How Close Is Too Close? Essay

Overcrowded schools are one of the many reasons why America is falling backwards. With high birth rates and continuous immigration flow the classroom has become overcrowded. The best way a student can learn is if the attention is not so divided. With large classrooms having over 30 students, it makes it almost impossible for a teacher to attend to each student equally. “Slavin (1989) reviewed those studies that lasted a minimum of 1 year and had 20 students or fewer. He concluded that substantial reductions in class size have a small positive effect on students” (Synopsis of Class Size Literature). Classrooms should be small enough for a teacher to perform well without divided attention. In smaller classrooms, students are recognized for their contribution and participation. Students can respect the work of their peers individually and learn from them and help maintain order. They have more time to be collaborative, work creatively, think critically and draw their own predictions. In “Every Classroom Teacher’s Dream”, Patricia Handley states that “Teachers have more opportunity for personalized assessment with students, such as individual conferencing. With a small class, teacher can maximize best teaching practices, heightening students’ academic achievement” (6). There is ample evidence on how a small classroom can improve so much.

According to Malcolm Gladwell chapter two of “David and Goliaths” economist Caroline Hoxby found that there was not any significant data indicating smaller classroom sizes had a greater effect on a child’s academic achievement. However; Diana Whitmore Schanzenbach from National Education Policy Center (NEPC), Northwestern University has contradicted Gladwell’s assertion that smaller classroom sizes were not an academic advantage. Schanzenbach review research done by Tennessee’s Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) and found many flaws that had been considered in Hoxby research that conflicted with much of the research that has already been concluded. There has been a considerable amount of research and much of it has concluded with: the children who were placed in a classroom with less students from kindergarten to third grade, scored higher during academic testing, and were more likely to continue to achieve higher grades throughout their school years. Because education is an important stepping stone for children, it is crucial their educational needs are exceeded while they are young and still able to grasp.

With over 200 school closing, it is causing classrooms to be too big and become oversized. Some classrooms are so oversized that students have to sit on the floor. The oversized classrooms affects the behaviors of the teaches. Such an environment brings upon stress the teachers of providing the need for every student and running around doing extra errands that the teachers are not paid to

As population grows the opportunities for quality, available housing becomes an issue. More people and less space is a combination leading only to crowded and uncomfortable students. As space is taken up, it becomes more valuable. Strains cause distraction and disruption, a poor environment for learning.

At overcrowded schools, material issues resulting from greater class sizes directly impact the classroom. Quantified into state spending per student, resources grow increasingly strained with each additional student. A 10-minute online activity becomes a 20-minute activity in a class where there are not enough Chromebooks, requiring students

At San Juan del Rio, there are not as many programs and sports teams because the school has reached its capacity when it comes to rooms and fields for the students to play. Money to construct more buildings and fields is part of the reason why the school does not have more programs than it does. After-school programs serve communities of children and youth all across the United States, and SJDR needs to be involved in this process. This would also fix the fact that the school is mostly Caucasian, as it would allow new opportunities for all types of students. After-school programs can help students

Many public school classrooms are crammed full of students, which makes not only the teacher’s job more challenging, but also damages the children’s learning experience. This is because “the smaller the class, the better individual student experience” (Lynch). In fact, a study was conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) discovered that over 14% of US schools surpass their recommended capacity (Lynch). In classrooms where this is apparent, teacher-student one on one time is rarely ever possible, and a child’s understanding is limited as a result. There is no bond between the two, which also creates tension in class. The tension between a frustrated teacher and a student who does not understand a unit during the school year happens much more than expected. Also with a full class, teachers do not have the time to devote their attention to each and every student. At this day in age, children need more attention given to them than ever before in order to succeed in life, and college if they so choose to attend. It is also needed to succeed later on in life after their schooling is complete. The overpopulated classrooms are making it harder for teachers to achieve

The evidence suggests that increasing class size will not only harm children’s test scores in the short-run, but also in their long-run human capital formation. Money is saved from increasing class size will be more substantial social and educational costs in the future. In addition to high costs, reducing class size have unintended consequences. When California lowered class sizes in 1996, they realized that they did not have enough teachers to meet the challenge. Schools were forced to hire new teachers and add portable classmates to accommodate the state

Children tend to focus their attention on areas of the classroom they like and tend to only visit those areas creating a traffic jam. Students then get frustrated when they cannot be at the center they want, this tends to happen a lot with a child that has autism at my clinical location.

Overcrowding means students don't get the attention they need from their teachers. But that is most of the time true. With less students the better because then we have plenty of space for having special education. Nationwide, there are many schools bursting at the seams. In New York forest hills high school many students have a second shift at 8:30 and a third shift at 10:30 because many students are attending that school and overcrowding it.

In recent years, the topic of class size reduction has come to light in the United States. "There is little doubt that reducing class size can boost student achievement in some circumstances," Matthew Chingos of the Brookings Institution Brown Center says. Class size reduction is becoming more and more demanded to help meet the needs of todays society and education. According to the Center For Public Education, 'student achievement in grades K-3 increased when the class size dropped'. Class size reduction has been debated about for years in the US and is now being extensively studied. Class size reduction continues to have positive affects on school districts and is now more commonly practiced in the United States because of the high

All of this contributes to the overpopulation and increasingly slower pace it takes to get to classes. Solutions are needed to improve the quality of the school and the people in it. One solution would be to build new buildings to make more classes and grow the size of the school with the population increase. Doing this would cost the school system money it doesn’t have,

It is important for taxpayers to know where their money is being spent especially when it comes to primary and secondary education. Though it is difficult to grasp the complexities of school funding, it is crucial that residents try to understand them so that they can make informed decisions and vote on what to do accordingly when asked to. However, local school boards cannot maintain the costs if services and the cost of education constantly keep changing (Leachman). Factors such as bus transportation, special education, and teacher salaries must all be considered when coming up with a new plan or adjusting the one already in place. It is challenging to uphold instruction with limited resources, especially while also having to distribute time and money to ensure employees are being treated fairly and a good number of people are being attracted to the

Most minority students attend districts characterized by overcrowding which creates an unsafe environment and inhibits student learning. These schools are also often located in poverty stricken areas. As a result, they lack resources and access to specially equipped rooms such as science labs, gymnasiums, media centers, and libraries. Due to overcrowding, high schools in urban areas are unable to offer the necessary number of college preparatory courses to accommodate all of the students able to enroll. The reality Madrid describes is that many of the schools African-American and Hispanic students attend suffer from insufficiency of instructional materials, facility deficiencies, and teacher

It is pretty apparent that in America, and elsewhere, most parents and general adults want what is best for their children in terms of education. This mindset can be seen reflected in the legislative aspects of our education system; there are many incentives pushing through the school boards and legislatures of our nation in order to attempt to further refine the education system. This is important as it allows us to refine traditional American education in order to improve upon it, and one of these attempt refinements and improvements has to deal with the subject of class size. For many people, large classroom sizes are a spawning ground for many issues with the education system: high distraction in the classroom, teacher inefficiency, among a plethora of others. Although it may seem regressive to favor small classes over bigger, more potentially diverse classes, small class sizes are more beneficial for education in that it is less distracting for the students and raises the possibility of staying focused, it potentially raises teacher-student relationships, and it allows for better results and better statistics coming from these smaller classes.