Teachers and students struggle with impacted classes, less individual attention

Seniors in Gretchen Hughes-Taumoepeau’s AP English Literature classes have always been grateful for the miniature sofa she has in the back of her classroom, a small comfort amongst a sea of hard plastic chairs. This trimester, however, that sofa has changed from an occasional hangout spot to the only seat open for some students to sit in during class.

Hughes is a victim of growing class sizes that have impacted schools across California, including MC. Her fourth period AP Literature class has 43 students, more than the number of desks she currently has in her classroom.

“It’s the largest class I’ve ever had in my 12 years of teaching,” Hughes said. “Everyone’s talking; you can’t pay attention to certain groups. It’s hard to do group projects because there’s too many kids.”

As a result of a state budget crisis that has trickled down to affect individual schools, the administration has been forced to increase the number of students in each class. Budget cuts mean fewer sections can be offered for each class, which leads to larger class sizes.

Principal Tom McCoy blamed the class size problems on a fluctuating amount of money received from the state education budget each year.

“All of a sudden it’s raining gold and we can do anything we want, and then the next year it all gets taken away,” McCoy said. “It’s just completely frustrating and it’s no way to run an organization.”

According to research done by the California Center for Investigative Reporting, the average student-to-teacher ratio in California’s public K-12 schools is 20.9 to 1, a number that ranks 49th overall in the United States.

With a multi-billion dollar state budget gap and more cuts looming on the horizon, the situation doesn’t look to be improving in the near future. If anything, class sizes can be expected to grow for the next few years until the state’s budget problems can begin to be remedied.

“The information we’re getting right now is that we can anticipate more cuts for education for the 2010-11 school year,” McCoy said. “We know that the teachers and the staff who work directly with kids are the most important, and we’re just trying to find a way to not impact them if we can, but I don’t know that we’re going to be able to do that.”

Oversized classes result in less individual attention for students and a more stressful learning environment. For teachers who already have a hard enough time dealing with unruly students, larger classes make it only more difficult to maintain control.

“I haven’t changed my teaching style, and I need to, because I already run a little bit of a more chaotic class,” Hughes said. “With 12 extra people in here, it makes it even crazier.”

After research showed that students in smaller classes were more successful, California enacted into law a class-size reduction program which provided state subsidies to schools that kept average class sizes in grades K-3 and certain 9th grade courses under 20 students. It also penalized participating schools for exceeding the maximum average class size.

Despite the $22 billion in direct subsidies the state has pumped into this program over the last 13 years, many California school districts, including PUSD, are abandoning it because growing budget cuts are making it too difficult to comply with the requirements and they can save money by raising class sizes.

According to McCoy, last year the state decided to allow schools to use the money from the class size reduction program, known as a categorical budget, towards other areas rather than specifically class size reduction.

In essence, schools no longer had to follow the strict requirements of the class size reduction program in order to still receive the same amount of money.

The administration is aware of the troubles large classes may cause students and teachers alike, but they lack the budget to effectively combat the crisis.

“The problem is there’s nothing we can do at this level,” McCoy said. “There’s nothing I can do as the principal, and essentially there’s nothing the superintendent can do about the funding issue we have because it’s tied to a statewide problem.”

At the mercy of a shrinking state budget for public education, there is little that California schools can do but hope that education funding becomes a more pressing priority to the state government.

“If I were king for a day, my solution would be to completely revise the California constitution around how we fund education,” McCoy said. “Until we fix the way we fund schools, we’re going to continue like this.”

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