Larry Sand, Sizing Up Classrooms
It’s time to expose the “smaller-is-better” myth.
What’s more, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, teacher-pupil ratios across the nation have diminished steadily since 1955, when the ratio of public school teachers to students was 26.9 to one. By 1970, the ratio was 22.3 to one. And by 2007, the last year for which federal government statistics are available, the ratio came down to 15.5 to one. In California, going back to 1999, the student-teacher ratio across all elementary and secondary schools was 20.9 pupils. Today, it’s 21.3—a paltry 1.9 percent increase.
But it's set to increase in California because of budget problems.
If it's just mass education, one-size-fits-all, then it can be fed to a large group, without any consideration of whether the students are retaining any of the information. It's up to the initiative of the students and their families.
But what about the impact of "misbehaving" students? And if teachers take time out to address the needs of individual students? In the latter case it should seem obvious that the fewer students there are, the more time one can spend on addressing individual needs. The essay relies too much on numbers and data analysis, I think. Mass education itself should be rethought in many parts of the country.
It's not just the bottom line, the author might say. It's about results, and why pay for results that are no better, or even worse? Is it always about the bottom line? We need to be vigilant about public spending, but if it could be argued that classroom management would be easier with less students, and that this would have a positive impact on the lives of students even if it didn't increase test scores, what would these "fiscal conservatives" say to that? What, exactly, are they seeking to conserve?
The Class-Size Debate Never Graduates High School
By Charles C. Johnson
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