Texas Schools Cope as Classes Expand and Staffs Shrink
SAN ANTONIO — Ask Phyllis Causey what time she goes to lunch, and the third-grade teacher will give a very specific answer: 11:55 a.m.
“I live on a timer,” she said.
Every minute is accounted for in her meticulously planned workdays. To some extent, that is true every school year. But last fall, for the first time in her 12 years of teaching, 23 students were enrolled in her San Antonio elementary school class — making those minutes even more precious.
“As a teacher, when you know you are planning the day out for 23 kids, every single minute counts ...
Comments (17)
Jeremy Jones via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Great teacher quote. I would hope this teacher feels the same way no matter how many students are in her classroom.
Mary Smith Martinez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It's the same no matter how many kids you have in your classroom. As an unemployed teacher with almost ten years of experience, it hurts to read that things are only going to get worse. I think the legislators making these decisions should spend a few days as a sub.
Robert Chapman
Schools always cope, but can kids?
School teachers are tough and resilient, they will dig deep into themselves and figure out how to teach, how to keep their kids safe and how to give them all the best educational experience humanly possible.
When will the JOB CREATORS start to show this sort of resiliency and dedication?
But in focussing on schools and teachers, we are missing the critical point. Education is about the CHILDREN. They are not developed, they do not YET possess the reslience, resourcefulness and toughness to hold up in adverse conditions.
The adverse condition I am referring to is that of being lost in the shuffle, because there are too many kids in the class for the teacher to get around to each and every one and offer the personal contact and support that is needed to spark the desire for learning and achievement.
The JOB CREATORS might stop and think a little about the labor pool they are creating with their attacks on school teachers and their obsession with short term, paper profitability.
Dianna Pharr via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Class sizes were rising before the cut. Administrative positions were also rising in our district. Average administrative pay increased significantly as well, 50% in just a few years.
Allison Marie McBride via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I teach 4th grade departmentalized, two groups of 23 and one of 24. Each group has a different mix of personalities and needs. I strive to incorporate as much cooperative work and small group time into my planning as I can. Physical space is definitely an issue, and we use every inch of the room.
Stan Krantz
Would you enlighten me to the research that shows that class size affects student achievement. Thank you.
Christine Martinez
I understand your issue, in California we had 20 students in kinder - 3rd, then 25 students in Kinder - 3rd two years ago. Now with the state of the economy we have 30 - 35 students in Kinder - 3rd grade and from 30 - 40 students in 4th - 8th grade. Planning is essential and the class size increase has hurt our most needy children the most. Teachers need to stand together and fight for the educational rights of our students. Every student deserves time to work with the teacher.
Mark Durfee via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It is important to maintain structure and discipline and stay very alert to maximize every student's learning experience. The legislature will only get the hint when they are up for re-election this fall. Vote AGAINST those who caused this travesty to our children. LBJ said that education is an investment not an expense.
Sharon Richard via Texas Tribune on Facebook
141 students each day.
Texas RMS
For Stan who is looking for research, this is from Brookings. I'm sorry that I can't figure out how to make link active.
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2011/0511_class_size_whitehurst_chingos.aspx
barbara jones
I am so sick and tired of teachers complaining all of the time. When I taught, I had 29 students in my classroom without classified help. Every last one of my students either met or exceeded grade-level expectations each and every year, because I did my job!! It is not that hard!! Just do it!!
Susie Martinez-Dominguez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And why do we need such highly paid admin?
Alice Taylor
I'm a high school teacher and teach computer and design classes to juniors and seniors. I started the year with 150 kids. I now have 125, but that's because of drop outs, class drops and moves this Christmas. I've actually lost quite a few more, but have had kids put in mid year so that makes up for the numbers. Last year I had three different classes, two prep periods and started the year with 120 kids. I'm considered a pretty successful teacher in my little world. I'm an AP reader and have a 97% success rate in my AP classes.
This year my district laid off teachers and upped the student load and reduced the prep time.
This year I teach 4 different technical classes (one is an AP class), with one 55 minute prep time per day to develop lesson plans, grade and deal with the massive amount of government regulation imposed by the feds and the state. So I have more kids and less time, no matter how you look at it. I'm very unhappy with the quality of my classroom instruction this year and it's all simply due to not having time to properly prep and grade. I'm in school at 7 in the morning and home at 5, eat dinner and work for another two hours. On weekends I put in another 5 -6 hours, so my work week is about 65 hours (I haven't had a raise in two years, but that's another rant). I'm literally working to burnout and I'm not the only one. While I'm grateful to have a job and my students are a fantastic bunch of kids, what the lege did (I blame anti-education Perry first and then Aycock, Shapiro and the other legislatures who screwed Texas with stonewalling over the Rainy Day money. If this recession isn't a rainy day, I don't know what is.)
So if your kid is not as prepared for college or tech school as you think he should be, I'm honestly trying my best, but there simply is not time in the day to do my best.
Tucano Fulano
Just what percentage of pupils have American parents? Deport the Illegal Alien parents - they may just take their spawn with them and empty out classrooms stuffed currently with those that never ought to have been in them.
Mary Buck
I'm a teacher in Oregon and in my school 5th and 6th grades have 37 in each class, 3 & 4th have 29, 1st & 2nd 25 (and because of a split 2nd has 38 for math with an aid). No teachers have Teaching Assistants except 1-3rd has someone that comes in for reading intervention. 15 languages are spoken at my school and we are 80% poverty. I keep wondering when the fire marshal is going to deem the classrooms dangerously overcrowded. Everyone is doing their best to provide for the various needs of our students but something needs to give soon.
