Does class size in our elementary schools matter? Can a “great” teacher teach 35 or 36 students and not feel like both the teacher and the students are missing out on learning? Would those same students do better in a classroom of 20-25 pupils? Or better yet, a class of 16-18?
Why now?
This dilemma has been discussed for many years in our education systems. Teachers use the class-size theory every time teacher union negotiations contracts are in play. They then say large class is definitely a drawback to student achievement. Yet, when it comes to decision-making, most of the teachers pick a salary raise over keeping class size in check.
Still to be answered
Now, more and more educators and people like Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are saying “great” teachers are needed more than keeping class sizes manageable.
Just last week a former education commissioner also came out and said class size doesn’t matter all that much.
And our own Roberta Selleck, superintendent in Adams County School District 50, told me sometime back that class size isn’t the answer to student performance.
Now what?
If one could poll the parents you’d probably get a far different answer. You’d hear story after story about class size and the effect it has in the classroom. You can’t tell parents that class size doesn’t matter, because it does. It matters big time for a student who needs extra help but can’t get it because the teacher has such a large class to teach.
It mattered
When our son Danny was in third grade his teacher had 43 students. She was so frazzled she’d cry in the classroom. Those were the days of rapid growth in District 50 and class sizes were a major problem.
After three weeks of coping with the situation, a delegation of us parents went to the school board and demanded that the class be split. Let me tell you it made all the difference – for all those students now had a teacher who could teach instead of baby-sit.
Around that same time period when the board was making boundary changes, some parents balked at sending their students to Hodgkins Junior High. They wanted their children to attend Shaw Heights Junior High, a school in the more affluent part of the district.
So while our kids at Hodgkins were in classes of 16-18 students, up in Shaw Heights those kids were in 30-plus classrooms. Who do you think got the better education?
Hands down
Just give us “good” teachers who care about their students, a classroom size of a manageable 20 or so, and a set of parents who support their children and do what’s necessary for their child to succeed.
Now, you might add in a happy, well-paid teacher who is “great,” but good will suffice if the teacher has parents who care. Motivated parents are critical to the process.
You decide
Let’s let all the “experts” banter class size, but let’s first ask the parents “do you think class size matters?” I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts everyone will say “definitely.”
And there, folks, lies some of the answers to our achievement problems.
Quote of the Week
“For the first 10 years of my child’s life I couldn’t get them into the shower, the next 10 I couldn’t get them out of the shower.” –A friend
Stay well, stay involved and stay tuned.
Vi June is past Democratic state representative for House District 35. She is a former mayor of Westminster and a former newspaper publisher. A Westminster resident for more than four decades, she and her husband, Bob, have five grown children and eight grandchildren.