There is no topic stressed more in importance that the issue of education. Education is where a child begins to learn questions and form his ideas about world and life. It’s a place, idealistically, for the mine to wander and grow. It is a place for expression and positive support. Though the actual execution of this idea never seems to be able to come up to par.
An issue that is always faced with any institution is the budget. Sadly, money makes the world go around (and not just happiness). With a limited amount of finances, cuts and financial restrains have to be made. Bloomberg has suggested to rid of the lesser quality teachers, in order to be able to afford the “better quality” teacher. It is very difficult to determine the quality of a teacher. There are so many variables when playing with a classroom. Each student is so uniquely different that certain students who may be considered off the path should not be able to reflect poorly on the teacher. I for one have been able to do well (I think) in both big and small classroom settings. I have had teachers that I have down right hated, while some friends loved the same exact teacher. Some subjects may come easier to one student than the other, and then the opposite can be in a different subject. The art of teaching is so difficult to evaluate, that I don’t think Bloomberg really has a sound way to execute his ideas.
Bloomberg has also said that he would rather have higher quality teachers in big classrooms than lesser quality teachers in smaller classrooms. Unfortunately, again, we run into the same issue as before. How do we make a measure for all students if each one is so different? Of course we would like the “better” teacher, but how should we go about assigning ranks? Evaluating a teacher based off a child’s test scores, are not so sound. If one student may be more of a “math person”, how would you then compare him to the “Artsy kid”?
Once again we have run into the same issue that we have come across again and again In these very sensitive topics of debate. I am no expert in any of this.. All I know is from what I read. I personally have been in a private school my whole life until coming to CUNY. While in private school, there were about 25 kids in a class. The teachers knew me, the principal knew me, and the secretary knew me. I may not be the best one to give an opinion on the public school education. Once again, all I can say is, good luck to anyone that has to clean up this mess.
