New Detroit schools contract allows up to 61 students in grades 6-12

[Bozita]

Source: Detroit News

July 13, 2012 at 10:32 am
New Detroit schools contract allows up to 61 students in grades 6-12
By Jennifer Chambers
The Detroit News

Detroit— Class sizes in Detroit Public Schools could get much larger this fall — up to 61 students each in grades 6-12 and 41 students in grades kindergarten through 3 — before school officials take action to level them out.

Under a new three-year contract imposed last week on the teachers' union, DPS will "make reasonable efforts" at reorganizing class sizes for students in K-12 when they exceed contractual limits.

In grades K-3, the class maximum is 25. But under the new contract with the Detroit Federation of Teachers, which took effect July 1, a class would need to reach 41 students before DPS moves to reduce it.

In grades 4-5, where 30 is the limit, it would take 46 students to trigger a response. In grades 6-12, where class sizes were increased to 35, leveling efforts would begin once the class reaches 61 students.



Read more: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120713/SCHOOLS/207130335/New-Detroit-schools-contract-allows-up-61-students-grades-6-12?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

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Infuckingsanity!

[wordpix]

1. oh great, count on Detroit going under further with this plan

More dangerous morons in high positions.

[RobertAustin]

20. Here's something we can all DO about outrages such as this: petition Congress!

Teachers in my home state, Arkansas, are also under attack. Since state government has been unresponsive, we're now trying to address the issue of bloated administrative salaries, teacher abuse, union-busting, etc., by attacking the problem in a new way. We are petitioning Congress with the C.A.P. Proposal: to Cut Administrators' Pay -- nationwide!

Now that our local school struggle has gone national, it can help teachers under attack in Detroit -- and all across America. Please read the petition at the link shown here. If you agree that this will help address the problem wordpix just identified, please sign it. However, I urge you not to stop there. Please post this link ALL over the Internet. It doesn't just help our schools in Arkansas, nor just the ones in Michigan, either. This is a nationwide education reform proposal, unlike anything ever tried before.

Superintendents all over America collect (NOT "earn&quot higher salaries that many or all members of Congress. I even found one in New York state who is better-paid that President Obama, and will soon be editing the petition to include more specifics from around the country. Gov. Cuomo is pushing a bill there to cap the pay of superintendents, and we support this idea, but it can't help anyone outside New York. The C.A.P. Proposal, on the other hand, can help us ALL. This is a nationwide problem, and it calls for a federal solution.

Here's the link -- please sign and share today! [link:http://www.change.org/petitions/the-c-a-p-education-reform-proposal-save-america-s-schools-by-cutting-administrators-pay-with-federal-legislation|

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

31. Welcome to DU fellow Arkansan

[kemah]

2. They need to get principals, vice principals, and other certified administrators to teach a class

This will reduce class size and also have them have more sympathy to the classroom teacher. As a retired teacher, I seen administration implement policy that make it more difficult to teach. Like forcing disruptive students to stay in your class. I had a principal who demanded that a special ed student stay in my classroom. Next year she was demoted back to the classroom and had that student in her class, the student was gone in a week. Sent to an alternative school. This was &th grade, she was a lot older and larger because the student had been held back several years and had learning disabilities.

[MADem]

22. I went to schools where the teachers were also administrators.

The principal would occasionally substitute for a half or full day when a teacher was absent, the teachers were organized into groups led by a department head, there were several "assistant principals" who were also teachers with a slightly reduced teaching schedule, and they had different areas of responsibility--administration, discipline, and so forth.

There was a superintendent of schools, but there was no "assistant superintendents" and the guy had one secretary. He would answer his own phone, and he would teach occasionally as well.

The teachers got a bit more money for doing those additional admin duties, but they kept their hand in their primary job--teaching.

Back then, disruptive students were sent to reform school. There was no toleration of misconduct.

There was no "special needs" accommodation, either, no "classroom aides," or anything like that. The special needs kids went to special needs schools, though they weren't called that. If a child on crutches, a walker or wheelchair could manage on his or her own they would attend the "regular" school, but no provisions were made for helpers back then. It had to be a bit difficult for those kids, particularly since bullying wasn't unheard of (Mitt RMoney knows all about that).

I do think staffs have gotten too large, and when a superintendent gets paid four or five times as much as a teacher for being a scold who says "You're doing it WRONG!" and provides very little positive guidance, I think the model needs a bit of work. Teachers should be teaching, not helping kids memorize, putting up with little shitheads, or checking off bullshit blocks in order to qualify for funding.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

29. Unbelievable!

You've actually posted something that I agree with.

[coalition_unwilling]

3. I'm surprised any professional educator would consent to work in such conditions. I guess when

times are really bad, even educators have to lower their standards a bit.

Not much education will be going on in any class with 60 students in it, except the kind of school of hard knocks education (that teaches children they have no worth as human beings).

This country makes me sick sometimes.

[Igel]

5. 60 students in some classes, not a big problem.

AP calculus, for instance, it might work.

Any science class? Not possible. Can't do a lab with that many lab groups.

But most classes? With 30, there are going to be 4-5 disruptive students, at least where I teach. Hard to manage, you have to watch them. Double it to 10 disruptive students and all you're doing is managing the class. Poorly.

Most of the time bad schools = bad student bodies = bad students.

Teachers can help kids a bit. Stellar teachers can help an entire class (but that's the high end of the curve here).

A bad teacher can mess up a class or his/her classes, and disrupt a few others somewhat.

A bad school administration can disrupt an entire school.

But a bad school board, or a dysfunctional city/county, can disrupt an entire district. Detroit's been digging for this, and has finally found it.

