Money will be given for reduction but the district doesn't use it for that.

Every district is the same.

Alpine, Provo, Nebo....

No kid or teacher should have to be in a class with more than 25 students.

Science and math classes of 35+ and we wonder why our test scores are getting worse?

Build more buildings. Hire more teachers. Quit being such cheapskates.
Big houses, many kids and then you don't want to spend what is necessary to take care of them.

I laugh if they call 30 a large class size. Both Granite and Jordan have much more.

HILARIOUS!!! LOL!

Pay more, or suffer... seems simple to me. And yes, teaching science with 36 kids is brutal on lab control.

Seems like people want what they won't pay for. And the idea that proper utilization of teacher's aides will make up the difference of not hiring more teachers is ridiculous. You don't reduce class size by hiring an aide. You just make coverage of students a little easier. They don't have the training and don't know the curriculum... thus, they can't teach. All that is accomplished is with an aide I might be able to just talk to your kid each day.

Teacher aides can be a real help. To lower class size however, we need to build more buildings first. You won't get smaller class size until we can get off of extended-day "productivity".

The problem with class size reduction money is the legislature doesn't provide enough to get the job done, when the majority of the districts are growing rapidly.

Lets give an example, you give your kid $10.00 and tell him to gas up the car. Well you need 10 gallons of gas to fill up the car and you have enough money for 2.5 gallons. What is your kid suppose to do? Then you punish him for not filling the car? Doesn't make a lot of sense.

School districts have been asked to do something that costs far more than the money the receive to accomplish the goal.

Lets face it there are costs to providing a quality education, Utah to this point has chosen to pay for an inferior educational product, and yet the expect an exceptional product turned out.

Quit having so many babies or be prepared to open up your wallets to pay for the consequences of your actions.

Could part of the problem with larger classes be less discipline maintained by the teacher? If so, then the real problem is the parents. Lack of respect for teachers is caused by inept parents.

Let the "board of education" be returned to the classroom, and by that I mean a board about 18-20 inches long, 3/4 inch thick with 3/4 inch holes drilled in it and a handle cut into one end. That type of board proved very effective for generations before the self-ordained politically correct liberals came up with a so-called better approach to educate their kids so feelings wouldn't get hurt, nor tushes.

Until we (nation) stop rewarding large families with tax breaks this will continue.

In California we reduced class sizes and reduced student achievement, making our schools worse. It didn't work for us. We need better teachers. We also need to use technology to help teachers.

We also need the PTA to stop harming our schools.

You breed them, you pay for them! Simple solution. Bigger families, bigger costs. Simple mathmatics.

You've got much more to worry about in CA. Oh, and would you please keep your people in state? We've got enough spillover of your weird state.

Reducing class size is probably the least cost-efficient way to increase student performance.

Research shows that you have to get class size down to 17 before it even makes a difference in performance, and that is just not financially possible unless we raise taxes like mad while still having to figure out how to reduce costs dramatically.

I do recall a certain voucher program passed by the Legislature that would have reduced class size without incurring added costs, but unfortunately, the PTA shot it down in the referendum. I guess you reap what you sow.

To the two anon's and inefficient method who are the same person,

Any teacher will tell you that the 17 number is not true. It is a silly tactic of the Utah Taxpayer's Association (big business lobby group) to excuse even trying to reduce class size. Reduce any class size by 4 and 5 students and it makes a huge difference. And the recent legislative audit found that the districts were being extremely efficient in getting money to teachers. The legislature just can't or won't fund enough to keep up with growth. That may be unavoidable, but don't blame the districts. They all rank in the top 1% nationally for efficiency.

Bigger classes make the good teachers worse, and the few bad teachers dreadful. Technology does NOT cure not getting enough 1-on-1 attention, discipline problems, or increased workload for each teacher. Senator Stephenson and the UTA have their heads in the sand.

EVERY parent, even those who make excuses about class size, wants a smaller class for their child.

