Tag Archive for 'class size'

“Stop Demoralizing Teachers”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 28, 2008 in Opinion. 0 Comments

Why does the answer to improving student achievement always seem to come down to lengthening the school day and adding more professional development, asks Philadelphia schoolteacher Christopher Paslay.  “I’ve been teaching in Philadelphia for 12 years, and I still don’t agree with this philosophy,” he writes in an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer.  “More isn’t always better.”

There are three parts of the education equation: teachers, students and parents. All three of these must be up and running at a minimum level for education to take place. Just as a car needs a working battery and transmission to operate properly, so a school system needs the support and cooperation of parents and students as well as teachers. If parents and students don’t get actively involved, how will extending the school day improve academic achievement? If education isn’t made a priority in children’s homes, what will requiring more professional development for teachers accomplish?

Accountability absolutists will dismiss Paslay’s take as an exercise in excuse-making, but his point that teachers are “only one part of a complex instructional ecosystem” will ring true to teachers.   Paslay’s Rx includes reducing class sizes in poorly performing schools, tuition reimbursement for teachers who agree to teach in failing schools, and most pointedly, “stop demoralizing teachers by making us the eternal scapegoats. In other words, hold parents and the community accountable, too.”

Do more of the sort of thing former Mayor John Street and former Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson did in 2006, when they gave summonses to 6,000 parents of truant schoolchildren, bringing them to Temple’s Liacouras Center to talk about the importance of getting their sons and daughters to school.

Father (and Mother) Knows Best

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 9, 2008 in Parents. 1 Comment

If you really want to reform education, Messrs. McCain and Obama, forget the unions, policy wonks and the business community, and heed the words of those who have skin in the game: parents.  Elizabeth Green of the New York Sun has a piece about a new group trying to inject parents’ point of view on ed reform into the campaign.

Leading the charge are two groups, Chicago-based Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE), and New York’s Class Size Matters.  “There’s a complete disconnect between what we’re being told by the politicians and the businesspeople about what we should want schools to do, and what parents want schools to do,” PURE’s executive director, Julie Woestehoff, tells the Sun. ”But frankly what parents want schools to do is better for their children. They know best.”

Naturally, there’s a manifesto in which PURE offers its own ed reform ideas. Titled “Common Sense Educational Reforms,” it differs sharply from both the “Broader Bolder” group’s and the Education Equality Project, led by Joel Klein and Al Sharpton.  The parents’ wish list includes increased parental involvement, lower class sizes, and a “rich, well-rounded curriculum.” 

Sounds good so far.  I’m all for giving parents the biggest, loudest megaphone on education issues.  They are, after all, the consumer.  On the other hand, the manifesto sounds suspiciously non-parental in its demand for kids to have ”project-based learning in a curriculum connected to their own lives and culture, with progress evaluated by high-quality, appropriate assessment tools that are primarily classroom-based.”  The group is also decidedly anti-charter schools, which will be a hard sell to parents whose kids have been spared from a life of educational neglect by charters.  

Less Cash, Bigger Class

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 5, 2008 in Education Practice and Teaching. 0 Comments

With more than $4 billion expected to be cut from public education budgets in the coming school year, school districts across California may increase class sizes in primary grades. “Educators are loath to increase student enrollment in the youngest grades,” reports the San Diego Union-Tribune, while noting that research on the efficacy of smaller class size is inconclusive.

“Since 1996, California has nevertheless set aside huge amounts of money – nearly $2 billion for the current school year – to limit class sizes to 20 students in kindergarten through third grade. Those are the crucial early years of schooling, when children acquire reading and math skills that determine their success later,” says the U-T.