Race to the Top? Fiddling while Rome burns.
At the NEA convention in San Diego I had a depressing conversation with a group of teachers from LA. Union leaders in their buildings, their job this summer was to make sure that as the district pink-slipped teachers with up to 25 years seniority, the district adminstrators were following contractual procedures. One delegate told me she was expecting to have class sizes at her South Central high school of between 35 and 45 students.
Race to the top. What, Arne? Are you effen kidding me?
AP:
The recession is forcing districts to lay off teachers even as the economic stimulus pumps billions of dollars into schools. As a result, classrooms across the country will be more crowded when school starts in the fall.
Patti Hathorn, a fifth-grade teacher in rural Pinson, Ala., is expecting 29 or 30 students, making it the biggest class she’s taught. Many of her students at Kermit Johnson Elementary are learning English or are in special education.
“You may have a child that needs you, that needs that adult figure, to spend the extra five minutes with them. If you have five or six extra kids, that five minutes is gone,” Hathorn said.
It’s the same story in small communities such as Pinson and Wapakoneta, Ohio, and urban areas including Los Angeles and Broward County, Fla. In many places, classes will have well over 30 kids.
