Class Size in California Matters, of Course!

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Jackie Goldberg
Teacher
Former Member of the California Association

The only people still arguing about the merits of reducing class size are people whose children (or grandchildren) are in private schools where the class size is 10-15 students per teacher.

We spend millions of dollars a year in California on testing. Actually it is hundreds of millions of dollars on pencil and paper, largely multiple-choice tests which those who write and sell them say tell us whether or not children are getting a good education. Whew! I'm glad I got that off my chest. But truly, all over California, in the State Department of Education, in Superintendent O'Connell's Office, in the Legislature and the Governor's Office, everyone is congratulating themselves for having raised test scores on Standards' Tests that are based on the State Standards, and for which the Curriculum Commission and the State Board of Education have found the rare few materials that meet California's "rigorous standards." And yet, the scores in grades 4-12 are not as good.

Enter Governor Gray Davis. He decides to put money in the Education Budget to reduce class size in Kindergarten through 3rd grade to 20 students per teacher. Wow! Now, coincidentally, the State Board of Education went to the one-size-fits-all Reading Programs for Kindergarten through 8th grade at about the same time. And amazingly, The State Board could only find materials from two of the "giants" in textbook publishing that could meet California's "highest in the nation" standards. Imagine, in the 21st Century, a state with six million public school students, and our State Board and our Curriculum Commission have managed to find THE only way to teach reading and language arts, and miraculously, THE way works for all children, from all backgrounds, from all economic groups, regardless of learning English as a second language, in fact, regardless of anything.

Surprisingly, this one-size-fits-all approach is not working equally well everywhere. But alas, the Sacramento powers-that-be have declared that since there was "growth" in Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and some 3rd grade scores, their system is a miracle! And none of them seem to notice that class size reduction occurred in just those grades and at just this same time.