Millions of public school students across the nation are seeing their class sizes swell because of budget cuts and teacher layoffs, undermining a decades-long push by parents, administrators and policymakers to shrink class sizes.

Over the past two years, California, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Utah and Wisconsin have loosened legal restrictions on class size. And Idaho and Texas are debating whether to fit more students in classrooms. Los Angeles has increased the average size of its ninth-grade English and math classes to 34 from 20.

The increases are reversing a trend toward smaller classes that stretches back decades. Since the 1980s, teachers and many other educators have embraced research finding that smaller classes foster higher achievement. Read the article by Sam Dillon in The New York Times online.

For updates on the Continuing Resolution and other legislative action affecting literacy programs, visit the Legislative Hot Topics page on the IRA website. The March 3 blog posting, "Short-term spending bill cuts literacy programs," outlines how the Continuing Resolution "cut almost every literacy program in the government to zero." Affected programs include Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy, Reading Is Fundamental, the National Writing Project, and others.

The McPherson School District in McPherson, Kansas, is making history for being the first district in the country to opt out of assessment testing under No Child Left Behind. The district has come up with an alternative form of testing, which officials say raises the bar.

McPherson school officials are riding high after becoming the first district in the country to receive a waiver from required testing under the No Child Left Behind Act. The U.S. Department of Education approved the move after McPherson schools presented their alternate testing plan called “C3 – Citizenship, College and Career Readiness.” To learn more, read the full article in the local section of the KSN website.

The rhetoric of education today tends to divide the world in two: between those who favor "reform" and those who don't.

Many who consider themselves reformers say they stand in opposition to the "status quo." Some of them speak of the need to challenge the "education establishment," or the education bureaucracy. Many also describe their policies as putting the needs of children and students first, as opposed to the ideas favored by their critics, who by implication are focused mostly on the concerns of adults. To learn more, read the full article by Sean Cavanagh at the Education Week website.

 

 

 

 

In a speech on March 1, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pledged to make early learning a key part of his reauthorization push for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and to use grant programs to encourage states to create programs for the youngest learners. “We don’t need another study to know how important it is for our babies to get off to a good start,” Duncan told a gathering of philanthropists and children’s advocates working to ensure that all children learn to read by the end of 3rd grade. “We simply haven’t done that work effectively enough, we haven’t done it in a strategic manner, we haven’t done it in a coordinated way.”

Duncan and other department officials noted that the fiscal year 2012 budget includes $350 million to create an Early Learning Challenge Grant program, which would award money to states creating coordinated early learning programs. In addition, the Education Department and the Health and Human Services Department have developed an interagency working group to align early childhood programs. Furthermore, nine of 12 Race to the Top grant winners included early learning in their plans.

Duncan’s comments came before an audience of foundation leaders, nonprofit providers and children’s advocates who have come together as the Campaign for Grade-level Reading. The campaign is a collaborative effort to ensure that all students, particularly low-income children, reach the critical milestone of reading proficiency by the end of 3rd grade. For more information, visit the Campaign for Grade-level Reading website.