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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Larger classes may mean more dropouts | Oregon Education - OregonLive.com


Larger classes may mean more dropouts Oregon Education - OregonLive.com:

"High school reform research shows that students begin to get lost and left behind when teachers have too many students. The Coalition for Essential Schools, an organization that has successfully reformed some high schools, says teachers must know who they teach and recommends that 'no teacher have direct responsibility for more than 80 students in the high school and middle school and no more than 20 in the elementary school.' Many Oregon high school teachers this year are responsible for more than 200 students, which makes it impossible for them to know and serve all their students well. As the Gate Foundation has discovered, simply making schools small is not sufficient to make them excel, but it is necessary high schools find ways to make personal connections with every student or they will lose some of them."