Matt Farmer, Chicago public school parent, asks an important question: when does Mayor Rahm Emanuel consider a class of 23 to be underutilized? When does he think it is just right?
A public school in Chicago can be closed down if it has a class size of 23.
But where is it just right?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I just saw 3 classes of kindergarten in a row all with 23 kids. It is just right when it needs to be.
I wonder what the average class size is at Chicago Lab, where the Emanuel and Pritzker kids go. My guess is that it is 23 or less, and that the school proudly uses that number as a selling point.
Exactly my question.
What is the avg. class size at the private schools these people send their kids to?
I bet it is not over 23.
And I am sure it is a selling point.
Oh well, huge classes are OK for other people’s children.
Huge classes where the kids play video games all day:
http://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/nation/2012/10/12/a-new-kind-of-elementary-school-rocketship-si-se-puede-academy/1630549/
According to the Lab School union (yes, they are unionized), the cap is anywhere from 20 to 23 depending on the age. Funny, that. Guess we need to close down the Lab School, as it appears to be seriously underutilized.
How much does it cost to keep classes at that size at the Lab School?
FLERP! – I dunno, but my daughter’s progressive school has 16 to a class and tuition is less than $10,000, so it is doable. No one is saying that public schools should have all the bells and whistles of an elite private school like Lab. But there has to be a happy medium between elite private schools and public schools getting shoved in 40 to a sardine can.
Do your daughter’s teachers have defined benefit pensions? Do they have to contribute to their healthcare? Are their wages higher or lower than those of CPS teachers? Does the school have its own busing system, or does it require parents to transport their own kids to school (or is the school permitted to use the public school transportation system)? These factors all have very significant effects on class size.
If you have 16 students per class, and tuition is less than $10,000 per student, then you have an annual budget of less than $160,000 per classroom. For simplicity, say it’s a one-room schoolhouse. You then would have less than $160,000 to pay one teacher one administrator. So maybe your school would pay your principal $88,000 and pay your teacher $68,000. No money left over for healthcare. No pension. No matching of 403(b) retirement account contributions. No money for substitute teachers (the school would have to shut down whenever the teacher was sick). No janitors or cafeteria workers. No electricity, for that matter, but we’ll ignore that one for this example. If your school wants any of those things, it will have to cut wages or raise tuition substantially.
Which is to say that, to my mind, the only way to get class sizes of 16 with tuition under $10,000 is to pay very low wages with minimal benefits.
FLERP, anyone who cares about reducing or closing the achievement gap will demand more spending to cut class sizes.
Diane — I agree completely. But how much should it be increased? A heck of a lot, I would think. Apparently so much that nobody — including almost everyone who purports to care about closing the achievement gap — is willing to say exactly how much more spending it necessary, presumably because they know it’s a non-starter politically. And so we will go on like this.
Oh, also, adding to the list above: you’d have no money left over to pay the rent for the building. Which is a pretty huge problem unless your school is co-located rent-free in an “underutilized” public school, as many charter schools are in NYC.
It was not too many years ago that my classes (at the regular old public school) were capped at around that number. It can now be as high as 35. Great for science, don’t you think?
I also used to (again, not too long ago) have adequate money to purchase supplies and lab equipment. Now I spend my own money. (And we say we want more scientifically literate adults?).
Along the way my health benefits have been reduced while my contributions have increased. And don’t get me started on what is going on with our retirement contributions…lawsuit working its way through the courts)
What changed in recent years, exactly?
Humm….
Unfunded mandates.
Tax money going to private schools.
Ridiculous expenditures on testing (data bases, people to over see the testing people to help with test prep, people to train the teachers on the tests, consultants galore, not to mentions the tests themselves).
Cuts to state level funding.
Not buying it.
Just not buying this crisis.
“Not buying it.
Just not buying this crisis.”
Ang, I think some of those points are true, but overall, this mentality — that there’s plenty of money in education budgets, that current levels of taxation and spending levels are more than sufficient, and that the only problem is that the money’s being spent on the wrong things — will be instrumental in the continued worsening of school finance at the state and local level.
I don’t recall saying there is “plenty of money”. I am sorry if I implied that, it was not my intent.
Do we need to increase revenue, yes. I never said we didn’t.
Are there plenty of places where we can trim spending…yes. A thousand times over.