[coalition_unwilling]

10. I was thinking of classes that require discussion and\or

Last edited Sun Jul 15, 2012, 11:50 AM - Edit history (1)

critical thinking skills.

Been awhile since I took calculus (in college), so I've forgotten the drill.

[Posteritatis]

8. Definitely; ugh

In Nova Scotia the schools can't require the teachers to work with a class larger than 35 students at the high school level. Some still will - music teachers juggling a full band, stuff like that - but it puts a hard limit on class sizes. The limit's still kind of high IMO, but sixty anywhere in a K-12 environment is just absurd.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. The contract was imposed. The teachers have no choice.

[coalition_unwilling]

24. Well, they have a choice but it's admittedly unpleasant and

suicidal for most: resign on principle rather than be a party to educational malpractice.

I don't expect anyone to resign, but they do have a choice.

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. I don't consider not earning any money to feed your family to be a true choice.

[coalition_unwilling]

28. Good point. I tried to signal as much by

using the word 'suicidal' but I think your distinction is even better.

[Paulie]

4. Insane!

I remember being in a classes with 30 and it was pretty awful.

[alp227]

6. Detroit families need to GET OUT ON THE STREETS and make some noise!

[n2doc]

7. Bill Gates would be pleased

He thinks larger classes mean that more students will get exposed to 'great teachers'

[Brigid]

14. Betcha when he was in school . . .

He never sat in a classroom with 60 other kids. This is just insane.

[Citizen Worker]

17. Gates attended a private school, Lakeside. I know that's hard to believe but...

[madrchsod]

9. Detroit is 82% black and 10% white

the people who run the schools have no intention of educating the black population of detroit. what they want is to be paid a shit load of money to put the blame on the so called lousy teachers and the uncaring black families.

[FarCenter]

12. Aside from the token Hispanic, the Detroit School Board is all black

http://detroitk12.org/board/members/

As is the superintendent and the emergency manager.

[sarcasmo]

11. USA! USA! USA!

There is no possible way one teacher can maintain order with 61 students in a classroom.

[knitter4democracy]

13. As a teacher, I know this is a recipe for disaster.

There's so much pressure to raise test scores, but kids won't learn without that personal connection and individual help they so desperately need. No teacher can develop those connections and individual learning plans in classes with 60 students. That means that high school teachers will have double their usual load, and that means grading will get even more streamlined and more things will get ignored and/or projects requiring critical thinking skills will be scrapped for scantron tests.

This last year when I was a sub in an improving school, I had 160 students and 7 preps (8 classes a day). I can't imagine how much harder it would have been with more than twice the number of students. Forget actual grading of essays, forget knowing each student's name and what's going on with that kid, forget making sure no one slips through the cracks, and forget a higher passing rate.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. When has Bill Gates ever taught school?

I really want to take people like him and put them in charge of a class of seventh graders for two weeks. I wonder how many of them would last out the day.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. The kinds of people who blithely advocate having 60 students in a class or 40 kindergarteners

are PRECISELY those who send their own children to private schools that boast class sizes of 15.

[riderinthestorm]

18. A retired school teacher of mine started her brilliant career with a class of 61 kindergarteners

Her first year out of school, her first class was 61 kindergarteners. She taught them alone.

Of course, she was a Catholic nun at the time and used corporal punishment. She was a tremendous shot with an eraser and carried a ruler tucked into the belt of her habit at all times (her words, not mine). She lasted 10 years under that system before she finally left the order.

She spent the next few decades in a regular school and always told me that without corporal punishment (which she loathed after having spent 10 years within a school system that used it regularly), an elementary school classroom had a limit of 25 students you could handle successfully. And for every child added over 25, it was like adding 5 extra kids - it just had this kind of snowball effect.

[steve2470]

19. 41 students in kindergarten ? insanity is right ! nt

[may3rd]

21. 60-75 students in a "class room" ? Why have things got this far out of hand?

How much learning will get done in that jail cell mentality approach ? The horror stories of overcrowding won't stay off the msm radar.


The schools need to be closed. They are broken
on edit, in other words,
if you live in Detroit.... GTFO

Motown is dead

[knitter4democracy]

35. Detroit's definitely not dead.

It's battered and beaten, and the MI GOP is trying to drown it, but Detroit is not dead.

[Red Mountain]

26. I can't think of any school I ever attended

that had classrooms physically large enough to accommodate 60 kids plus a teacher.

What are they going to do? Sit on the floor? On laps? Knock down walls?

[DCKit]

27. If they're going to turn them into babysitters, then pay them as babysitters.

Even at $3.50/hr/head, I can't imagine the teachers would complain.

There's sure as hell no way anyone could teach anything to that many grade-schoolers at one time.

[may3rd]

30. They can cut the pay down to a minimum if that were true

and call them monitors, with law enforcement degrees.

[Old Union Guy]

32. The city of Detroit as such no longer exists.

Only a carcase of a city for the vultures to feed on, as the land is reclaimed by wilderness.

A good use of public money would be to relocate those schoolchildren and their families to somewhere society hasn't collapsed.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

33. "up to 61 students" = Lord of the Flies

[lunatica]

34. Sometimes I think Detroit is the city picked to conduct experiments on how bad

things need to get in order to destroy a city.

[sarcasmo]

37. +1

[CRK7376]

36. My first 2-3 years

teaching I had 3 maybe 4 classes, history classes of 10-12th graders that the class size was 34, never 35 or larger. This was in the late '80s. Tough but managable, more than 35 kids it would have been a zoo, or a free fire zone I suspect. Then my class sizes shrank and things were much more manageable. I left the classroom after putting in 13 years, had to have more money than NC was willing to pay its teachers. I will be returning to the classroom in 3 years once I retire from Uncle Sam.