Our Schools Are Large, What Are We To Do?

ew York City accounts for approximately 42.9 percent of New York State's population with figures at more than 8 million people in 2009. On average, New York City has grown by about 42 thousand residents a year. With numbers like this, the educational system in New York City is increasingly hard to manage. With about 22% of NYC's population being under 18 years old, it's no wonder why are schools are so large and difficult to manage. Our schools are becoming so hard to manage that the city's Mayor felt like the best person for the job of Education Chancellor was someone who had years of successful management skills and no educational experience. Our educational system is larger than some companies. Our students are being pressured to perform better every year, while the resources that they need are simply being stripped away through budget cuts. Surely many would agree that in order to have students succeed, they need to be given the right tools.



More parents are turning to private schools to get their children the tools they need to succeed, but many of these schools are attempting to find the best way to maximize a student's performance in school. I don't think any parent would disagree that nobody can get through to their children like they can. Beyond an emotional attachment, I wonder why that is. One theory that exists, which would be in line with this thought, is that children learn best as they get more personal attention. Or stated mathematically larger classes equal less personal attention equals worse student performance. An article in the journal “The Future of Children” about a Tennessee study on class size in 1995 concluded that children performed better when having smaller class sizes earlier on in their educational career. A suggestion made by this study was to increase personal attention for students through the incorporating of technology in the classroom and a new teaching style where teachers focused their teaching to different groups of student at different times (The Future of Children Vol. 5, No. 2).



It would seem that this message would have gotten through to our decision makers, however it is clouded by contradictory arguments. I would say that when contemplating an issue as controversial as this, one would understand why. The controversy stems from contradictory statistics from various articles and journals. I would argue that these students are not statistics, they are human beings with distinct backgrounds and distinct learning styles. This is something essential to being human, would you rather be catered to or treated like a number? I believe the answer is obvious, and therefore would extrapolate that our students would like it too. You be the judge.