Any Validation Of This Person's Opinion?

Thanks to The Gradebook for this link and the accompanying public comments:

When is 2010? A class-size question that matters

Can anyone validate this person's comments? Anonomous but truthful comments accepted.



"School systems have been running class size numbers through a "business accounting" model for nearly eight years.

Step 1: County-wide class size average was achieved by hiring more special education teachers and firing the aides who worked in the classrooms with the children. For instance, a school's special ed program that once served 28 students with disabilities with one teacher and three classroom aides (An inexpensive solution to a labor intensive process.) now serves 28 students with two teachers and 1 classroom aide.

Step 2: School wide averages- The "business model solution" to reach this benchmark was to divide and conquer. Let's say a system of schools served 3000 students with disabilities with programs concentrated in 10 of their 30 schools. The special education programs were broken up and divided over the 30 schools in the system and whoa la, abra cadabra-school wide averages are met adding no additional resources. Too bad those concentrated special education programs served students, teachers and schools well by creating atmospheres that supported special needs learning. Whether it was a playground equipped for wheel chair bound students or an atmosphere accepting of behavior challenges equipped to curtail even the most egregious and socially unacceptable behaviors. No matter. The kids, the teachers and the programs were dismantled to avoid the cost of implementing the class size amendment with integrity.

Step 3: Classroom by classroom- When it finally gets down to what the voters wanted in the first place: smaller classes to make learning, teaching and (accurate) accounting methods feasible, well...the answer is to thwart the will of the people again, right!

The people did not want learning disabled students to experience less support in classrooms through losing non-certified, but highly trained classroom aides.

The people did not want special education programs dismantled.

The people wanted ALL children to experience more classroom support. Those with disabilities as well as those with abilities. The people wanted to assist teachers with their workload by diminishing the number of students they were responsible to teach.

This is the same unethical behavior exhibited on Wall Street. Cook the books and dam n the consequences!

If you think the fall of the stock market is a crisis, you just wait until we fail to educate an entire generation of public school students!

Is it too quaint to expect our leadership to simply do the right thing?

And we wonder why our kids don't just do as their told! With today's role models, it's no wonder kids don't think the rules apply to them. The lesson here is-just don't get caught!

Posted by: | February 16, 2009 at 12:08 PM"