Classroom Ratios

In the San Antonio Express News Editorial Boards’ article Texas Classroom Ratios Are a Sham, the author writes their opinion on the new school budgets’ effect on classroom sizes. The author seems to be directing the article at the Legislature with the intent of trying to write to them about their mistakes. The author writes about how the politicians involved in the budget making decisions should “recognize that starving the public education system of a growing state is pennywise and pound foolish.” The author also seems to be writing to the parents of children in public school, who might be slightly clueless as to how large the classes have gotten. I feel that one of the intentions of this article is to try and educate parents to the fact that classroom sizes are in fact getting larger. I’m assuming since this article was written by the Editorial Board, that their credibility is legit. The author does reference a colleague and The Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott in their attempt to get through to the audience. He (I say he, to prevent you from reading ‘the author’ every other sentence) writes that school districts in Texas are requesting waivers for larger classroom sizes because of the budget cuts, and The Texas Education Agency is more than happy to grant these waivers because of what they call “financial hardships.” He states that the classroom sizes are growing from a 22-1 ratio to a ratio of 28-1 and that some school districts such as Northside ISD “will have to seek waivers for about one quarter of its classrooms.” Although his article is short and to the point, I do feel that he gets his point across to the audience.

This is one of those articles I agree and disagree with. Yes, I think the budget cuts were stupid (for lack of a better word). I feel that education is the most important thing for anyone to experience. Yet, the Legislature is cutting billions of dollars from Texas’ education system. I believe those cuts could have been made elsewhere. I also believe there is no harm in larger class sizes. When I say larger I mean less than 35, and I believe that teachers should get paid more for teaching these larger classes. I went to a large high school in an fast paced growing town. I would have on average in my core classes (Math, History, English, etc.) 28 other students. Keep in mind that’s the average. There were classes with 30 or more students in them. Yet, I still got a good education and my teachers never failed to teach me something every class period. Would I have had a better education if I had smaller classes? Maybe, but my education didn’t lack because of it.