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As budgets shrink, Clark County school class sizes keep growing
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Craig L. Moran/Las Vegas Review-Journal
Green Valley High School teacher Bud Beam conducts an honors government class. Because he teaches honors students, classroom discipline is never an issue for him, Beam said, but he adds, "I don't know how you teach 45 kids in a lower-level class." » Buy this photo
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Apr. 25, 2011 | 6:31 a.m.
Some teachers already call it the "big squeeze."
Others see the prospect of packing more students into Clark County School District classrooms as a state mandate to "Stack 'em deep, teach 'em cheap."
The number of students sitting in front of teachers at all grade levels is likely to increase next year, as district officials wrestle with how to improve student performance during a severe fiscal crisis.
It's a bad marriage of issues, said Clark County Education Association President Ruben Murillo.
He leads the union that bargains for the district's 18,000 teachers and nonadministrative licensed personnel.
"You can't cut your way to better student performance," Murillo said.
The debate over class size in public schools is being waged on three different fronts.
■ In Clark County, education leaders are relying on class-size increases across all grade levels to help remedy a 2011-12 budget shortfall that may exceed $400 million, courtesy of expected reductions in state support and declining local tax revenues.
Students in secondary grades will bear the brunt of the crunch. Officials expect to raise the average class size in grades 6-12 from 32 students to 34.
Murillo points out that many classes will exceed that average, especially in core subjects such as English and math, which all students must take. Teachers in those courses may well end up having classes that exceed 50, he said.
In addition, the district may lay off as more than 850 teachers, and fewer teachers means fewer course offerings and bigger classes in those that remain.
■ In Carson City, the issue is enmeshed with Gov. Brian Sandoval's proposed $2.4 billion K-12 budget for 2011-13, which represents an 11 percent drop from the $2.7 billion spent in 2009-2011, according to an analysis presented to the Legislature.
The Republican governor's proposal, opposed by Democrats who are the majority in both the Assembly and state Senate, is paired with a package of school reforms. One change would make class-size reduction in grades 1-3 optional instead of mandatory.
Under Assembly Bill 558, funding that would have been used for class-size reduction and other programs would instead be diverted into an education block grant program that would be available to county districts for special uses.
Clark County School District officials oppose that bill, said Joyce Haldeman, associate superintendent for government and community relations, because the funding and distribution formulas dilute the effectiveness of key district programs, including class-size reduction and full-day kindergarten.
It also would drastically reduce the state funding that will be available for class-size reduction, she said. For the current school year, the Legislature approved spending $144.35 million on class-size reduction.
Another bill, AB129 sponsored by Assemblyman Randy Kirner, R-Reno, proposes changes to class-size reduction law the district finds more palatable. It would repeal the statewide requirements for class-size reduction and give local school boards the authority to establish their own pupil-teacher ratios for elementary schools.
"The best decisions are made close to the issue," said Kirner, adding that a one-size-fits-all, statewide approach to class-size reduction is not the ideal.
AB129 doesn't take money away from the program, Kirner said. Instead, it tells local districts, "You're accountable, but you also have the power to make adjustments."
■ Nationally, the effectiveness of class-size reduction continues to be hotly debated by education researchers and competing policy groups.
In a report released by the Center for American Progress called "The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction," Matthew Chingos, a fellow with the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, criticizes the lack of quality research into the impact of class-size reduction on student achievement.
He also questions whether the billions of dollars poured into class-size reduction efforts by states and the federal government in recent decades have yielded results worth the investment.
Large-scale class-size reduction policies "clearly fail any cost-benefit test, because they entail steep costs and produce benefits that are modest at best," Chingos wrote in the report.
"When school finances are limited (as they always are), the cost-benefit test any educational policy must pass is not 'Does this policy have any positive effect?' but rather 'Is this policy the most productive use of these educational dollars?' "
The report from the Center for American Progress, a progressive group based in Washington, D.C., was criticized almost immediately by Class Size Matters, a New York nonprofit organization that advocates for smaller classes.
The Class Size Matters group termed the report "highly flawed," especially in its criticisms of Florida's class-size reduction efforts.
"Lowering class size is only one of four K-12 reforms that, according to the Institute of Education Sciences, have been proven to work through rigorous evidence," according to a Class Size Matters rebuttal on its website.
Nevada's debate plays out in much the same way. The state's class-size reduction program, enacted by the 1989 Legislature, has come under fire from Republicans and conservative policy groups as an expensive and ineffective means of improving student performance.
By the end of fiscal year 2010-11, the state will have spent about $1.83 billion on class-size reduction since the effort began, according to the 2011 Nevada Education Data Book distributed to legislators.
The Nevada Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank, has been outspoken in its criticism of class-size reduction.
"It's a great example of a policy that sounds good but is not effective in improving student achievement," said Andy Matthews, the institute's vice president of operations.
He also takes issue with how much has been spent on smaller classes in the Silver State.
A far better use for the funds is investing in programs that improve teacher quality, which is directly linked to higher student achievement, Matthews said.
State Sen. Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, supports class-size reduction.
His wife is a kindergarten teacher at Ronnow Elementary School, near Pecos Road and Washington Avenue, and he said he has observed the difference class-size reduction makes. Larger classes lead to delays in identifying students who are falling behind and create student safety issues because adult supervision has been stretched too thin, he says.
"You can be the world's greatest teacher, but when you get 50 to 60 kids in a classroom how effective are you going to be?" Denis asked.
