40 students? 50? Teachers share stories of Utah’s largest classes

[alp227]

When Cole Urmann and his parents learned how large his fifth-grade class would be, they made a major decision.

They decided to switch schools this year, leaving Salt Lake City’s Wasatch Elementary for the Salt Lake Arts Academy so Cole wouldn’t be one of more than 37 kids in the classroom.

"The extra-large, supersize class size was kind of the tipping point for us," said Cole’s Dad, Daniel Urmann. "To me, that’s way too big. I think it just becomes less teaching and more kind of organizing and disciplining at that point."

Utah has long had some of the largest class sizes in the country, with a student-to-teacher ratio of 22.8 to one in 2011, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That, however, is merely an average, and in reality, many Utah classes are much bigger.

full: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58406947-78/class-sizes-classes-students.html.csp

[raccoon]

1. "Class size is really irrelevant in this day and age in education," said Judi Clark, executive

director of Parents for Choice in Education. "It’s not about how many children you have in the classroom. It’s about how you’re leveraging technology to deliver one-on-one instruction."

The above is a quote from the article.

What an idiot. I wonder if that woman has ever been a classroom teacher.

[yeoman6987]

2. I went to Catholic school in the 80's

With 40 students. I liked it. We are still close today. Most of us did well for ourselves.

[alp227]

4. How would you describe your classroom experience?

At a Catholic school i'd presume that the students are all quiet and not disruptive for fear of facing the wrath of the nuns or whoever. In contrast with public schools 40 students of varying behavioral backgrounds could be a bad brew.

[yeoman6987]

5. We were the worst

Always yelled at, but in the big picture we didn't care. We had a lot of fun. I think the education was very good except Science.

[alp227]

3. Doesn't seem so.

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/judi-clark/33/82b/9b3

http://careerpathhigh.org/people/board-of-directors/

[mnhtnbb]

6. Yeah, but how many mommies per daddy show up for parent teacher conferences?

[alp227]

7. The LDS church has forbidden polygamy for over 100 years now. not funny.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_polygamy

which is why the FUNDAMENTALIST LDS Church (an unofficial breakaway sect) is involved with polygamy (think that case from 2008).

[mnhtnbb]

8. Polygamy exists in Utah--just underground.

My guess is that most families practicing it would home school their kids, as
the family in this article does.

http://gadling.com/2013/01/15/experiencing-polygamy-utah-style-at-rockland-ranch/

I had no intent to hijack the thread with a detour about polygamy. Utah is a red state
and like most red states, does not support public education with adequate budget
to keep class sizes small enough for effective teaching.

[MissB]

9. We moved right before my oldest started kindergarten.

Class size was a huge reason. I miss my old house and my old neighbors, but the class sizes in that school district were horrible. My oldest was going to have a total of 32 kindergarteners that fall. We sold our beloved house and moved across town to another district.

My oldest then had a class size of 11 (including my oldest) for kindergarten. This district still supplies the "extras" (foreign language, art, music, PE, librarian, counselor.)

Now my oldest is in high school. Well, both of my kids are. The junior is taking linear algebra (having taken calc 2 and 3 as well as differential equations, all at the college level). The sophomore is taking advanced calculus. I don't think they would have even made it to calculus by senior year in the other district.

I'm a big fan of small class sizes. I believe it makes a difference in the quality of education provided/received.

[HereSince1628]

10. As boomers, my sibs and I had lots of elementary classes that were 30 and larger

But, I'd say class size wasn't the biggest issue, 3 of my teachers had been teaching since before WWII and didn't have bachelor's degrees in anything. One of them graduated 8th grade from the same school and had started teaching the very next Fall = 1926.

Reading was about the only thing where students in my classes had any closer attention and that was the result of dividing the class into 3 groups of different levels of readers. Individual difficulties in math were addressed in a manner that looked just like punishment...extra assignments to be worked during the time everyone else got to do recess.

Of course, it was all just 'normal' so no one gave it much thought.