,
32 tweets,
7 min read
Read on Twitter
.@CTULocal1 @GeryChico @DaleyForMayor @AmaraEnyia @LightfootForChi @Garry4Chicago @susanamendoza10 @ToniPreckwinkle @Paulvallas @DrWillieWilson A thread on underutilization and class size by a CPS educator for your consideration…
CPS’s #underutilization formula has nothing to do with the best interests of students, teachers, families, schools or education. At its heart, it amounts to an act of class war against our public schools.
I’m a 7th grade social studies teacher in CPS. While I teach brilliant students at an excellent school in Englewood, the single biggest challenge I face as an educator is class size.
I was lucky enough in the birth lottery to be born into an upper-middle class family. My parents could afford, and so chose, to send me to a fancy private middle school.
At my childhood middle school, each grade consisted of approximately 50 students. Class sizes were usually 16 or 17 students. The school prided itself on never exceeding 18 students in a class.
In contrast, my average class size in CPS is usually around 30 students. I teach five sections of 7th grade, adding up to approx 150 students on my rosters. My entire childhood middle school had this many students!
My childhood middle school teachers taught 1/3rd of the number of students I teach. They taught 3 academic classes a day, leaving plenty of time for other enriching activities as well as planning, grading and collaborating.
Smaller class sizes obviously mean more one-on-one time between students and teachers in the classroom. They are also easier to manage, resulting in a much more productive learning environment.
What many people don’t consider, however, is how this translates into all of the work that teachers do outside of the classroom. Let’s do some quick math:
Let’s say I decide to spend only 3 minutes grading and offering feedback on each student assignment. 3 minutes x 150 students = 450 minutes of grading per assignment. That’s 7.5 hours!
If I give only two assignments each week, this amounts to two additional workdays added into that week solely for the purpose of grading. And that’s assuming I can actually spend only 3 minute per assignment.
Reviewing assignments and offering feedback is integral to what teachers do. It not only provides us with the necessary insight into student thinking and understanding – feedback is a major part of how we teach.
3 minutes per assignment frankly doesn’t allow me to learn much about my students or offer much feedback. For this reason, I strive to take more time as often as possible.
A really good assignment can take as long as 10-15 minutes to grade. 15 minutes x 150 students = 2250 minutes, or 37.5 hours – a full work week!
My class sizes obviously limit the amount of quality grading and feedback I can provide, which in turn limits the number of truly quality assignments I can offer. I also have to do lesson planning on top of this.
Beyond grading and lesson planning, offering quality instruction also requires tutoring students before and after school and during my lunch breaks. It involves communicating with parents.
Quality instruction involves developing differentiated tasks, individualized assignments and coming up with personalized plans for specific students in order to help them with their individualized needs.
I’ve been teaching for four years. In that time, I’ve had to essentially terminate my personal life between the months of September and June in order to do right by my students.
I’ve been willing to make these sacrifices, because it’s incredibly satisfying to see the results. But even with these sacrifices, millions of things fall through the cracks every day. I can never do enough to be the teacher I want to be.
As I get older, I also think more and more about when I’ll have time to achieve the necessary work-life balance to actually sustain my own personal life. I can’t even wrap my head around how some of my colleagues have families.
In order to make things work, I not only sacrifice a personal life, but also sleep. And when I’m physically exhausted, I’m not as good of a teacher. This workload is frankly unhealthy. It’s why so many new teachers burn out.
Having experienced educators in the classroom is obviously a good thing for students. We need to create work environments that are sustainable for teachers so that we can develop our talent pool and enrich our schools.
For all of these reasons, smaller class sizes are not only better but really quite necessary for teachers, students, families, school and being able to provide a quality education in CPS.
So what’s with the underutilization formula that CPS frequently uses to criticize and even close schools? Why has CPS set a class-size standard that is obviously out of touch with the reality of offering a quality education?
The answer is simply: it’s about being cheap. Our underutilization formulas are all about spending as little on staff and building space as possible. It's about cheating our kids.
Who wants public education to be cheap? Definitely not any of the families actually enrolled in CPS. CPS class sizes are a product of our unwillingness to tax the rich enough to provide the same edu for our kids that they provide for theirs.
We talk a lot about boosting student performance and working toward education equity in CPS, but our class size formula shows that we don’t actually care about any of these things.
If you want a magic bullet for producing greater education equity, here it is: we need 3x as many teachers and 3x as much support staff working in 3x as many schools.
Until we’re willing to reproduce the resources elite private schools provide in our own public schools, anything we say about pursuing equity or providing quality education in CPS is disingenuous.
What we actually produce in CPS is mass-produced, factory style education in order to make educating the working class as cost-efficient and unburdensome for the very wealthy as possible.
What I want to know is, as mayor, what would all of you do about this?
