The moms have spoken. When Parenting asked more than 450 of you for your priorities in these days of incredibly shrinking school budgets, the overwhelming majority said "smaller class sizes." Moms know what research has borne out: Smaller classes, especially in the lower grades, often can be the defining factor in a kid's academic success.
But right now, teachers are on the chopping block. A survey by the American Association of School Administrators found that 44 percent of school districts nationwide plan to lay off staff for the 2009-2010 school year. The problem with that? "No one is laying off the kids," says Lily Eskelsen, vice president of the National Education Association and a member of Parenting's Mom Congress advisory board. "No one is saying, 'The economy is really bad right now, so we need the third-graders to stay home this year.'" Instead, those children most likely will be taught by fewer teachers in larger classes. Which, frankly, isn't good for anyone.
"When you have more than thirty students in a class, it's difficult for both the teacher and the students," says Tamara Conry, a mother of two who's been teaching math in California for the past 15 years. Just this March she saw more than 27,000 of her peers in the state get pink-slipped. "You have to hope that the majority of the kids understand the concepts, because there isn't time to get to all of them directly."
Luckily, the federal government's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (a.k.a. "the stimulus package") has set aside a one-time infusion of more than $100 billion for improvements to our education system, and one of its main goals is to preserve jobs. That's a lot of teachers! Now the challenge is to make sure the states do put it toward jobs -- which will keep classes manageable -- as opposed to other "school-related" projects, like repaving a parking lot. And as usual, there are loopholes that allow districts to do just that.
That is, unless parents like us take action and demand that schools use this money for what kids need most: great teachers -- and enough of them. What can you do? Join Mom Congress and then follow the money. Find out how much your state is scheduled to get. Then it's time to make sure your local and state leaders fess up to their spending plans. Use this sample letter as a template when you write to them, or use this sample petition to mobilize other moms in your town.
"Moms and dads are saying, 'Look, even if this money only funds teacher salaries for a couple of years, that's breathing room,'" says Eskelsen. "A kid's only in third grade for a year. Let's give him the benefit of the smallest class size possible." Hear, hear to that!
