5 responses to “Conservative in its Spending?”

1. KRN

   November 22, 2008

   36 or 37 students in a classroom is too high for any classroom. I don’t want to criticize, but if you think you received an excellent education with 37 students in the classroom, you need a better standard for comparison.

2. Anonymous

   November 22, 2008

   The only comparison I can make is that my children did well in elementary school, continued into an excellent high school, continuing into excellent universities and an excellent law school. And they have been happy at all these learning institutions.

   More importantly, they were taught the importance of learning, education and reading plus non-academic lessons which were emphasized during their hundreds of hours sitting in a school desk surrounded by all those students.

   There is some irony that the priviledge of “larger” classes came at a price – not one of low standards but a monetary one. A price which would have been a bargain at double the price!

   We were blessed with a good and caring environment, incredible parents and caring teachers who worked together to make the 36/37 children enjoy school and – importantly – want to learn.

   So the standard was high and the outcome has been higher.

3. Holy Roller

   November 23, 2008

   When I was in the CA university system there were 50-70 students in lot of classroom settings.
   I have never understood the problem with “large” HS class size.
   My feeling is this is the time and place to weed out the students that are a waste of time.
   Then direct those students to other avenues of education.
   In order to provide them with meaningful carrer choices.
   WE need blue collar workers, military, law enforcement.
   The European school system has had this “program” in place for 40+ years.

4. KRN

   November 23, 2008

   Fiona,

   I’m happy that your children have performed well in school. It seems that this experience is from over 10 years ago, before No Child Left Behind. There have been very large changes in the last ten years which have changed the environment of education.

   In large classes, exceptional students “survive” because they have the drive and academic skills to act as an independent learner and progress. Those students who do not have these skills will not survive as well.

   I also suspect that your students were the beneficiaries of accelerated courses where students with advanced skills were moved ahead. In today’s schools, these accelerated courses (K-10) are termed as elitist, as all students (regardless of academic skill) should be instructed in the same classroom with differentiated instruction. I do not agree with this philosophy as it limits the ability of the advanced student.

   It is not until students enter an Advanced Placement Course in the 11th grade that they are ability grouped and properly challenged. To take a page out of Holy Roller’s post, schools are no longer allowed to let students fail. ALL students are UC bound and MUST complete the courses to gain admission. If the students are failing, they are enrolled in a “homework course” so that they can complete their work under the supervision of a teacher during a period in the school day.

   The UC and CSU system can run large classes because the admission process performs the “weeding out” function.

   My original post is centered upon the fact that ability grouped students in smaller classes can (and should) be pushed to meet higher educational objectives. The larger classes of multi-ability grouped students forces a teacher to aim their lessons at the middle of the group (if not the bottom to raise the API score) and loses the entire top of the course.

5. Holy Roller

   November 24, 2008

   Very good points KRN.
   I did not mean do state that students were allowed to fail.
   I want to state that they reached thier limitations as far as “the state” was concerned.
   For the better of all, those students are shown pathways they can be productive at.