In article >,
blake murphy > wrote:

> On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:58:43 -0600, BlueBrooke wrote:

> > Sorry, but I'm not buying that. If that was the case, the classrooms
> > -- which had 30 or more students in them, not the 1:15 teacher:student
> > ratio that seems to be required now --
>
> um, where would this be? it might be thought a good thing, but i know of
> no school system where it is 'required.' certainly not any public school.

The State of California implemented a voluntary class size reduction
program for public schools some years ago. The State funded about 80%
of the cost of reducing class sizes in certain grades down to 20
students. This was great, but where were the local school districts
going to get the other 20% of the money? Most got it by increasing
class sizes! In our local school district, which is only K-6, class
sizes had been averaging about 29. The program was only for K-3. So
they upped class sizes for grades 4-6 to 32, and scraped up the rest of
the money, and reduced all classes in K-3 to 20 students.

Unfortunately, with the huge cuts in school funding in the State of
California, the program is being gutted.

--
Dan Abel
Petaluma, California USA