Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, September 10, 2010

The Answer Sheet - Why we can't afford small classes anymore: One view

The Answer Sheet - Why we can't afford small classes anymore: One view

Why we can't afford small classes anymore: One view

My guest is Justin Snider, who teaches undergraduate writing at Columbia University and writes for The Hechinger Report, the nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet affiliated with Teachers College, Columbia University. By Justin Snider Economic downturns aren’t all bad news. One upshot is that they force people to reexamine their expenditures. When money’s tight, most of us start to scrutinize where every cent is going. We reprioritize. Spending $25 for a night out at the movies, when we stop to think about it, doesn’t really make much sense – especially when we could wait a few months and own the movie on DVD for half the price. Four-dollar lattes each morning suddenly seem absurd. Recessions and depressions help us see, and correct, our wayward ways. We trim the fat, after having insisted for years there wasn’t any fat to trim. But when the economy is flying high, nothing looks fatty – though