Page 117 - Class Size News Today

Is a sacred cow that we have to take a look at. and the data is a little inconclusive on class size ill say having dipped into it recently. and then you have michael nutter going after romney for, you know, his education vision while in philadelphia is the site of this very ambitious massive project in essentially breaking up the central school district. theyve hired a boston group to come up with the plan and theyre going to try to create competition among different entities that would manage d...

Voters. its always good to be out wherever you campaign. the only danger is that event on wednesday, particularly in philadelphia, was kind of bloody for romney in some ways. he got aggressively questioned on his comments about class size. and he said the amount of students in a classroom doesnt matter that much. and the people in the audience pushed back and said, what are you talking about? >> felicia, lets go to your latest article here. you talk about the romney campaigns continued struggle ...

Just come in and say whatever it is you want to say without at least me and others examining your record. so if you want to run around this town, fine. but youre going to face people who actually know something about the topic. i actually know something about education. i have a daughter in public school. i stay focused on public education. everyone knows that smaller class size is better than larger class size. people know that strategic investments in our children is better for them than cutti...

Was that mitt romneys citing stats that show class size dont matter. he was countered by another teacher who said theres other research that says class size in fact does. there he is in this roundtable in a setting that weve not, and obviously factually not seen him in at least cynic he has been running for president this time. >> and the other thing, too, even beyond that. he was challenged, too. so he picked a very comfortable venue. he picked a very comfortable, what he thought was an audienc...

Information across our state, we had 351 cities and towns, i said lets compare the average size of classroom students with the success of our schools to see if there was a relationship. in fact the school district with the smallest classrooms, cambridge, had students performing in the bottom 10%. >> some on the round table took issue with romneys stance. >> in first through third grades, if the class size is under 18, those kids stay ahead of everybody else all the way through the school. >> i c...

On education, this is a man who described your union as, and im quoting him, a terrorist organization. so how well will teachers get along with a romney administration, do you think? >> i think that says a lot about how governor romney respects or does not respect educators. im a sixth grade teacher from utah and i was elected by my colleagues over 3 million members of the national education association for things like improving class size. i had 39 fifth graders one year. and i wasnt complainin...

While i have you here. just this week weve seen mitt romney show a somewhat sudden interest in education. even visiting a school in philadelphia where things did not go so well. first, he stunned several teachers by suggesting class size is not an issue. then philadelphia mayor michael nutter took romney to the woodshed during an interview with martin bashir last night. >> i have no idea what he is talking about. if you want to come to philadelphia and talk about education or talk about issues, ...

Lets not pretend he would get very far at all. some of the ideas he seems to have about class size are frankly just ignorant. he doesnt seem to be aware of the research. >> theyre absolutely archaic. he is down to the basics and fundamentals of teacher-student ratio in the classroom and results. this guy wants to be president of the united states. sam, does romneys education record in massachusetts pose a problem for him? >> yes, i think so. in concept, people will agree education department, ed...

In fact the school district with the smallest classrooms, cambridge, had students performing in the bottom 10%. >> some on the round table took issue with romneys stance. >> in first through third grades, if the class size is under 18, those kids stay ahead of everybody else all the way through the school. >> i cant think of any teacher in the whole time i have been teaching, over 13 years, who would say that they would -- more students would benefit them. >> right, of course. >> and i cant thin...

About. inside that philly school, mr. romney also faced some headwinds from some of the people his campaign set him up to meet with while the cameras were rolling. watch. >> a number of folks said, well, we need smaller classroom sizes. that will make the biggest difference. i said, lets compare the average classroom side from each school district with the performance of our students because we test our kids and see if there is a relationship. there was not. just getting smaller classrooms didnt...