Commentators on the AJC Get Schooled blog had a range of reaction to the problem of growing class sizes in Georgia’s schools, especially in high schools where students are dealing with increasingly more complex work. Here is a sampling of their comments under their chosen screen names:
NWGA: Administrators: Deal with the troublemakers or back me when I deal with them in the classroom, and things will start to get better. Continue to refuse to face the hard choices about disruptive students, and you continue to tie teachers' hands. I'm still doing as much as I can with hands tied, but I could do so much more with help from you.
Retiredteacher: What would you do about the current laws and regulations on the state and federal level that many times tie the hands of administrators and boards of education? Current regulation basically requires a system of gradually increasing consequences with complete documentation to "get rid of" chronic discipline problems. The process can take six months or more. I don't have any room for lazy or ineffective administrators, either, but please realize that the good administrators are frustrated with the red tape they must deal with to do their jobs. There is entirely too much state and federal interference with all aspects of school governance.
Don't tread: Everybody's so concerned about the so-called "school-to-prison pipeline" that they've lost sight of what they're supposed to be doing — teaching kids the skills they need to be adults one day. Send the miscreants to reform school, and if that doesn't work, expel them.
Jerry: As long as we continue the factory model, shoving kids through on an assembly line and judging each and every one of them with a single (typically low) "standard," we'll keep getting the factory-model assembly line with a single (typically low) "standard." Effort (or motivation — whatever label you wish to use) is a major determiner of success, but ability also lines up in what we call a normal distribution, and we have been remiss for about half a century to fail to attend to both. The kids who don't want to be in class should be somewhere else, as perhaps should be the stars of the class, as well as their peers who are trying hard but may not have the capacity of some of the others. We're punishing all of them far more by forcing a teacher to try to do best for all of them.
DG: One thing that seems to be a problem is that the students who are ahead are given the smaller classes, while we pack the general-level kids 36-plus to a class. With gifted children, you tend to have more personal responsibility where you could successfully implement a flipped model — and more opinions to bring to the table during classroom discussions. I currently have three classes (block schedule) of general-level freshmen. If I had smaller classes with these children, I would be able to give the greater focus that the trouble makers or ELL students or whatever other demographic need. I'm not saying that the job is impossible, but I know I would be able to accomplish a lot more for these students if I didn't have that many in class at a time.
