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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Spare us your OT yikes. Have you ever set foot in SH?

My kid tested out of 6th grade math at SH, took pre-algebra in 6th, algebra in 7th this year.  That's BASIS level math. SH tracks extensively for math for the small number of kids who can handle acceleration.  [b]If your kid is advanced in math at SH they wind up in math classes with a dozen kids and great teachers.[/b]  Really.
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12 students per teacher for privileged math classes does not sound very equitable.[/quote]

Actually, [b]all [/b]children being appropriately challenged in math is equitable. [/quote]

Are they though, when most of the other kids are getting low results in math? This sounds more like resource hoarding by the few at the expense of everyone else.[/quote]

Are you joking? This is middle school. [b]Some kids come in to SH 4-5 grade levels behind.[/b] Not getting them up to a 4 is not akin to resource hoarding. I actually believe there should be a remedial math track and that it would be more effective, but DCPS doesn't allow it.[/quote]

So why don't the kids who are behind get a special 1:12 teacher ratio?[/quote]

Sometimes they do. Sometimes the lowest-level class size is small because there aren't a lot of kids at that level. At some schools a co-teacher specializing in special education math joining the classroom so the student-teacher ratio is 1:12 or whatever, even if the class size is typical at 24 or so. I'm not sure if this is how Stuart-Hobson does it, but it's definitely a thing elsewhere. And the class size in self-contained classrooms is even lower. Maybe learn more about SPED and budgets before you get salty.

The high-level kids have a small ratio because there aren't enough of them to fill up the class. But it's not because the school actually wants it to be that way. They would much prefer to have a full class, they don't have it right now but that's the goal, and if you destroy it for being small then it will never happen. Some kids will leave the school and others just won't get to have an advanced math class at all, even though they could have done the work. Is that what you want?

There are lots of reasons a class size can be small. Sometimes elective classes are small because not as many kids opted in. Sometimes a non-classroom space isn't physically large enough for a lot of students to be allowed. And if we're going to talk costs, the kids who are behind likely have IEPs and get various services and accommodations and staff for their IEPs. So in general, at a school like Stuart-Hobson, they're probably spending more on kids who are below grade level, on average, even if small class size isn't how that is achieved. The research on small class sizes isn't super compelling, and adds a lot of cost, staffing need, and physical space need, so it isn't the intervention of choice. [/quote]

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