentiation,” which, as we know, is vital to student achievement and growth!
Life is like a bus, only “u” come between the “bs”.
Cordially,
J. D. Wilson, Jr.
$$$ are relevant.
“Sense” and integrity are irrelevant.
6/27/2015 Columbus Dispatch “…some legislative Republicans have been reluctant to subject politically influential charter and on-line operators to more disclosure …of advertising and overhead costs”…. like sweetheart real estate deals?
Republican politician, Peggy Lehner recently introduced her long-awaited charter school legislation, which she bragged would be a thorough, best practices document. Yesterday, “Lehner agreed to scale back disclosures”, in the document (reporter, Jim Siegel).