Hi Ron,
I should've replied to this message a lot sooner, as it seems to have
had an effect on several posts, but I've been too busy lately. (Seems a
lot of the teachers are busy with end of the year business, since the
number of posts here, especially from teachers, seems to have dwindled.)
I wrote:
-> SK>Well, California has been going downhill lately. In March we
-> SK>attained the 50 status on class size. California public schools
-> SK>now have the largest average class size in the nation.
-> SK>Definitely not something to be proud of, and completely tied
-> SK>to taxes and politics. :-(
And you resonded:
-> Whoof!  I can't imagine a class of 50 students!  Especially
-> with the behavior problems we're seeing these days!
I didn't express myself too clearly. I didn't mean that we had class
sizes of 50 students. I meant that in the state rankings, with the state
with lowest average class size first and state with highest average
class size last (i.e. 50th) California is now last on the list.
I hear that class sizes in the high schools hovering around 40 are very
common. I'm not sure what the official state "average class size" figure
is (as you know, when they compute that it is usually much lower than
what is occuring in the classrooms, since they include persons like
counselors and the school nurse, etc., who don't even teach in a
classroom). In the elementary schools, my daugher and son's 2nd and 4th
grade classes each had 31 students this year. It is my impression that
this is about the norm for elementary school class sizes, and I get the
impression from what I read here that most states have lower elementary
class sizes than that.
Sheila
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