From: Raleigh McLemore (raleighmclemore@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Oct 04 2004 - 16:54:40 PDT
Message-ID: <20041004235440.49003.qmail@web40203.mail.yahoo.com> Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 16:54:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Raleigh McLemore <raleighmclemore@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Middle school class size
Oakland Union Contract limits class sizes as follows in secondary education:
Lab Science Class, 31 students, 155 Contacts
Non-Lab Science Class, 32 students, 160 Contacts.
Additionally, sixth grade stand alone classes are theoretically limited to 31 students, but the middle schools have generally been included in the secondary description.
This gives Ben an idea of where his districts stands. The union has bargained these limits but they are always being challenged and teachers, including myself, have continually allowed the limits to be broken. More than once I have wondered if I can genuinely say that "I'm in this profession for the children." when I allow the district to overcrowd my classes by my failure to act.
There is ed code, or I should say legislative code on class size, if CTA is correct. I haven't found it. It probably says that you can't have more than a thousand students in one classroom (fear of spontaneous reproduction?), but I'm looking that up tomorrow.
Tons of data on the effect of class size on learning, but there is tons of data proving nearly everything imaginable in education and I have rarely come across a study that was absolutely compelling. My heart and soul say that class size trumps most other problems, but some district suffer from many deep and structural wounds that (in my scrambled mind) it is crazy to try to tie "success" to a single issue.
More than once I have looked out over a small sea of eager learners and felt that I haven't had time to really know them. I'm pretty sure I can teach them better if I could just get to know them a little. My feeling is that every student you give me makes it a little harder to reach the student who could move forward if I only had a little more time. Last year a student (a good student, a quiet, hardworking student, and one I had not taken the opportunity to ever really get to know) gave me a thank-you card at the end of the year and I discovered that she wanted to be a doctor. I couldn't believe that I had spent the entire year teaching her and didn't know that.
I should mention that in these times of scarcity one of the things our district is quite interested in is in allowing them to exceed our class size limits for a longer period (while they work out the overall class populations). Of course the additional chaos while the district stuffs the last child into the last classroom is always appreciated.
We are not a poor country and yet, from my point of view, we are determined to treat some our children poorly. As science teachers we might be able to contribute more to help our students collecting useful information on this subject.
Sorry about the rambling,
With firm handshake,
Raleigh
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