Oxford Austin
As class sizes get larger, it's going to be more and more important to empower teachers with the tools and strategies they need to teach to the entire range of learners and not simply to the average. Supplemental education will likely also become more and more important to fill in gaps where children's learning needs are net met adequately.
Juan Reynoso
LATINOS FOR HONEST GOVERNMENT
http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_reli.html
http://www.westernjournalism.com/
Help us to spread the truth, pass this on and help us to take our country back.
The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant. (Maximilien Robespierre)
April 4th, 2012
President Barack Obama should close the US Dept of education, they are an impediment to the education system of this United States. Their well intended legislation do not work, because the bureaucracy and the Unions. The system is corrupt by the unions and the politicians that accept their money to finance their campaigns. Obama will free 10 states from the strict requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, giving leeway to states that promise to improve how they prepare and evaluate their students. The first 10 states to receive the waivers are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee, but this will not fix this education crisis.
Every state in the Union should claim their independence from the rules of the federal government; education is the responsibility of the parent's and the community. The families are the ones that have the best interest on the education of their children. During the last 40 years we witness the destruction of our education system by the implementation of the bilingual education and the no child left behind. We had produce two generations of uneducated people and the downfall of our human capital. Generations that have become this new class “The welfare class”
The solution to this education crisis is not money, what we need to do is simple. Close the US Dept. Of Education. The States should organize a new system base in responsibility. Every school in the states should have a base curriculum for grade level, that the State require for the maintenance of licensing the school operation. Each school should be run independent and the responsibility for performance should rest on the principle, the teachers and a commite form by the student's parents and the taxpayers of the community.
Fellow Americans this crisis on our education was created by our government, they take away the rights of parents and teachers to discipline, to teach our children morality, respect for each other, peoples rights, responsibility and work ethics, to work hard to be the best they can be and be supportive and encourage good behavior, manners and morality and last but not least our American values and patriotism.
The Original goal of the No Child left behind is, getting children to grade level in reading and math, by 2014 but too many schools feel they are labeled as "failures." Under No Child Left Behind, schools that don't meet requirements for two years or longer, are facing increasingly tough consequences, including busing children to higher-performing schools, offering tutoring and replacing staff.
As the deadline approaches, more schools are failing, because some states have high numbers of immigrant and low-income children and also because the law requires states to raise the bar each year for how many children must pass the test.
The Education Secretary Arne Duncan said states without a waiver will be held to the standards of No Child Left Behind because "it's the law of the land.". This is a lie because congress do not have the power to establish a Department of Education mush less grant it jurisdiction to encourage the education of the people of the sovereign states of this union.
LIMITED AND ENUMERATED POWERS
These legal and constitutional principles bound the Congress of 1791 and continue to bind Congress today. This is the nature of law and legal compacts and therefore the nature of the Supreme Law of the Land and the Constitution.
The Constitution, of course, explicitly binds Congress by enumerating which congressional powers are delegated and how they are to be lawfully employed. As a binding compact, any powers exercised by the federal government must be in accordance with that compact. Constitutionally, the federal government is a government of limited and enumerated powers. Power not delegated to the federal government by the written Constitution is reserved to the states or to the people respectively.
Education is not found among the enumerated objects of the Constitution. Article I does not authorize Congress to establish a Department of Education much less grant it jurisdiction to encourage the education of the people in the several states. Furthermore, federal involvement in education is not an appropriate means plainly adapted to carry out an object contemplated by an enumerated power. Congress may, however, maintain voluntary educational facilities and academies if those means are plainly adopted to raising a military and the like.
Though Congress is prohibited from entangling itself with the education of the people in the several states, it may concern itself with those objects enumerated in Article I, Section 8, Clause 17. This clause grants Congress exclusive legislative authority over the District of Columbia. With respect to the District of Columbia, Congress has legislative authority pro-tanto. It may act as a State legislature, but may not abridge any constitutionally retained right of the people over education.
As far as congressional authority over Federal Territories and property is concerned, the Constitution enumerates certain powers in Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2. This Clause grants Congress power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territories or other property belonging to the United States. This proprietary function differs from the legislative function over the District of Columbia though both constitute grants of power.12
The extent, however, of congressional power with respect to education is limited to the promotion of science and arts and is provided for by Article I, Section 8, Clause 8. The means Congress may employ in the promotion of these enumerated objects is also noted. Congress may only promote these objects "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoverys." Thus both the object and the means are clearly enumerated and explicitly limited. If Congress exercised any other power inconsistent with these objects in respect to education, it would be pernicious both to the states and the people, and contrary to the Constitution as a legal compact and the Supreme Law of the Land.
Constitutional limitations which clearly precluded the assertion of federal jurisdiction over education.
A proper regard for these limitations requires withdrawal of federal jurisdiction over education and the abolition of the Federal Department of Education and its functions. Such a measure would:
1. Strengthen the people in the exercise of their preexisting inalienable right and power over education acknowledged by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. This includes education, both publicly and privately, directly and indirectly;
2. Strengthen the federal government by redirecting its time, energy and resources toward those objects for which it bears express constitutional responsibility;
3. Strengthen the national economy by acknowledging the constitutional limitations on the purpose to which the federal treasury may be directed and by reducing federal deficits;
4. Strengthen education by encouraging educational diversity and by opposing continued expansion and centralization of educational policy.
Continued federal intervention into education, however, would only disparage historically acknowledged inalienable rights, and would further distort the constitutionally enumerated limitations on the Congress of the United States. These limitations are compelling and deserve further attention.
The Fredom Movement - posted by Juan Reynoso - teapartyoftx@gmail.com
Strengthen the federal government by redirecting its time, energy and resources toward those objects for which it bears express constitutional responsibility. The power not delegated to the federal government by the written Constitution is reserved to the states or to the people respectively.