Larger Classes or Fewer Days, The Choice Is Now Up To Teachers

Now the teachers in Davis have a choice–they have until December 15 to negotiate possible employee concessions that would include furloughs with decreases in salary.  If they do not agree to do this, they will face the loss on top of 33 teaching positions already proposed in the budget efforts that would total $2.5 million.  With concessions, they can avoid an additional million in cuts to programs.

The Davis Enterprise reported that the Davis Teachers Association will conduct a survey over the next couple of weeks to determine whether there is support for a reduction in student days and therefore the number of days that teachers work with students.

Ingrid Salim, president of the Davis Teachers Association told the Enterprise:

We will not be releasing the results of that survey publicly. However, the results will inform the members of our rep council, who give direction to our negotiating team. Certainly, a ‘no’ to concessions would be definitive. Anything else, however, will be subject to the negotiating process.

Even if our response now is limited that would not preclude a consideration of concessions later in the year.

There are a number of factors which influence people’s thinking on this issue, including a potential retirement incentive which the district is working on, the actual ‘next’ budget projections (coming from the state in January)’ – which could mean further cuts in funding for local school districts – ‘also the application of (the district’s) financial reserves to preserve jobs, even if on a one-time basis, and identifying under-enrolled programs that should be reduced in these lean times.

The issue pits newly hired teachers against veterans with the most to lose with concessions.  Those recently hired would be the first victims of layoffs.

The issue came up last year and the school district pushed the teachers to consider paycuts rather than endure 37.5 teaching position cuts.  However, a few of those layoffs were rescinded due to the district receiving one-time federal stimulus funds,  25 positions were eventually cut but additional layoffs were avoided.  Those funds are now gone and there is little chance that there will be a second round of stimulus money from the Obama administration.

Leaving aside the issue of the impact of layoffs on individual teachers, there is much consideration now of the impact of layoffs on education which leaves a higher student to teacher ratio.  The alternative is a cutback in instructional days.  Neither one of these are optimal.

They write:

“The changes at more than two-thirds of the districts surveyed have parents and teachers concerned that the academic performance of millions of children will suffer. California already ranks 48th in the nation in terms of student to teacher ratios.

And new measures are in place that will allow districts statewide to raise class sizes even higher and still receive more than $1 billion in state aid — money that was originally intended to reward schools that kept class sizes low.

The class-size reduction program was adopted 13 years ago with much fanfare. Its goal was to bring the state’s overcrowded K-3 classrooms down to a maximum of 20 students for every teacher in the lower grades. As an incentive to participate, Sacramento gave school districts a generous annual subsidy for every child – now $1,071 per child.”

According to the study, the original program was rooted in studies and research that suggested that students in smaller classrooms were more successful academically. 

Carol Kocivar, California PTA’s president-elect, said that adding just four students more than the base level of 20 represents a significant increase.

“When you start inching up above 20, kids don’t get the individual attention they need,” she said.

For State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell this was his pet-project and he authored the class-size-reduction legislation while he was a state senator.  He told the authors that there was not an accident that elementary school students had achieve significant academic gains after their classes were reduced in size.

However, not everyone agrees that reducing class sizes actually connect with a boost in student performance.  Academics, such as Dominic Brewer from USC, have found “no compelling research showing that class-size reduction results in improved academic performance in California. What research does exist has typically been done in other states and in classrooms with even smaller enrollments than in California.”

“A class of 20 may be terrible for an ineffective teacher,” he said. “And a great teacher can do great things with 30.”

Some educational leaders believe that funds could be used better.  For example, LA Schools Superintendent Ramon Cortines argued that 20-to-1 is not sacred, arguing the most important factor “is the kind of quality time you spend with your students, and how you divide your time in the classroom.”

Others suggest to the researchers that even when the state economy rebounds, money might be better spent on longer school days or Saturday classes rather than smaller class sizes.

But there is another missing component here and that is, one of the reasons behind the success of smaller class sizes is more one-on-one time.  But having small classes is not the only way to increase the one-on-one time.  Schools have often deployed aids that could work individually with the students almost as effectively as the teacher could.  But with dwindling resources, most school districts have gone away from teacher aids.

According to the report from California Watch, California has spent more than $20 billion on the class-size reduction program, maybe that money might have been better spent on other efforts.

In the meantime at the local level this year the choice seems to be between fewer instructional days and a higher student to teacher ratio.  To make matters more complicated for the district, Measure Q funds were in part to fund a lower student to teacher ratio, indicating to some a clear preference by the voters to keep class sizes smaller.

The school district is obviously in a tough situation either way, but one thing in their control at this point is to allow educational research rather than politics dictate the direction of policy.  The school district needs to determine to the best of their ability whether the students in Davis are better served with larger class sizes or fewer instructional days.  It is a horrible decision to have to make, but it is apparently at this point, the only one they actually can make.

—David M. Greenwald reporting