History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Bad Math: Adding and Subtracting in Wrong Places
- 04-23-2010
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By UCLA IDEA Staff
Themes in the News for the week of April 19-23, 2010
As educational expectations continue to rise, students are receiving less, not more attention and instruction in America’s classrooms. Gone are the days when class-size reduction was at the center of many state’s reform agendas. With schools increasingly feeling the effects of the economic crisis, class sizes are on the rise. According to a recently released report by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), almost two-thirds of districts surveyed nationally are increasing the size of their classrooms. Across the country, districts are planning to add four, five and even 10 students to each classroom. (Christian Science Monitor) In many northern California districts, 30 students in each elementary classroom will be the standard next year (Sacramento Bee). “Right now education is in survivor mode,” said Ken Whittemore, assistant superintendent at a Sacramento-area district.
Class size increases in California run counter to long-standing reform efforts aimed at providing students in early elementary school with reasonably sized classrooms. Since 1996, the state incentivized smaller classes by offering districts $1,000 per student per year if the districts capped K-3 classrooms at no more than 20 students. These incentives meant that California’s K-3 classrooms served the same number of students as the national average—a striking contrast to California’s middle and high school classrooms which pack in more students than any other state.
Budgetary pressures have also led many districts across the country to shorten the school calendar. The AASA survey of 453 superintendents found that 13 percent of districts are considering shifting to a four-day school week, up from 2 percent the last two years. Los Angeles Unified School District is cutting a week out of this school year, bringing the number of instructional days down to 175 (Los Angeles Times).
Next year, when federal funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dry up, the situation will worsen, officials said. “The cessation of ARRA dollars, paired with the continued budget strains at the state and local levels,… represents a one-two punch to education funding that will further insulate schools from economic recovery,” the AASA survey reported (Education Week).
While increasing class sizes and shortening school years are aimed at cutting costs, their effect is to undercut meaningful education reform. Students vying for teacher attention in overcrowded classrooms go unnoticed and fall further behind. And the shortened school year means teachers must cram lesson plans into fewer days or forego them altogether. Districts are moving in the opposite direction from national reform initiatives calling for longer instructional days to help students who have fallen behind or are learning English (Center for American Progress). Even before these recent reductions, American students, on average, attended school 13 fewer days each year than their counterparts in other industrialized nations. As state and federal lawmakers debate whether we can afford to invest more in our public schools, a better question would be, how can we not?
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