Forget about class size

Imagine that a teacher is given a choice.  There are two classrooms and s/he can choose which s/he would like to teach. 

All else is equal except that

• one class is of 30 students all of whom are reasonably well behaved, and 
• the other class is of 28 students at least one of whom is chronically disruptive.

Which class do you think the teacher would choose?

Unless s/he is a glutton for punishment, s/he will opt to teach 30 kids, rather than choose to spend their dwindling energy and resources trying to keep fewer kids under control because of the influence of as few as one out of control student.

Reducing class size is by far, the most expensive and least effective way to establish and maintain control in classrooms and schools.  Teachers, if they were asked, would rather have real control over their classrooms and schools, than fewer students.

Yet the discourse is not about reestablishing control in schools, it is about lowering class size.

The issue is one of control, pure and simple.  A classroom is either under the control of, or out of the control of the adults in the room.  One is an educationally efficient environment and the other is not.  It makes a difference.

Who is really "in charge" in classrooms and schools, adults or students?

I submit;

If adults establish rules and students deliberately break them, then students are "in charge".

Take for example; students in charge in APS schools.

It is actually APS School Board Policy that students are prohibited from "sagging". Go to any APS school;

• If there are students sagging, saggers are in charge at that school.  
• If students are smoking in prohibited spaces, smokers are in charge at that school.  
• If students at that school can tell you the names of bullies at that school, the bullies are in charge at that school.

This isn't about "sagging", or smoking or bullying.  

It is about students defiantly engaging in prohibited behavior. 
It is about students being "in charge" in classrooms and schools and the consequent negative effects that creates.

Those whose job it has been to establish and maintain the authority of adults in schools would rather talk about class size than their failure to get classrooms and schools under control.

Arguing about reducing class size draws attention away from problems that could be solved if any real attention was paid to them.  Problems like restoring order in classrooms and schools.

Why is student discipline never discussed?

Where are the historical data, current statistics and future plans?  Where is the truth about student discipline in APS?

There is only one reason to hide the truth, and that is
to escape the consequences of so doing.

The leadership of the APS cannot show you a record of establishing control in schools, or there would not now be, out of control schools.

The leadership of the APS cannot show any empirical data that demonstrates that they are in currently in control in schools.  And most importantly, they cannot show you their plan for regaining and maintaining control in schools in the future.

The establishment and enforcement of discipline policies is an administrative and executive responsibility.

The out of control in schools and classrooms is manifest administrative and executive failure.

That's why the leadership of the APS is hiding the truth about student discipline problems in the APS.

Far more sinister; that the establishment's media is helping them hide the truth about the effects of out of control students on the education of all students.

Why won't they investigate and report upon student discipline in the APS from teachers' perspective?  Why won't they publish the truth?

Ask them.




photo Mark Bralley