We don’t need more genius teachers or amazing plans. We need more adults per student.
– Raul and Elizabeth Martinez, Northeast Portland
Click here for other views from Oregonians on “lowest performing” schools.

In the midst of a discussion of multi-grade classrooms as a response to the Florida class size law, we read:

“We don’t see them as sixth-graders or eighth-graders,” said teacher Moya Hanaway. “We see them as students with unique abilities and we teach them.”

They say some of the benefits are obvious early in the school year. Since only a third of their students are new to the class, they do not have to spend as much time learning their students’ learning styles and abilities. They can pick right up where they left off the previous school year with most of their students. That gives them more time to focus on teaching.

This is a prime example of the intersection of two aspects of the relationship load concept I put forth in my book: class size and teacher continuity. Maybe the teeth of of this law are forcing Florida to look beyond the conventions of age-grading toward more relationally promising possibilities:

“Kids don’t come in neatly counted increments,” said Sarasota Schools Superintendent Lori White. “It’s hard for me to see a situation where we wouldn’t want to consider this.”

An Odessa, TX article reads,

Chuck Isner, President of the regional chapter of the Texas State Teachers Association, agrees. “It’s really disconcerting to have legislators, in a time when we’re talking about the crisis in education, talking about increasing class sizes,” he said. “Particularly in the early grades where the need is so great.”

Is a narrative of crisis necessary to defend small classes? I even worry that my own assertion of a “childrearing crisis” in my book is problematic. Crisis talk gets heard, but does it backfire?

“Is there any parent who, all else being equal, wouldn’t want his or her youngster in a class of 17 or 18 versus a class of 23 or 24?”
So asks the editorial board of the Dallas Morning News in opposing a proposal to remove K-4 class size caps.  Although there is a bit too much emphasis on the test score angle, the wrap-up returns to the broader frame of individualization, teacher testimony, and plain old ethics.