Class Size

After lengthy discussion over the issue of class size at Monday's work session, the Great Valley school board's nine members informally decided among themselves against writing a policy that would put a cap on class sizes. Board President George Sees listed a number of what he called "perceptions" about the class-size issue - ranging from an idea that class sizes at Sugartown Elementary School were deliberately set at 29 to the idea that money was not in issue. He and other board members then sought to clear up some of these matters.

For years, teachers and parents have insisted that smaller class sizes are crucial to kids' educational success. On Thursday, Mitt Romney visited Philadelphia and politely said they were mistaken. And on Friday, passions erupted - among partisans and professionals, from city classrooms to City Hall to Cherry Hill. "Out of touch with reality," Mayor Nutter fumed about the presumptive GOP nominee. "Just plain wrong," said Steve Baker, spokesman for the New Jersey teachers union.

THERE IS no more convenient whipping boy for critics of failing public schools than the teachers unions. People who can't agree on anything else in the public school debate agree that the teachers unions are part of the problem because they care more about teachers than they do about teaching. But the one thing that teachers unions have been consistently right about is the value of smaller classes. So, it's no surprise that the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers' was the first voice heard when the Philadelphia School District announced plans to relieve a shortage of substitute teachers in a way that could increase class size.

When teachers and the William Penn school board were stalled in lengthy negotiations that led to a strike last year, one of the sticking points was class size. Growing enrollment was crowding classrooms, teachers said, hurting the quality of education in the district. But there was no money or space for the additional classrooms and staff that the teachers wanted, the school board said. Only by agreeing to set up a class-size committee that would make recommendations for solving the problem did the two sides settle the issue.

When it comes to class size in public schools, most everyone agrees smaller is better at the primary level. It's no different at the Wissahickon School District. At a Monday night meeting, a 23-member committee proposed that even smaller classes be permitted in kindergarten through third grade. Under current administrative guidelines, kindergarten classes are limited to 22 students, and first through third grade to 25. The committee recommended new class-size guidelines that include the same maximums but also establish minimums: Kindergarten and first grade: 18 to 22 students.

A state regulatory board yesterday approved rules that some parents and teachers say could curtail services for many of the 220,000 special-education students across Pennsylvania. Among other changes, the regulations would allow districts to eliminate class-size limits for such things as resource room work, during which mildly disabled students get extra help. "Under current regulations, eight kids could come to a resource room at a time," said Liz Stanley-Swope of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, which opposed the new rules.

Instead of approving vouchers, Pennsylvania legislators should invest at least $50 million to reduce class size in the most impoverished school districts, according to a report released yesterday by a Harrisburg think tank. The analysis of class-size experiments in Tennessee and Wisconsin, sponsored by the Keystone Research Center - which is partially funded by the state's teachers' unions - showed that poor students who were in classes of no more than 15 students in kindergarten through grade three continued to benefit academically through high school.

In Pennsylvania today, a lot of time and energy is being used to talk about public education - from arguing about governance and budgets to threats to close or take over the schools. You might think there was no agreement about what works in public education or that people everywhere disagree about the importance of smaller class size, better trained teachers, schools that are safe and provide enough books and computers to prepare students for their future and that are accountable for the education they provide and the funding they receive.

Parents of Coopertown Elementary students are worried that increased class size will prevent their children from learning, they told the Haverford Township school board at the board's meeting last Thursday night. First-grade class size at the school has increased nearly a third - from under 20 students in last year's classes to 27 students in some classes this year. "It is a teacher-to-student ratio that is not the best for the children," said Fran Peltier, former president of the Coopertown Parent-Teacher Organization.

A group of parents of children enrolled in the Learning Disabled class at Cedarbrook Middle School has succeeded in temporarily blocking a move by the Cheltenham School District to seek state permission to establish a larger- than-allowed class size. Currently, there are 17 students in the class - two more than the state allows. Acting Superintendent Joseph C. Kircher Jr. had wanted to apply to the state Department of Education for permission to increase the maximum from 15 to 17. After hearing the opposing comments of parents of 11 children in the class of 17, the school board voted 9-0 Tuesday to table Kircher's recommendation.

FORT HOOD, Texas - Public schools everywhere will be affected by the government's automatic budget cuts, but few may feel the funding pinch faster than those on and around military bases. School districts with military ties from coast to coast are bracing for increased class sizes and delayed building repairs. Others already have axed sports teams and even eliminated teaching positions, but still may have to tap savings just to make it through year's end. But there's little hope for softening any future financial blows.

I HADN'T SEEN Vince's son in years. He had grown into a charming, intelligent and articulate high-school senior. His father wants him to work on Wall Street but he's always dreamed of becoming a teacher. Teaching is a wonderful profession, I told him. Sure, you'll make more money in finance, but you'll never feel the satisfaction of working with young people and making a difference in their lives. On the other hand, it seems that the days of being admired and valued for dedicating yourself to the education of young people may be over.

It was no surprise that educators at a West Philadelphia charter school challenged Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's statement that class size has no impact on student achievement.   His assertion isn't supported by most research, and it is the widely held belief of generations of parents and teachers that class size matters when it comes to learning. Many schools — including the private academy where Romney sends his children, which advertises an average class size of 12 students — have long touted small class sizes as a selling point.

For years, teachers and parents have insisted that smaller class sizes are crucial to children's educational success. On Thursday, Mitt Romney visited Philadelphia and politely said they were mistaken. And on Friday, passions erupted among partisans and professionals, from city classrooms to City Hall to Cherry Hill. "Out of touch with reality," Mayor Nutter fumed about the presumptive GOP nominee. "Just plain wrong," said Steve Baker, spokesman for the New Jersey teachers' union.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney brought his plan to improve the American educational system to a West Philadelphia charter school Thursday, and suggested class size mattered little to pupils' achievement. Whereupon the teachers in the room immediately questioned his stance. Calling the gap in education performance between black and white students "the civil rights issue of our time," Romney said quality teaching and parental involvement were the keys to classroom success.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney brought his plan to improve the American educational system to a West Philadelphia charter school Thursday, and suggested class size mattered little to pupils' achievement. Whereupon the teachers in the room immediately questioned his stance. Calling the gap in education performance between black and white students "the civil rights issue of our time," Romney said quality teaching and parental involvement were the keys to classroom success.

I'D LIKE to know why two Philly police officers left a worried dad and his sick son on the side of the road on March 10, 2010. Was it lack of training? Or did the cops just not care? That evening, Brian Walsh was rushing his 8-year-old son to a hospital emergency room when the cops stopped him near 7th and Callowhill streets for having an expired registration. Walsh says that after impounding his truck, the cops stranded him and his kid on the street. That's a no-no, according to Police Department protocol regarding Live Stop (the state law that allows police to confiscate the vehicles of drivers who are unlicensed or whose vehicles are unregistered or uninsured)

Barbara Trent has been a teacher for 42 years, including 23 spent corralling cute kindergartners at Cook-Wissahickon Elementary. To see her in action, a lone adult surrounded by scamps, is to be rendered instantly exhausted. Especially this fall, as schools like Cook contend with Gov. Corbett's budget cuts and the institutional chaos of the Philadelphia School District. "I had 17 students last year," Trent said wistfully last week when I popped into her remarkably controlled classroom.

IF ARLENE ACKERMAN had ever been through a messy divorce, she would have learned to play the joint-custody game. She would have known to dress the kids in runover shoes and threadbare coats just before their dad picked them up for the weekend. She would know that you never go to the courthouse in designer jeans to petition for more child support. That's how you play the joint-custody game. Each parent hides assets and exaggerates liabilities while the kids play the part of flyspecked waifs.