I just learned some new information about why our classes are so big. The special ed. department stopped servicing 38 students in English, so those students were added to English with no additional support. Not only that, but those students were placed in groups of 9-10 into four classes taught by two teachers.
This completely changes the dynamics in those classes and creates an additional burden on those teachers.
Also, we did not get an extra class (we normally get one class per 32 students), and special ed. did not lose one. We take on additional load with no help, and they have less to do with fewer students. Grrr.
I've been asked by a couple teachers to follow up on this with the union on the grounds of workload, burden, and number of special ed. students per class (we usually limit this to 2-3).
This does not serve the students well at all.
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3 comments:
Class size, especially in English or other writing-intensive course, is crucial to student success, and not only affects teacher workload. In the last freshman summer English course I taught, I was expecting the usual 18-20 students, and instead got 24. The other two teachers each had 23, while the three sophomore teachers each had a class of 12. What happened was not only that I had extra conference and grading hours, but that I had to reduce the scope of my lessons, and homework--reduce the student's learning experiences. In this case I couldn't understand why sophomores weren't put in two courses of 18 each, and one extra teacher brought on to teach freshman (all sophomore teachers were easily capable of doing so). I'm not sure admin understands that this is not about doing more work, it's about the students getting less. Good luck with these size and student learning level challenges.
It is the new trend in special education created by parent adovacates winning a few lawsuits. It is designed to increase the standards and achievement of the special ed students. It is based on research and does raise average special ed student achievement. Nothing I have seen has studied the effect on the gen ed students in those classes. Welcom to collaborative team teaching (CTT) classes.
I wish it was a team teaching those classes, but it's a single teachers with virtually no extra help in a more diverse and more crowded room.
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