Sunday, November 22, 2015

More kids in classrooms

From the Daily News:

More young city students have been forced to learn in packed classes of 30 or more this school year, a sharp increase over recent years, a new analysis of city education department data reveals.

The study, by nonprofit Class Size Matters, shows that as of Oct. 30 a whopping 48,440 kids in kindergarten through third grade were enrolled in outsized classes.

That’s up from 45,442 kids in enrolled oversize classes on the same date in 2014, 45,242 kids in 2013 and 35,137 kids in 2012, according to the analysis.

That’s a 38% increase in just three years.

Class Size Matters founder Leonie Haimson said those growing numbers mean more public school kids in the Big Apple won’t get a shot a decent education.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Total nonsense. My brothers and sisters all went to school in the 70s when class sizes averaged 40-45 students. We all turned out very well thank you. The fact that we all went to Catholic school may have helped.

Anonymous said...

My Catholic school had 54 in my class in the 50's. And that was common in all Catholic schools. One principal, one secretary and a few parent volunteers to act as door monitors. No assistant principals, security guards, science labs,computers - and the list goes on. And teachers who were nuns who did not always have college degrees. No tuition but we did have involved parents (usually two).

Anonymous said...

Major difference between schools in the 60-70's and now is that there was discipline in the class and respect for the authority of the teacher. Neither exists anymore.

Anonymous said...

The previous posters went to Catholic school. Discipline in Catholic schools was different than public schools. Students were raised to be a heck of a lot more respectful than today's public school students. You would never see anything even faintly approaching that level of respect for adults/teachers today. Even in a class of 34 high school students today, you ask a student to please sit down, you very likely could hear, "F___ you b____. I gonna find you after school and jump yo a___!" You want to go over to a student's desk to answer their question, 33 other students will start to talk or goof off. You try to put on a lab, you have students wildly chasing each other around the room--with glassware and microscopes out on tables--shrieking like 5 year olds, you have students playing with chemicals, you have students stabbing each other with toothpicks meant to manipulate plant tissue, you have students refusing to move into groups of 4 for cooperative work, etc. And this lab was with THREE teachers present. I can't imagine what would happen in a larger class, but the results would NOT be good.

Anonymous said...

It's also that we're educating kids in general education now that we'd formally ship off to a special school for kids with disabilities, or write off as uneducable and not enroll in school at all. Now teachers have to deal with their IEPs, special accommodations, and differentiate every piece of instruction.

Anonymous said...

We had 48 in the class in the 60s - 6 rows of 8 - and we all learned. But that was Catholic school and the nuns were allowed to discipline kids - and the parents supported the nuns instead of suing the school!!!

It's not about the numbers - it's all about discipline - and there isn't any today - bring back corporal punishment!!!

You know that these brats are pampered by their parents - and now they're also spoiled by the DOE!

Anonymous said...

In 1966 I was in 6th grade in PS 163 nd maxed out on the Iowa reading tests given to us, reading at the 12th grade level. And I was not unusual in that class. Today the 12th graders are lucky if they can read at a 6th grade level. It has all fallen to shit in the NYC Public School System.

Anonymous said...

thank you BO for all theillegal Cent.Amer. kids last year in our school seats.

Anonymous said...

What is there to learn? Get an education and be unable to find a good job that pays a living wage, while every crooked politician, without much of an education, can steal with impunity?