Re: a teacher responds

["Sue Hovey" <suehovey@moscow.com>]

Betty & Bill

That student/teacher ratio also includes administrators.  Additionally, as
of last year Idaho had the 3rd highest class sizes in the nation.  Only Utah
and California were higher.  A significant amount of money has been added to
the education budget in California in an attempt to reduce class size
numbers.  Depending on the result of that attempt, Idaho may well be #2 in
the nation this year.

Sue Hovey
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill London" <london@moscow.com>
To: "Vision2020" <vision2020@moscow.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 10:47 AM
Subject: a teacher responds


> Betsy Goodman is a special education teacher at Lena Whitmore Elementary
in Moscow.
> She sent me this following explanation about teacher/pupil ratios in
Moscow (which
> was originally directed at the Daily News), and then at my request, is
allowing me to
> forward this to V2020.
> BL
>
> >
> >         As a teacher in the Moscow School District I am frustrated at
seeing our
> > class sizes misrepresented to the public by our superintendent and your
> > staff writers.  That number (13) does NOT represent the number of
students
> > per classroom teacher because it divides the number of students by the
> > number of all teachers, including special education teachers such as
> > myself, teachers of the gifted & talented, music and P.E. teachers,
Speech
> > and Language Pathologists, Chapter One teachers, etc, in addition to
> > classroom teachers.  Combining these specialists along with classroom
> > teachers does not give a true picture of class size at all, and no
attempt
> > has been made to explain this to the public.
> >         I looked at the figures for MSD's K - 6 enrollment report to the
state on
> > Nov. 2nd, 2001, and divided the number of CLASSROOM teachers in each
grade
> > by the number of students. The result is that we have an average class
size
> > of 20 students per teacher in grades K - 6. Research indicates this to
be
> > an optimum class size, and our test scores certainly show something is
> > working right!
> >         I don't know the figures for the jr. and senior high school but
I'm sure
> > your reporters could find out and do the math. The district is required
to
> > offer some upper-level math and science courses at the high school level
> > that do not have high numbers, but I'm sure the overall average in
grades 7
> > - 12 is well above 13. Please correct the misperception that the
community
> > now has that we have such low teacher-pupil ratios in MSD by explaining
how
> > the figure 13 is obtained and what class sizes really are when only the
> > number of classroom teachers is used.  I'm sure the district office
would
> > be happy to fax you a copy of the Nov. 2nd enrollment report by grade
and
> > school.
> > Thanks for your time,
> >
> > Betsy Goodman, M.S. Ed
> > Resource Teacher
> > Lena Whitmore Elementary School
>