(submitted in response to various Plain Dealer editorials
on education published on Sunday, April 18, 1999)
Letters to the Editor
The Plain Dealer
1801 Superior Ave.
Cleveland, OH, 44114
April 19, 1999
Dear Editor,
Even while conceding that
some classes are too large and that the greatest benefits can be had in grades one
through three, the Agenda ’99 editorial asserts that Cleveland’s teachers union
has “a self-serving agenda” and is “really more interested in a bigger
membership pool.” The proof offered for
this claim is “for every study that indicates cutting class sizes improves
results, another finds that gains are limited” and “the truth is that Cleveland
does not staff its classrooms adequately today.” Putting aside for the moment the purported validity of “every
other study,” the inadequate staffing of teachers in the district is the result
poor efforts by the district’s administrators, not teachers.
Besides, what is the result of not having enough teachers? Larger class sizes! If your editors had their way and all
classrooms were adequately staffed, wouldn’t this serve the teachers union’s
“agenda” and indeed increase the membership pool? Doesn’t this contradict the editorial’s main objection to
reducing class size? Or does the Plain
Dealer just wish that there could somehow be more teachers with a
smaller teachers’ union?
It seems to be of no interest
to your editors that among the “dueling studies” on class size, most are
fraught with inaccuracies (such as confusing student/teacher ratio,
which can includes librarians, counselors, and instructional aides, with class
size) and invalid methodologies (such examining a class for just a single
year or failure to distinguish “reductions” of 30 to 25 students from
reductions of 20 to 15). The real
problem is not an overabundance of studies, but rather the lack of
scientifically valid long-term studies.
Tennessee’s Project STAR (Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio) and
subsequent Project Challenge are widely recognized as the most
exhaustive in this area and leave little doubt that smaller classes (between 15
and 20 students) provide substantial and sustained improvements in student
achievement. STAR further proved
that the improvements gained from reducing actual class size (for example, a
class of 15) are not gained by merely reducing the
student/teacher ratio (for example, having a teacher and a teacher’s aide in a
class of 30 yielding a student/teacher ratio of 15 to 1). But why let something as insignificant as
fact creep into a fiery editorial argument?
Barber is even sloppier and
more inflammatory in her column. After
rhetorically asking when will educators stop restating the obvious, she quotes
a non-existent April 13 article saying: “Beginning in 2002, fourth-graders will
need to read at grade level to advance to the fifth grade.” She works up a good amount of righteous
indignation over the fact that “more than half of Cleveland’s fourth-graders
flunked the state’s reading proficiency test in 1998” and blames this on social
promotion which “keep[s] from having to deal with teachers who confuse ‘to,’
‘two,’ and ‘too’.” However, the dirty
little secret of the 1998 proficiency results is that by next year’s standards
(the ones that will count), more than half of all fourth-graders in the state
flunked the reading, math, and science sections. In addition, the original Scott Stephens article actually
appeared on April 14 and was not an article on social promotion but on
(surprise!) the teachers union’s upcoming forums on smaller class sizes.
From where did Barber get the
idea that social promotion was to blame for the district’s poor showing? She cites a parents’ survey showing that 70
percent opposed social promotion.
However, an examination of the Ohio Department
of Education’s records does not support the logic of her inference of such
a cause-and-effect relationship.
Cleveland’s 1997 retention rate (the percentage of students held back in
the same grade) for fourth-graders was over three times greater (3.8 %) than
the state average (1.1%). The
percentages skyrocket by the high school years where over half (57%) of
nine-graders (more than five times the state average of 11%) and nearly
one-third (32%) of eleventh-graders (more than ten times the state average of
3.2%) are held back. Cleveland is much less
likely to promote students than other districts in the state and its retention
rates have been climbing since 1993!
There is even less evidence to support her belief that many teachers
cannot distinguish homonyms.
When citing that less than 22
percent of fourth-graders passed the state’s reading standard, it would have
been nice to see Chris Sheridan mention that only 42 percent of students
statewide met the standard and that, for the most part, Cleveland’s
fourth-graders are outperforming students in similar districts in her “Low
Numbers Challenge Byrd-Bennett” piece.
But overall, only Sheridan showed any capacity to cite educational data
properly and interpret it logically. Your current editorial policy on accuracy
in educational reporting seems to be: One out of three ain’t bad!
Barber, near the end of her
ranting, stated that while Clevelanders remained optimistic that schools will
improve, “more than 75 percent acknowledged that they weren’t well-informed
about their schools.” Sunday’s Forum
section demonstrates that the Plain Dealer editorial staff is
nearly equally uninformed at 67 percent.
Nevertheless, I do agree with Barber’s closing opinions that “the more
you know, the more outraged you get” and “what really needs doing…[is] shaping
up…accountability.” But these judgments
best suit your editors, not Cleveland’s schools.
Milton Alan Turner