However, I am far from convinced that there is an unsurmountable “crisis” that the middle class alone must pay for and sacrifice for. All the while the consultants and the corporations continue to make record profits.
Just not buying it.
If we took all of Bill Gates net worth and spent it on public education, we could increase public education spending by about 10% for one year. We could move on to Warren Buffet and get a one year increase of slightly over 8%.
TE,
Better than nothing I guess, eh!
Duane
It may be better than nothing, but even a modest 10% increase kn expenditures and we would run out of billionaires pretty fast.
1st-4th grade at the lab school: “Each homeroom has about 23 pupils, with a head teacher as well as an assistant teacher through the second grade.” http://www.ucls.uchicago.edu/schools/lower-school/ls-overview/index.aspx
5-8th grade: ” Lab’s Middle School consists of nearly 400students and 47 faculty members plus a set of fulltime counselors, a ratio that ensures our students get the attention they need.” http://www.ucls.uchicago.edu/schools/middle-school/index.aspx
Someone needs to take Rahm to the woodshed.
It would be interesting to see what the class size is at the Chicago lab school.
>>> Diane Ravitch’s blog 4/18/2013 10:05 AM >>>
dianerav posted: “Matt Farmer, Chicago public school parent, asks an important question: when does Mayor Rahm Emanuel consider a class of 23 to be underutilized? When does he think it is just right? A public school in Chicago can be closed down if it has a class size of 2”
Beside the word hypocrisy in the dictionary are pictures of all the so-called reformers.
Great writing by Matt Farmer.
From the comments section:
“You must understand that the “reformers” are simply neo-aristocrats who are undermining every school in order to create a two tier class system based solely on reputation instead of merit.”
If that isn’t the truth.
What I wouldn’t do for a class of 23! Imagine the learning that could take place, the teaching, the grouping/differentiation! I’m sure the private schools children of educrats and rheeformers attend have less than that! A number like 23 would even make grading papers, etc. more .meaningful
No kidding. I have 235 8th and 9th grade over 7 periods in social studies. No preparation period. My average class size is 32, and I have an honors (!) class with 35. Stack ’em deep and teach ’em cheap!
Here is the Lab School Pre-K descriptions of class size (from web site):
All kindergarten classes are full day. There are up to 24 children in each class with one head teacher and two assistant teachers. Kindergarteners go to specialized music and PE teachers three times a week, and to the library for storytelling once a week for 30 minutes.A Learning Consultant and counselors are available to consult with teachers and families about children’s social and emotional growth.
For the longest time, one of my solutions to help with student learning has been to reinstate aides in kindergarten classes. It’s a very simple solution, but somehow over the years, they have been eliminated in many districts. Obviously, the lab school and I think alike. All these “experts” should have only looked to their own children’s schools. The answers for improving education are right there in front of them.
A few of the charter schools in my town have class sizes under 23.
My grandniece goes to the private Wooster School in CT: from the website – “Small Classes require student participation, promoting active learning, questioning, and debate rather than rote memorization. It is as if every student has a front row seat. The average class size in the Lower School is 11 students, in the Middle School it is 13 students, and, in the Upper School, the average is 12 students.” Actually at one point when she was in 2nd grade there, she was in a class of 8 kids. The tuition increases with grade level: $23,259 for grades K through 5 and grades 9 -12 is $31,500.
Jere Hochford, the superintendent of a the Bedford school district in Westchester County, NY, recently posted here that class sizes were approaching 30 in his district. His district spends around $26,000 per student. How can the Wooster School have 12 students in a class when Bedford has 30? What’s Wooster’s secret?
Wooster is an elite private school for the affluent who are highly motivated to get the best education possible for their kids. They don’t have kids from poverty, from violent crime ridden areas, they don’t have child study teams or special classes for special ed kids or teachers for kids who are English learners. My nephew drives his daughter to school and picks her up at the end of the day. Kids with too many problems will be counseled out of the Wooster School. In NJ, Christie claimed that the Newark school district was spending $26k per kid but that turned out to be a lie. It was more like about $17,000.
Roger Miller:
“2 hours of pushin’ broom buys an eight by twelve four-bit room. I’m a man of means by no means. . .”
How many people know how much four bits are worth?
when it’s in the right neighborhood, of course.
Because they want 50 in a class to start out with and a TFA teacher. Then we move to virtual schools and give Bill Gates what he is quoted saying “One teacher for one million students.” I make all the money and tough luck for all else.