Letter from a Teacher in Defense of Small Class Sizes
Jennifer T, a Washington, D.C. public school teacher (and friend from my hometown!), writes in with the following response to yesterday's post on class size.
This teacher believes that class size is tied with improving teacher education as the number one issue in education today. Really good teaching is differentiated teaching- meeting each and every kid where they are and raising their level of work bit by bit, day by day. Only by knowing each kid, conferencing with each kid and providing instruction to each kid how he or she best learns can we honestly close the achievement gap. We cannot do this with 26 second graders and only one teacher. It is impossible. Even for excellent (Highly Effective, even!) teachers in well-funded schools with amazing PTAs that pay for full-time assistants who are graduate students of education. Not with |