A Senate push for smaller class sizes
One of the most common demands teachers make is to have smaller class sizes — and it’s a demand most people intuitively understand and sympathize with. Smaller class sizes can give educators more opportunity to provide individualized instruction, and also generally manage a room of raucous young people more easily. Parents have also long supported smaller class sizes. They naturally want to feel like their child is getting the attention they need and not being lost in a crowd.
But support for class size reduction has waxed and waned among policymakers, who often question the cost of implementation in comparison to other policy measures. Smaller class sizes generally means more classes, which means hiring more teachers. Teachers aren’t exactly cheap, and some have said class size reduction is just a front for district bloat.
Others have wondered if reducing a class size from a very high number to a still-pretty-high-number is worth it (say, from 39 to 35 students). High profile critics have included former Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
This aside, a new bill has just been introduced by Jeff Merkley in the U.S. Senate to incentivize smaller class sizes, particularly in high-poverty school districts. Nearly all of his current co-sponsors (Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand) are running for president, and the only co-sponsor who is not running for president has been flirting with the idea. (Michael Bennet.)
I looked at some of the research, talked with Merkley, and covered the new bill for Next City.
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In local DC news, a new bill is being introduced in the City Council next week to bring charter schools under the same transparency rules as other D.C. public schools (meaning FOIA, open meetings, making teacher salaries publicly available, among other things.) Readers of my work know this is an issue I have been covering for a long time, and I covered this latest development for Washington City Paper. This bill definitely will face political resistance from some leaders in the charter sector, although it seems to be pretty popular among charter school teachers and parents, so we’ll see what happens.
The second local story I wrote this week is about a new campaign being waged by parents, students and staff at National Collegiate Prep, a Ward 8 charter school, to save their school from closure. The D.C. Public Charter School Board voted to revoke the school’s charter in January due to low academic performance, but the school says the PCSB has been unfairly targeting small, black-led charters and not giving them the same chances to do turnarounds as other schools in the sector. This is a sentiment that has been floating around the D.C. charter community for a long time, but it’s never really been made so prominently and publicly by a charter leader before. They held a press conference at their school on Wednesday, featuring local clergy, and even Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White.
This afternoon students at National Collegiate Prep plan to hold a protest rally outside the D.C. Public Charter School Board’s headquarters. I covered this story for DCist.
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Finally, I want to thank all of you for reading and subscribing to this newsletter. I started this almost exactly one year ago (March 21, 2018) and while it can certainly be a hustle, I am very glad I’m doing it, and I will continue working hard this year to report good journalism. Your support keeps me motivated and going, so thank you.