In classes, size matters

I realize that the editors of the Bangor Daily News have not had much time to reflect upon or analyze Gov. Baldacci’s proposed 2007 state budget, but Todd Benoit begins this process in his “Maiden Maine” commentary over the weekend (Jan. 6-7). For that public service, I thank him. However, I must disagree with the way in which he frames the educational problem in that proposed budget.

Mr. Benoit notes that the largest “school savings” in the budget involve raising class size from 15 students per teacher to 17:

“The saved state money [$130 million a year] would go toward buying technology for Maine schools and lowering college tuition. It allows the governor to present this question: Would you prefer computer equipment for high school students and affordable college rates or would you rather continue to pay for an excess of administrators?”

This statement strikes me as illogical, at best. For raising class size will not affect administration; it will affect only teachers and students. I suspect that what lies behind this proposal is the Department of Education’s notion that any class that does not have a state-mandated number of students is not viable and thus cannot be offered. If that class is not offered, then the teacher who was going to teach it can be used elsewhere in the system or let go. This must be how Gov. Baldacci plans to save that $130 million, by redistributing staff and firing teachers. Is this what Mr. Benoit means when he praises the governor’s tax cut “that puts services in human terms”?

I have a few other questions that I would like to ask the governor and the Bangor Daily News. Would you prefer smaller classes and more teachers to more computers? Would you rather have Maine students in a classroom with a skillful teacher or in a classroom with a laptop computer? Which one of these is more educationally effective?

There are other issues as well. What if a class has only 14 students one year but has 21 the next? Will the surplus of four students be credited to the teacher’s account? And what about the sequence of classes: Won’t that be disrupted and won’t the students be harmed, deprived of at least one whole year of educational and curricular development? In my high school, for example, we have an extremely successful program. In the ninth grade, qualified students take advanced geography and advanced English. The next year they take AP global studies, and in their junior year they take AP American experience. Senior year students take AP English literature and AP government. Cancel one phase in this sequence because of low enrollment and you undermine the entire program. Has the governor thought about this? Has he thought about the harm his proposal could do?

One final point. We certainly all agree that lower college costs are desirable, but so too is equity. I have heard nothing about enforcing a minimum class size policy on the state’s colleges. Perhaps the governor has avoided any consideration of this option because it is not educationally sound. But if it is not wise to do so at UMM or Bangor Community College, then it is not wise to do so at Shead or at Belfast Area High School.

In the end, it seems to me, minimum class size policies do much more harm than good. If we are going to reform schools, let us not do so by destroying classes that work well, classes that pay our communities great social and cultural dividends.

William J. Murphy teaches English and history at Belfast Area High School.