It's Time to Lower the Teacher to Student Ratio

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It's Time to Lower the Teacher to Student Ratio

Growing up is hard enough to do in this day and age, but even more so when a small child's education is sacrificed. Today's classrooms, kindergarten through college levels, are experiencing a significant rise in the number of students in each class. This brings the teacher-to-student ratio to an unacceptable level. Teachers cannot effectively teach their students if there are too many in a single class. Therefore, it is extremely important for the United States' educational system to take an in-depth investigation into this situation and work towards a better way for our children to learn in a more focused environment. For our children's sake and for our future, we all must assist in finding a way to lower the teacher-to-student ratio.

The long and short-term benefits of reducing class size affect the students and the teachers and will continue into the future. By reducing a class to an average of eighteen students, teachers are able to spend more one-on-one time with each student. In fact, in a study done in the United Kingdom proved that, "Outcomes showed that in smaller classes the teachers interacted more effectively with the entire class, had more sustained interactions (25 seconds or more) with individual students, and required less time to manage individual student's routines" (Hargreaves, et al 123). Interactions, such as these, are especially important to those children in kindergarten through the third grade. With focuses on reading, writing, and math on children in this early stage of their education, research is showing that these children will "carry the effects of a small class with them throughout the remainder of their academic...

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...ize on Teacher-Pupil Interaction in Elementary School Classes in England: Does Research Merely Confirm the Obvious? Paper prepared for the American Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Chicago, March 1997. ED 409 123.

Molnar, Alex., et al. 1997-98 Results of the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) Program. December 1998. Milwaukee, WI: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Shields, Patrick M., et al. Teaching and California's Future. The Status of the Teaching Profession: Research Findings and Policy Recommendations. A Report to the Teaching and California's Future Task Force. Santa Cruz, California: The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, 1999. 158 pages.

U.S. Department of Education. Reducing Class Size: What Do We Know? Washington, DC: Author, 1998. 17 pages. http://www.ed.gov/pubs/ReducingClass/.

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