Romney and Class Sizes

Okay, time to commit some blasphemy: The Republican candidate for president might just be right when he says that class size doesn't matter. I'm a teacher, so I'm supposed to disagree. I'm a teacher so I'm supposed to vote Democratic. I'm a teacher so I should seek a refund for the $25 donation I made to Governor Romney's campaign. His class size comments don't make me regret doing that (his comments on pay for public employees is another story).

My best teaching came when I taught an extraordinarily large class, a 34-student section of AP U.S. History. If one measures my teaching of them to other AP U.S. classes by way of AP Exam scores, it would seem like we didn't achieve as greatly. But the sample size isn't big enough to draw that conclusion. More importantly, the tone that I established in that class, as I deduce from anecdotal evidence, set those kids up for greater success down the road. Many of them translated the skills and habits of mind I taught there toward high achievement in other elite classes. A colleague who taught many of these kids in an AP English class this year had a similar experience.

I think we need to look at class sizes a bit more flexibly. At the elementary level, we should pour in the resources to keep class sizes small. I don't think there's a place for classes larger than 24 before adolescence. In fact, we should keep class sizes there until high school (9th grade). But once we get the students to high school, is it necessary. Maybe it would do the kids a service to assign them to one or two sections that were more like 40 or 50 students in size.

The adults are doing too much to own the problem of lackluster student achievement at higher grade levels. I think it's necessary to closely monitor the underperforming 6th or 7th grader: they're too young to weigh the consequences of not completing their work and not focusing. However, a 10th grader is ready to begin experimenting with the consequences of willfully underperforming, even if it is at risk of not graduating on time. We have a duty to keep kids on track and doing everything possible to guarantee proficiency until high school. Yet in high school I think it's time we let kids court danger, and even occasionally have to repeat a class or grade level. For the high school student graduating on time is a great motivator. Repeating a class when one is 16 or 17 is a lot better than getting to age 20 and floundering in a college program for which one isn't ready (and when there is no support network).

So, I guess I'm advocating that we, as teachers, start to make concessions at the upper grade levels in the interest of flexibly meeting students where they are. Class sizes should start to vary in size, the school day might need to go beyond 3pm, and we might need to let the students fall so that they have the chance to get back up. I'd rather see a system in which teachers are there to help the kids who take the initiative to ask for and commit to that help than a system in which we work feverishly to make sure a kid passes but doesn't necessarily have the learning that the credits would imply they have learned.