In the Pittsburg Unified School District, there are countless schools and classes that lack the amount of teachers needed. In many cases we find that are classes go over the California standards and it acts as a detriment to the education of every student in Pittsburg, California. The often familiar causes of this problem include: low pay for the teachers in our school district, too many kids, and there are not enough schools -or space at schools- for the students in our school district. For PHS specifically, the lack of teachers make it difficult for kids to learn in their classrooms because they do not get enough attention from their teachers like other countries. Studies show the negative effects of a terrible student to teacher ratio. If we do not handle this problem, we will be putting the education of Pittsburg Unified School District students at risk. Some of the solutions that could help solve this problem would be adding more teachers, creating more schools, and or even just evening out the amount of students for each class proportionally.
The Effects of Too Many Students (Page 2)
Hello class, audience, whoever this may concern. My name is Kaitlyn Jett, a PHS junior and I also face this problem first hand. Like many of my class, we understand how it feels to be in crowded classrooms, not getting responses to our answers, teachers not able to lend help after -or even before- school. These are the problems that PHS students have to deal with and it makes it hard for us as students to learn, focus, and understand the subjects of our classes. We are expected to learn and pass our classes, but how can we if we are unable to learn the material? The fault lies within the system and if we do not solve it, not only mine, but everyone’s education would be hindered. For that reason is why I want to solve this problem now.
Resolving the Problem
As I have previously mentioned, the problem that needs to be solved is the insufficient amount of teachers at PHS. When I go into everyone classroom besides advanced placement classrooms, there are definitely over 23 students in each class. Large classes makes it hard to focus and learn the material that is being instructed because since we only have so much time for each class, our teachers are not always able to answer each question and continue to get through the entire lesson. This becomes an issue because once test arrives and finals come, we can not sit there and say we that we achieved a terrible grade because our teacher was not able to teach the material to us to future colleges. The burden of not gaining any knowledge while we are at school is going to weigh down on us as we proceed through life. When I had interviewed teachers, they also chimed in on the issue and how it is in fact harder to teach a class because then you have more disruptive students and it becomes a detriment to everyone’s education whether they participate with the discouraged students or not. The teachers I had elected were people who I trusted or someone who was an outsider of a classroom like a librarian and speaking on a more common sense point of view so that I could incorporate everyone’s position in this tragedy that we students have to face every day. After plenty of research, I have come to a conclusion that the best way to go about solving this problem would be to not only increase staff, but make sure that all teachers have the proper credentials. There are many studies that show how states like California had hired a massive wave of teachers to solve the problem, but around 33% of them didn’t have the proper credentials and had only matters worse. In my opinion, the first steps we should take to solve this problem would be to search for quality teachers who have the credentials to proficiently teach our students. Once the Pittsburg Unified School District find quality teachers, our schools will be able to lower class sizes and increase the quality of homework
Page 4 (Source 1)
Source was written by the Pittsburg Unified School District and contains the 2015-2016 SARC report. SARC stands for School Accountability Report Card and within this report is the average class sizes throughout the years at Pittsburg High School. This documents gives information from the course of three years and divides the statistics into multiple categories. In this document, you will find a pie chart on demographics, the proficiency of the students at PHS, graduation rates, and more.
The significance of this document is how it shows the excessively big class sizes and how it allows whoever it may concern to analyze the connection between class sizes and the level of education that each student is receiving. On the fourth page of the report, there is three-year data for average classroom sizes. In this chart, we see that from 13-15, class sizes remained relatively the same for ELA, Math, Science, and History classes -ranging from low to mid twenties-. However, when looking at the 15-16 data, there is a clear spike that raises numbers close to the 30 mark for each student per teacher. As we continue down to page six, there is a clear problem with class sizes and education. As class sizes continued to grow as shown from the previous graphs, we continue to find the decreasing rate of students reaching proficiency and advance in the science subject. Moving back to the graph in average class sizes, for science, it raises from 23, 24, to 27. Going back down to page six, the percentage of students succeeding begins to decrease from 40%, 36%, to 31%. This is only a small portion of the data that is a perfect example of how increasing class sizes decreases the level of education and understanding that students are receiving in their classes.
Page 5 (Source 2)
“The Effects of Student-Teacher Ratio and Interactions on Student/Teacher Performance in High School Scenarios” is an educational study by Cornell University and a series of other influences that explains the effects of student to teacher ratios through numerical analysis.
Throughout the analysis, there are multiple equations and models that are used to depict the importance of r, student-teacher ratios. After reading the study, it becomes clear that in order to obtain a positive environment for students, class sizes must be decreased. rand rare used in the study to characterize the relationship between r and educational success on an advanced numerical level. As we learn that ris the function of discouraged students becoming more positive, we notice that if r is to increase, r begins to decrease because the environment of the students will become exponentially unexceptable in terms of educational success. At the end of the study, the analysts came to the conclusion that the most efficient classroom size would be when r is under 19 students for each classroom. If we form a connection between the studies and and any other highschool, we can come to the conclusion that if we do not decrease the class sizes that were displayed in the source one, they will continue to be a detriment to the level of education for all students at PHS. In other words, as a school, we need to make a change in our classrooms to decrease the number of discouraged students at PHS.
Page 6 (Source 3)
“Improving Student Achievement: Is Reducing Class Size the Answer?” by Eric A. Hanushek is another educational study on student to teacher ratios and its effect on student achievement. In the report, Hanushek analizes different solutions to the teacher to student ratio problem. He addresses how smaller classes would be more efficient for both teachers and students through various of graphs and charts as evidence. In addition to recognizing the problem, Hanushek makes an attempt to thoroughly explain and provide solutions.
Some of the solutions that Hanushek include in his report are how we could not only lower class sizes, but we could also ensure that teachers are equipped with the proper credentials. According to Hanushek, “whether or not large-scale reductions in class sizes help or hurt will depend mostly on whether the new teachers are better or worse than the existing teacher”(p.10). In order to help the people of the future and save a child’s education, we have to increase the quality of the teachers at PHS. We have to make sure that we are not just hiring whoever is trying to get a job, but the people who are qualified to efficiently teach our students.