Is class size the silver bullet? Maybe not, but its aim is true.
Today, I’m dusting off one of my old hats. Not that cool black one I’ve worn the last 2 decades in dot-com, but a more practical one from the late 90s. It sits in the back of my career closet, but will always be close to my heart: Public education advocate.
In my pre-tech career, I reported on, lobbied for and promoted K-12 education. I put a couple of badges on my sash that I thought would be there forever. Significant state and local school bonds – passed in a time when Republicans ran the show in California, too! A constitutional amendment to keep schools fairly funded statewide. And my last victory before leaving the state – and my career – to return to the midwest … class size reduction.
Yep, I shook Gov.Pete Wilson’s hand in the summer of 1996 and set up a press conference in a kindergarten classroom, where his wife Gayle came to herald the passage of SB 1777. A billion dollars a year would go to school districts who capped K-3 class size at 20. This was huge. At the time, the average California classroom had 30 kids in it.
The program was voluntary, but In less than 2 months, most school districts complied. And within 3 years, almost 99% of school districts did. A 2009 study found virtually every district in the state was holding steady at a student-teacher ratio of 20 to 1 in kindergarten through 3rd grade. Subsequent legislation expanded the program to high schools, too. Victory!
Except. Except.
That same year, facing a state budget crisis, the Legislature voted to let districts get 70% of the funding, even if they exceeded the cap. Within a few years, things looked bleak. By 2012, there were 30 or more kids in the classrooms of half of the state’s largest school districts.
Which brings us to Los Angeles Unified School District, where today, more than 30,000 teachers and support staff are on strike.
LA Unified has a negotiated cap of 36 students, but reportedly classes of up to 45 are common.
Forty-five kids. In one class.
There have certainly been debates in the last 20 years about whether class size alone is the silver bullet. Maybe not, but its aim is true. Especially in schools where kids come hungry, distracted by significant and serious family problems, or sleep deprived from working crappy minimum wage jobs.
Today’s teachers are part social worker, part substitute parent, part life coach. And I’m not just talking about urban districts like LA Unified. I’m talking about the suburban school district where my husband works, here in the wealthiest county in Kansas.
Even under the best of circumstances, it really comes down to basic math.
Joseph Zeccola, a former LA Unified Teacher of the Year, put it like this in an interview with National Public Radio today: “I have 38 students in an 11th grade English class. There is no way I can give those students the attention they deserve. If I want to read all of my students’ papers – say, a 15-minute read – that’s 9 hours. For one class, one set of papers.”
Los Angeles teachers are asking for a lot – smaller class sizes, less standardized testing, a retroactive pay raise, and more support staff (or even just … support staff, because some don’t have counselors, nurses or librarians). Though it’s not yet become a “this-or-that” negotiation, Zeccola knows what he’d choose.
“I would give up the raise for class size reduction in a heartbeat. I like both, but class size … I’d fight to the death for.”
Back to that dusty old hat I used to wear. In living rooms, lodge meetings and legislative hearings, my pitch was always the same: These kids are our tomorrow. All boats rise if we take care of them. It sold school bonds and reading initiatives and guaranteed per student funding to an electorate who – for the most part – didn’t have kids in public schools. White retirees who looked out their windows at children whose color and languages were literally foreign to them could still see that doing the right thing was in their self interest. Given California’s changing voter demographics, you’d think making that pitch in 2019 would be a slam-dunk.
They say that history repeats itself. We can only hope. Because, I really like that hat, and particularly that badge.
