Class Size
The one thing I learned from my college statistics class was that manipulating numbers is easy, and it is beneficial if you do it correctly. That is why education statistics rarely mean much too me. In perusing my state's Report Card, I stopped at the Students Per Teacher ratio. Not bad. For every 17.4 students, one teacher is present. But wait. If there is one of me, then why is there nearly double the seventeen and four tenths of a student sitting in my first period English class?
Class size is not the solution to our education problems. It won't fix poor teaching, disinterested students, or dated curriculum. But, only someone who is not a teacher would suggest that class size in a public school is an insignificant part of the education problems.
Why can't we be honest with our public?
posted by Mr. McNamar @ 6:23 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
I didn't know until my second year teaching that in our school distict they count admins, secretaries, counselors, and other office type personnel as "teachers" when figuring things like student:teacher ratio. That would explain why I had 30+ kids in each class after coming to the job thinking the ratio was 22:1. Nice sleight of numbers, huh?
30+!!! I had two English HONORS classes with 50 students last year. Try grading those essays and monitoring those discussions!!
Exactly. How can I teach teenagers a foreign language if I can't hear them when the whole class repeats or take time to hear each individually?
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