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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]33 in 4/5 compacted math.[/quote]

Does everyone see this as normal? There are umpteen gazillion posts about CES and magnets, but people just shrug their shoulders and accept it as fine if their 4th grader has 33 kids in their class? [/quote]

Practically speaking, what do you think is going to happen if parents make a big stir about big compacted math/enriched literacy classes?  (And 33 isn't even that big, 28 is standard.).

If you believe all schools should have these advanced classes and cohort the kids together, you're going to have times when the classes are on the larger side, because you can't just expect that that number of qualifying kids will conveniently always fall in a typical class size range.  The alternative to 1 class of 33 is two classes of 16/17, while the lower-performing kids then end up with much larger classes because you've shifted another teacher (going from, say, 4 classes of 25 to 3 classes of 33, or from 3 classes of 25 to 2 classes of 37.)  That is just not a reasonable ask.

I strongly suspect that this kind of thing is a big part of why MCPS dropped the enriched literacy cohorting requirement.  It would be lovely to have cohorted classes with normal class sizes at all times, but unfortunately it's just not possible to get everything you want here.  If you want kids cohorted into advanced classes, you have to live with the fact that those classes might be big sometimes.  If instead you complain to principals and central office that your child's advanced class is too big, they are going to throw up their hands and push to get rid of cohorting altogether because they feel like there is no way to satisfy parents so they might as well just do whatever is easiest for them.[/quote]

It's not just advanced classes that are large. My kid's ES class has 32 kids this year.  And no, I don't think people should just sit quietly and do nothing when there's a class of 40 in compact math and their kid is asked to sit on the floor.  You can have two classes of 20.  MCPS has a billion dollar budget.  Cut the fat from the central office, and put more teachers in classroom.  It's not hard to find an elementary school math teacher.[/quote]

I absolutely support lowering class sizes systemwide (and am willing to deal with the tax increases that are likely needed to actually pay for it-- the idea that there is enough fat to cut in central office to meaningfully move the needle on class sizes in a 160,000-kid school system is magical thinking.) But I also think parents of advanced students (and I am one of them) need to be reasonable and realistic about class sizes if we want to keep cohorted classes (which I do.). Yes, 40 kids in a class is too many, but 33 (just a handful above guidelines) is just the kind of the thing we need to live with.  It's not a question of finding one elementary school math teacher.  You would have to fund dozens or maybe hundreds across all the elementary schools in the county who have this issue (more if you apply it to other grades as well.) And even still, it would likely mean in many cases (just due to how the numbers play out) that the advanced kids get much smaller class sizes than the behind and grade-level kids, which does not seem fair or appropriate.  Insisting on it is the kind of thing that gives parents of advanced kids a bad name, and leads MCPS to the conclusion that there's no good way to make cohorting work.[/quote]

That kids "just need to live with" classes of 33 kids is your opinion, not a fact.  And if every class of 40 kids would need to get a second teacher, that would be a good thing, not a bad thing.   There are plenty of things that I personally would cut from the 3.6 bn$ annual MCPS budget to prioritize smaller class sizes at the elementary school level.  I'm sure others with greater knowledge of the MCPS budget could identify others.[/quote]

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