Because of Nevada's ongoing fiscal crisis, lawmakers in a 2010 special session authorized school districts to increase primary grade class sizes by no more than two pupils per teacher in each grade.
That allowed pupil-to-teacher ratios of up to 18:1 in grades 1 and 2, and up to 21:1 in grade 3 during the 2010-11 school year.
In Clark County, those ratios may climb even higher in 2011-12. Class-size increases linked to expected budget shortfalls include going from 18 students to 21 in grades 1 and 2; from 21 students to 24 in grade 3; and from 30 students to 33 in grades 4 and 5.
The only good news regarding class sizes in Clark County came at an April 14 School Board meeting when officials announced that the average class in grades 6-12 would grow by two students instead of three.
Chief Financial Officer Jeff Weiler said that the district has $19 million remaining from a two-year, $54 million federal economic stimulus Education Jobs grant. Of the available funds, $9 million will be used to hold down average secondary class sizes to 34 students.
But ramping up the size of classes that already are large is the wrong direction to take in public education, according to Joan Parks, a librarian at the Southwest Career and Technical Academy.
Parks was among hundreds of teachers and district staff who took part in a series of rallies earlier this month to support public education and oppose budget cuts.
Teaching shouldn't be an exercise in crowd control, she said. "It's the kids who are going to suffer."
Contact Assistant City Editor Lisa Kim Bach at lbach@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0287.
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Deep-seated liberals and agenda merchants will lie, cheat, deceive, misguide and smear, then throw a collective tantrum when those of us who conflict with their edict and reject their thoughtless fantasies and silly schemes. I anticipated constructive discussions regarding this topic.
Reading the deluge of pap guised as news has significantly diminished my lenience for disillusioned street vendors feigning to be journalists. Seems that only race-baiters and disgraceful orators are the eyewitnesses they pursue to acknowledge their stimulation peep shows.
Trying to reach any accord with measly imposters is as effective as driving while texting, eating and drinking nearly a case of beer. Expecting common ground, courtesy and sense from demagogues is an illusion. You would certainly have a better chance to reason with a jihadist.
What common ground can you reach with play-actors who
are so bass-ackwards with their anything goes mindset, who then see the world in the polar reverse of everything considered normal many of us clearly see?
RJ...why are you censoring fretsward's posts? There is not one single word in his posts that is not the truth. He is a patriot and speaks for the majority of americans. If you would bother reading all the posts to this article, you would see that not one single person is in favor of providing a free education and other entitlements for people illegally in our country. How about becoming an upstanding newspaper and tell it as it is? Your articles are always slanted toward sympathy for the poor immigrants. How about the poor american tax payers that are being forced to support those "poor illegal aliens"? I am very close to cancelling your paper. When you allow supporters of illegals to beat their drums, why can't you be impartial and also show how americans really feel about the illegal invasion and the high cost to the american tax payers. We are FED-UP and your print media does absolutely nothing to get this message out. Shame on you and your brainwashed reporters.
No Taxpayers should have to pay English training for any Illegals. It should be the parents responsibilities. Parents are just too lazy and unwilling to learn. They want to just get something for FREE. Remember nothing is Free in Life, somebody eventually has to pay for something that is FREE.
To Joe C: Right on!!! As I suspected we are in agreement with most issues. Unfortunately, most people are too busy playing the blame game to get it.
@n7v.blogspot.com,,Even eliminating the welfare state, how would having open borders benefit us? As it is cities are overcrowded, infrastructures are already failing, bridges etc and employment opportunities becoming harder to find; at the same time academia has made higher education the only product enabling a person to reach a middle class life. And at the same time they have skyrocketed college costs and many professors sitting pretty with tenure. Having an open border and less opportunity would only make religious, language, race and cultural clashes more likely. Not to mention more corrupted countries like Mexico would send their supposed benign armies of poor into our country for their benefit. Some rules and regulation is good and have a real purpose and immigration laws are one of them. Unless you believe the U.S. is a better smarter, more intelligent place and history here will be different compared to the thousands of years men/women have been fighting and killing each other over their differences. We must be a magical place, unfortunately I’m to pragmatic or cynical if you wish, an open border and would be a disaster even eliminating all the freebees.
To n7v.blogspot.com: When are you going to get it through your thick skull that what it comes to illegal immigration, more often than not the government is in bed with businesses.
To William924: Let me try to make this clear as possible. When I was growing up the number of kids in a classroom was not a problem. However, back in those days a child wouldn't think of talking back to a teacher. In other words discipline problems were almost non-existent. Today, there are discipline problems that the teacher is given little or no authority to deal with. So William you see you are comparing apples and oranges.
Growing up in NY I had 60 kids in my kindergarten class, and 50+ for most of the next 8 years, whats the problem?
I oppose BIG Government and the high taxes necessary to pay for it.
If we abolished all those socialist entitlement programs like *free* public education, *free* UMC ER visits, *free* mental health outpatient services, *free* senior services, etc then 3rd world foreigners, Nth generation Californians, and so forth would avoid this state. For that matter, think how many people would leave the USA if we eliminated food stamps, FICA, etc.
We should also restrict our constitutionally required, in-patient state mental and physical institutions to bona fide residents, ie those who have been here for several years; no anchor dependents. That was the original intent, anyway. Like the way we charge out-of-staters higher tuition at NSHE and/or make them prove they're entitled to an in-state discount.
You can't have both open borders and a welfare state. I strongly prefer that we abolish the latter and put very few restrictions on the immigrants who still want to come here.
n7v.....I'm sure you meant "pro-illegal". Correct?