[Destroyer]

Originally Posted by RidgeRunner

It isn't all bad. The teachers we have experienced have a sincere desire to teach my student. As a parent, the time spent every evening with my third grader and her homework is "together time" and I love it. Nothing better than working with my little one and seeing the lights come on.
Everyone on here is right on the money IMHO. Yes the teacher has to teach to the least advanced student in her class. At least there isn't 45 students to deal with. Our educators also use a couple of assistants and mentor/volunteers to help the students that need additional help. Overall, they seem to be ahead of where I was when I was in the third grade...

This is one of those topics (Talking about class size) where I personally have very mixed feelings.. On the one hand I can see the wisdom of smaller classes. In theory, it lets the teachers give more time to each student. And that's certainly a good thing. But on the other hand, I recall when I went to school that our average class size was 34-39 kids per classroom, and truthfully, we learned more back then than kids are learning now. So the arguement that smaller classes = better learning for our children really doesn't hold water in the harsh light of reality. (And I would also like to point out that the average class size in Japan is 50 children per classroom). So why are we constantly being told that smaller classes = better teaching?

As much as I hate to go in this direction, the only thing that I can think of is the teachers union. Think about it.. if you have 500 students, and each class size is 35, then you need 14 teachers (union members paying dues) to teach those students. But if each class size is 20 students then you need 25 teachers to teach those same 500 students. A net gain of 11 union paying members making the teachers union that much richer. I'm not saying this is the only reason that teachers unions want smaller class sizes, but it certainly smells a little fishy to me that the single biggest voice in wanting smaller classes is also the one that stands to gain the most money from it. Just one more thing to think about.