- KNEE JERK SOLUTIONS
- MONEY
- SMALL CLASSES: AN AMERICAN ICON
- EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN NEEDS
Unfortunately, education reform gets deflected, even subverted, through supporting and adopting false solutions. Support of false solutions is largely sincere, but sincerity won’t make the solutions better, and some of the support is self-serving.
For example, small classes are extolled almost universally as the ideal for classroom effectiveness in the popular mind, the sine qua non of education reform. Because class size governs the number of teachers needed in a school, it becomes the most significant element in the school budget.
When small class sizes are mandated across the board, costs rise precipitously while not necessarily increasing educational effectiveness.
The problem is that America has lulled itself into confusing the comfort factor of small classes with educational need.
- Small classes are needed when children are very young: the younger the children, the smaller the classes necessary.
- Small classes are needed for children with particular problems: intellectual, emotional, behavioral, physical.
- Larger classes are desirable for the most intellectually gifted students, who are afforded the opportunity for the interchange of ideas with each other.
Education reform would bring rationality to the fore, adjusting class sizes to the needs and capacities of the students, and other relevant factors, such as safety in laboratories, etc.
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