If one visits the website of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, one is almost instantly hit with a banner containing 4 facts about Calvin of which they are proud. One of these is the fact that Calvin has a 13 to 1 student-faculty ratio.
If one also ventures to the website of Holland Christian School in Holland, Michigan, one has to make a click or two first (under the Academics heading), but one quickly finds posted evidence of a 12.5 to 1 student-faculty ratio, along with data about average class sizes (mostly in the teens).
I deduce that both schools view these ratios as positives worthy of trumpeting to prospective enrollees/parents. I certainly did not find any statements to this effect: “Our student-faculty ratio is currently only 12.5 to 1, but, in an effort to reward our best teachers and better serve our students, we are taking steps to eliminate teachers in order to increase that ratio to 25 to 1 or higher.” Why would I even look for such a ridiculous statement? Read on.
These two institutions have a newsworthy graduate in common, namely our current Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Perhaps our Secretary has never appreciated her good fortune in participating in these smaller classes. Last month, in front of Congress mind you, she uttered the following sentence:
“Students may be better served by being in larger classes, if by hiring fewer teachers, a district or state can better compensate those who have demonstrated high ability and outstanding results.”
Go ahead. Read that whole thing again.
Imagine that you had just encountered that statement without any context and asked where it might have come from. Wouldn’t your answer have been something like “a fictional quote from Mad Magazine”, or perhaps “smart-alek entry in a community contest entitled ‘how can we improve our schools?’”?
But no. I repeat that this is a real quote from our existing Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, made in front of the Congress of the United States.
OK. I’ll grant that there are still some university classes – of the information-dispensing type – where larger lecture sizes are not necessarily detrimental. (But that’s university.) And I’ll grant that there are some random studies that claim to show that smaller class sizes are not necessarily that much more beneficial in terms of ‘achievement’ . (Details, please?)
But let’s get real. Is there really any question? Ask ANY teacher in ANY K-12 public school. Smaller class size is always better in every respect, and often drastically so. And we all know the obvious reasons why: More time for each student, more time to diagnose mistakes, more time to spot personal problems, more time to plan better lessons, more teacher sanity, and on and on. And on.
Further, find the best teacher you can anywhere, by almost any standard. Ask him or her: How would you like to be ‘rewarded’ for your expertise by increasing your pay, eliminating some of your colleagues, and giving you more students? Indeed, ask any administrator or school board member if that’s even a remotely viable plan.
I’m sorry, but can the Secretary’s quote and its implications be any more ridiculous/absurd?
As a nation, we’ve put up with similar nonsense from this Secretary for over two years now. How do we make the ongoing pleas for sanity and reason any louder? What options do citizens have for receiving more accountability from her? What can we do in the meantime? The future of our schools may depend on finding some answers.
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