Do large class sizes in FCPS make you consider paying $25K for private?

[Anonymous]

If you dont have money you dont go to private school. We are really messed up with middle class parents in debt for tuitions starting at kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's more:

http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2011/0511_class_size_whitehurst_chingos.aspx

That doesn't help your case since it acknowledges credible studies that have found the opposite (as well as a body of literature that suggests higher class size is correlated with better achievement, although that study is dated).

Moreover, this paper was written by educators, not economists. The economic studies tend to find less correlation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is in the above average program (AAP) also. 30 in class. Still getting a good education, about same as I got in regular school 25 years ago. Alot depends on the teacher you get.

I did not have a similar curriculum in 5th and 6th grades when I was in "regular school" 33 years ago. But I am pleased with most of the curriculum in the GT center. Not science, though. The FCPS science curriculum is a joke. We teach science at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is in the above average program (AAP) also. 30 in class. Still getting a good education, about same as I got in regular school 25 years ago. Alot depends on the teacher you get.

I did not have a similar curriculum in 5th and 6th grades when I was in "regular school" 33 years ago. But I am pleased with most of the curriculum in the GT center. Not science, though. The FCPS science curriculum is a joke. We teach science at home.

My dd's AAP center has a science resource teacher and the kids have science every day. My dd is in a class of 32 this year, and she has learned and retained more this year than she ever has before. It has nothing to do with the size of her class and everything to do with her amazing teacher.

[Anonymous]

OP here.... my kids are not in AAP so the 30 and 29 kids in the class are a mixture of abilities and a mixture of interest in learning. I think the comparison with large AAP classes might not be an accurate comparison.

I generally feel like because I've made sure my kids are meeting the minimum benchmarks in reading/math, and they are generally well behaved, they are left to their own a lot and the teacher doesn't have time for working with the kids who are already on target.

Where are the FCPS where the class sizes are in the lower 20s?

As for homeschooling as an add-on, can you recommend some programs? I taught them reading and math facts on my own, but I have no idea what to do beyond that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is in the above average program (AAP) also. 30 in class. Still getting a good education, about same as I got in regular school 25 years ago. Alot depends on the teacher you get.

I did not have a similar curriculum in 5th and 6th grades when I was in "regular school" 33 years ago. But I am pleased with most of the curriculum in the GT center. Not science, though. The FCPS science curriculum is a joke. We teach science at home.

My dd's AAP center has a science resource teacher and the kids have science every day. My dd is in a class of 32 this year, and she has learned and retained more this year than she ever has before. It has nothing to do with the size of her class and everything to do with her amazing teacher.

amazing. I guess it depends on the center. DC is at one that ispurportedly a school for the "arts and sciences." tons of art and hardly any science.

[Anonymous]

If enough parents complain, I think FCPS will look at at least reducing the size by one student since class size was just increased just a couple of years ago. It won't change things that drastically, but I would hope it would keep the size under 30 students. I had heard there was going to be a push for class size reduction this year, but it seems they are focusing on other things instead probably because not enough parents spoke up about it. I was too burnt out after fighting for FDK last year to get involved with the budget this year, but intend to write to the new school board about reducing class size next year. I know of several teachers who quit in the 90's and recently because of large class sizes even though their pay increased. They just found the paperwork, discipline, and teaching to all those students to be too much. So perhaps it isn't as detrimental to the students, but it could be to the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Throwing money at your kids education does not always work. Parents involvement with their kids education is always better especially in elementary school. We taught our kids at home as much as we can and use public school as social life and reinforce what we taught at home. Results, both of them went to TJ and went on to top universities.

As a former teacher I agree with this 100%. Forget Kumon. Forget paying for private. Buy a homeschooling curriculum and spend 30 minutes a day teaching them on your own. We've been doing this with our kids and they are both several grade levels above the norm in reading and math.

Can you recommend a particular curriculum you purchased?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is in the above average program (AAP) also. 30 in class. Still getting a good education, about same as I got in regular school 25 years ago. Alot depends on the teacher you get.

I did not have a similar curriculum in 5th and 6th grades when I was in "regular school" 33 years ago. But I am pleased with most of the curriculum in the GT center. Not science, though. The FCPS science curriculum is a joke. We teach science at home.

My dd's AAP center has a science resource teacher and the kids have science every day. My dd is in a class of 32 this year, and she has learned and retained more this year than she ever has before. It has nothing to do with the size of her class and everything to do with her amazing teacher.

What grade? We have found that the amount of time devoted to science classwork differs from year to year, depending on the SOLs that year. 3rd and 5th grade? Lots of science. 4th and 6th grade? not so much.

[Anonymous]

I'm mostly annoyed that there is such disparity in class sizes between schools that are just a mile apart. We're at GBW with K class sizes of 30. Poplar Tree has K class sizes of 19. This is ridiculous. If they could figure it out so that there weren't such huge differences, I would be happier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where are the FCPS where the class sizes are in the lower 20s?

I am guessing many of the schools are Title I, but not all. Some schools just have grade levels of kids where there are too many kids to fill one classroom so they have to ready/have a teacher for a second classroom for that grade level. So if you have 40 kids that are all 3rd graders, you need to divide up the group so there are 20 kids per 3rd grade class. Alternatively, they may do a combination class so 25 kids are in a 3rd grade class and the remaining 15 go into a combo 3rd/4th grade class.

[Anonymous]

Not sure the source of this list, but it give average class sizes (as of 2010). I know it's about right for our elementary - Camelot. The principal there is very focused on keeping class sizes small.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/68782861/Class-Sizes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm mostly annoyed that there is such disparity in class sizes between schools that are just a mile apart. We're at GBW with K class sizes of 30. Poplar Tree has K class sizes of 19. This is ridiculous. If they could figure it out so that there weren't such huge differences, I would be happier.

Some schools have that much variation in class enrollment from year to year. I've heard this sitting on the sidelines of my kid's soccer games and the moms talk about how many kids were in their old kids' classes (all from the same school).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure the source of this list, but it give average class sizes (as of 2010). I know it's about right for our elementary - Camelot. The principal there is very focused on keeping class sizes small.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/68782861/Class-Sizes

Thanks for posting this!

[Anonymous]

I'm not attacking the person who posted the link, but I feel pretty sure that there is creative accounting being used in that document.

Kindergarten class sizes in my kids' school are ALWAYS 28-30 kids. According to that document, the average for kindy is 22. The same with the 1-3rd grade. 22 students in a class on average is just false.

I suspect that they are averaging in the special ed. classes where there are 5 kids and one teacher or the preschool classes where the numbers are much smaller. Something is fishy with those statistics.