K12IQ: The Method Schools Blog

Imagine it's your child's first day of kindergarten, and you anxiously drop her off at school. You're proud that she's achieving this milestone but also worried that she won't fit in, won't find her voice within the class. Would you rather her first real experience with school be in a classroom with one teacher, one aide, and 30 students, where the adults are frantically running around spending all of their time trying to corral the students and maintain order, or in a classroom with one teacher, one aide, and 18 students, where each student gets all of the attention they need? Or for your child who is just going off to high school, entering those essential years to prepare for college, would you want him to be in a lecture hall with 50 other students? Or would you want him in a class with 15 others, where the professor had time to answer every student's questions? Schools with small class sizes are more successful overall in terms of helping students meet educational benchmarks, and are especially successful at helping underprivileged students meet those benchmarks.

Imagine it's your child's first day of kindergarten, and you anxiously drop her off at school. You're proud that she's achieving this milestone but also worried that she won't fit in, won't find her voice within the class. Would you rather her first real experience with school be in a classroom with one teacher, one aide, and 30 students, where the adults are frantically running around spending all of their time trying to corral the students and maintain order, or in a classroom with one teacher, one aide, and 18 students, where each student gets all of the attention they need? Or for your child who is just going off to high school, entering those essential years to prepare for college, would you want him to be in a lecture hall with 50 other students? Or would you want him in a class with 15 others, where the professor had time to answer every student's questions? Schools with small class sizes are more successful overall in terms of helping students meet educational benchmarks, and are especially successful at helping underprivileged students meet those benchmarks.

Budget reforms and teacher cuts are once again putting schools back into the media spotlight. While the topic has always goes back to test, reform, test, reform, test, reform, parents worry that with all the tax hikes, redrawn county lines, and new statewide exams that their children still aren’t receiving the best education that can be provided for them.