I often had these daydreams about what a perfect school would be like. I don't teach or have children but I think it started when I worked at a daycare years ago. I would imagine that the funding was limitless, the teachers were perfect, and the children were incredibly intelligent.
Okay, the daydreams were not very plausible. But one thing that was consistent was that I thought the class sizes should be small. This was probably from chasing around 3 year-olds that I thought deserved way more attention than anyone could give on a 10-to-1 ratio.
Teachers and students know from being in the classroom that when a class is too large, it can be more difficult for some students to learn. Here is information from the NEA that supports this idea.
http://www.nea.org/classsize/index.html
According to Alan Krueger of Princeton University, who served as chief economist for the U.S. Department of Labor in the Clinton administration, lowering class sizes in Tennessee narrowed the achievement gap between blacks and whites by 38 percent.
In a four-point plan to ensure that all children are educated to their full potential, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching President Ernest L. Boyer called for reducing class size to "no more than 15 students per teacher" for the early elementary grades. The National Association of Elementary School Principals has revised its class size policy statement from a student-teacher ratio of 20 to 1 down to recommending a student-teacher ratio of 15 to 1.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, "A growing body of research demonstrates that students attending small classes in the early grades make more rapid educational progress than students in larger classes, and that these achievement gains persist well after students move on to larger classes in later grades."
If George Bush was really interested in not leaving any children behind, he would support smaller class sizes. He would insist that the federal government provide funding for these smaller classes and not burden the state and local government with the funding needs.
I heard that during the Depression that our schools funded band instruments, band uniforms, and lessons for children. There were not additional fees for the parents to pay. The schools paid for it! During the Great Depression! If Americans could find away to support their children during the Great Depression, we can support our children to a even greater extent now. People own many televisions, DVD players, MP3 players, etc. They drive around in Hummers. We are a very wealthy nation.
We can afford to hire more teachers and provide small class sizes for our children. George wants accountability. Fund the schools. Watch test scores go up.