National News Commentary:
The best explanation of the national news can be found weekly on www.unclejayexplains.com
*******************************************************************************************************
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-cost-of-small-class-size/2011/03/03/AFPGSkkB_story.html
The cost of small
class size
The Washington Post, Monday, March 27, 2011
That class size should be small is revered like an article of faith in this country.
Its adherents include parents, education groups, politicians and, of course, the unions
whose ranks it swells. In many states it is even required by law, which has lead to
millions of dollars in
fines against schools in Florida and a
lawsuit against New York City by its teachers union.
Yet small class size is neither a guarantor nor a prerequisite of educational
excellence.
The worst public elementary school in Manhattan, 16 percent of whose students read at
grade level, has an average class size of 21; PS 130, one of the city’s best, has an
average class size of 30. Small class size is one factor in academic success. The
question, then, is whether the educational benefits of class-size reduction justify the
costs.
Some proponents contend that because research shows reducing class size is beneficial,
spending on this should be prioritized over anything that is unsupported by research.
That’s a neat rhetorical trick but unsound logic. The absence of research on, say, teacher
salaries doesn’t prove that we should pay the minimum wage to teachers to dramatically
reduce class size. Research should guide spending decisions only if it measures the
benefits per dollar of spending on all alternatives.
At Harlem Success Academy Charter School, where we’ve gotten some of the best results
in New York City, some classes are comparatively large because we believe our money is
better spent elsewhere. In fifth grade, for example, every student gets a laptop and a
Kindle with immediate access to an essentially unlimited supply of e-books. Every
classroom has a Smart Board, a modern blackboard that is a touch-screen computer with
high-speed Internet access. Every teacher has a laptop, video camera, access to a
catalogue of lesson plans and videotaped lessons.
Outfitting a classroom this way costs about $40,000, or $13,500 amortized over three
years. That’s how much New York charter schools receive per pupil annually, so we can
afford this by just increasing class size by a single student.
Add just one more student per class schoolwide, and Harlem Success Academy I gets
another $300,000 in total. With that, we can afford headhunters to find the best
principals in the country, business managers to handle the non-instructional
administration that would otherwise distract these great principals from driving
high-quali ty instruction, ample professional development for teachers, museum trips for
students, etc.
In other words, a 19th-century school can be transformed into a well-managed
21st-century school by adding just two students per classroom. Reducing class size is
expensive because most costs vary with class size. Decrease a class from 25 to 24 students
and you need to hire 4 percent more teachers as well as build and maintain 4 percent more
buildings.
Obsession with class size is causing many public schools to look like relics. We spend
so much to employ lots of teachers that there isn’t enough left to help these teachers be
effective. According to the city’s education department, New York public schools spend on
average less than 3 percent of their budgets on instructional supplies and equipment (1
percent), textbooks (0.6 percent), library books and librarians (0.5 percent), and
computer support (0.5 percent). Basic supplies are rationed in absurd ways: A school will
pay $5 million in salaries to teachers who end up wasting time writing on blackboards
because the school has run out of paper that costs a penny a page. (Don’t believe me? Ask
a teacher.)
This parsimony is particularly unfortunate because, while employees become more
expensive every year, technology and intellectual property become cheaper and better.
Instructional software improves, computers become more powerful, good children’s books
multiply.
Take e-books. Any parent whose child has gotten hooked on Harry Potter knows that many
children are natural, even addictive, readers. They are more likely to read prodigiously
if they have immediate and unlimited access to books, so, for example, when they finish
the first book in a series, they can start the next one immediately instead of waiting for
the next trip to a school library. This can be done by giving students an e-reader stuffed
with 100 books. Such devi ces can be passed on to other students and the long-term cost is
no greater than buying books in hard copy.
Overspending on class-size reduction is particularly unconscionable in tough fiscal
times. We need to invest in ways that will help teachers be more effective, such as
professional development, technology, school leadership and abundant curricular materials.
Spending in these areas, already too low, should not be cut further in blind adherence to
the cult of small class size.
The writer, a former New York City councilwoman representing Manhattan, is founder and
chief executive of the
Success Charter Network, a collection of seven charter schools in Harlem and the
Bronx.
*******************************************************************************************************
March 18, 2011
Link to web page showing Congressmen who voted to fund Obamacare. How disappointing! Culberson and McCaul are on it.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll179.xml
The Tea Party needs to start a list of these Republicans who are spitting in the eye of the Tea Party members.
9/17/10***"Why It's Time for the Tea Party" by Peggy Noonan **Wall Street Journal***
In today's Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan offers up an explanation why the Tea Party is so popular. She gets it . The Tea Party movement is so appealing to me because they have no ties, because they take up causes I believe in, and because they know they are powerful, and they know how to exert that power in order to win elections. Read the article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703440604575496221482123504.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion
9/12/10***Hillary Rodham Clinton is in the news
today saying that her current peace efforts "may
be our last chance for peace. Hillary
seems to be stuck on the 1990's. She and
her husband welcomed Yasser Arafat to the White
House more times than any other head of state
(and I use the term 'state' loosely). If
she were going to manage a peace effort, her
time and chance has come and gone. Why are
the Israelis even talking to her? They must be
stalling for time.
Don't miss the 'Comments" either.
9/08/10***Go to http://comments.americanthinker.com/read/42323/667780.html and read the article on "The War on Academic Achievement" by Robert Weissberg.
Factual information regarding the dumbing down of students, especially those that are truly gifted, is presented. The point is clearly made that educationists hate smart kids and are doing everything they can to undermine them.
"... the education establishment loathes programs for the gifted. These classes are uniformly attacked as elitist, exclusionary, racially segregated, and, oddly, subverting the education of less talented students -- as if education were a zero-sum game, so if a smart student advances, a less able student necessarily falls behind. Many professional educators even dispute the very idea of some people being smarter than others."
The article, which appears on the conservative "American Thinker" web site, exposes the duplicity of government in providing equal educations for all students.
From past experience, I know that administrators erroneously believe that "gifted" students will "get it" on their own and don't really need anyone's help. That attitude occurs because most administrators aren't smart enough to understand the gifted student and his needs.