Vouchers would have been the biggest waste of tax revenue. That program which the public soundly rejected had no accountability written into it. Sure it would keep some of the private schools afloat that can't get a stable enrollment without it, but it would have had such an adverse effect on the Public system causing way more harm than good.

As a former UT teacher who is now in Connecticut, in a district where classes are small (my largest middle school class has 19 students), I can say there IS a difference in how I spend my time as a teacher - more on planning great lessons and less on grading papers. I'm better prepared to deliver content when I have fewer students - thus, smaller classes allow me to be a better teacher.

When the topic is large families comments are made that parents cannot possibly spend quality time with each child, thus depriving the children of their basic needs. When the topic is students being herded into class sizes that are out of control (30-35 elementary, 30-50 secondary), where is the outcry? Sure, a few understand the need to lower class size to a manageable number, but where are the people who are willing to make the financial commitment to make these changes occur? We need money: a reduced child deduction for the 3rd, 4th, etc child. Build quality schools to house the students; air conditioning and heat should not be considered optional, and relocatable/portable classrooms should not be considered adequate. When you put too many gerbils in a small area, they eat each other. Too many students in a classroom/school inappropriate behaviours increase. Let's use common sense when disscussing quality education for our children.

What is the holdup? It is so simple. Hire more teachers to match up with the number of students. Forget all the schemes about business efficiencies and economy of scale, better use of teacher aides (what does "better" mean anyway), vouchers (good grief, let it die already!) and just hire more teachers.

If you need more space, make it. If you need more personnel, hire it. If you need more money, tax it.

If it is important to our society, then we will do it. If it isn't important, then we don't. It isn't the talk, the rhetoric, the speechifying. Our actions reflect our values. The question is what is important to us?

A few years back my classes in Provo went from about 27 - 28 up to 34 - 35. It made a HUGE difference in how I teach.

Just the distractions and class disruptions made me lose about a week of teaching time.

I'm not talking about kids talking (although that increases as well). I'm talking about Jonny's mom delivering the lunch he forgot, the office calling down a student by telephone so I have to stop class, the counselor needing Juan to discuss his problems. I could go on an on.

No, vouchers were never and never will be the answer. The big voucher fallacy was they would reduce class size. What the voucher people never said was the fact that school funding is based on enrollment. Less enrollment at a school means less teachers. We don't keep all the teachers and lower class sizes. We just shift a public teacher to a voucher supported school. That equals no change in public schools. The public saw that very clearly.

Class sizes of 24 - 28 is the answer. That only comes through funding from the legislature.

Utah voters, most of whom want to increase the amount of money given to schools, need to vote all of the legislators who refuse to fully fund public education OUT! Stephenson (he belongs in Hildale), Madsen (went to a mediocre law school - not smart enough to go to a good one), Hughes (not even smart or tenacious enough to graduate from any college), Frank, Sandstrom, and all of the other voucher/charter/let's put money in non-research-based education programs imbeciles. The village idiots run the Utah village. VOTE THEM OUT! The only way to change Utah education is to change the face of the legislature - they hold the pursestriongs.

What do the administrators make per year, possibly they get to much money and some of that money should be used to hire more teachers or assistants in the classroom.

Administrators make more than double a teacher, but still significantly less than what they should considering the crap they have to deal with.

The problem is Utah taxpayers won't put up with more taxation to save the program, so... legislators are stuck trying to squeeze blood from turnips.

Education funding needs a serious boost to cover all the new problems in schools, much less the existing problems. We can't continue on the same bottom-of-the-barrel funding and expect excellence year after year.

Solutions:
Raise the WPU
Put a cap on classroom size. (I've often thought about calling the fire marshall when my kids don't even have chairs)
Raise teacher pay.
Stop playing games with differentiated pay that no teachers even qualify for.
Reduce or lose the child deductions. You make 'em, you pay for 'em!

The problem is the large housing growth in the Alpine area, They can't keep up with all the housing. If they build a new school, in Twenty years the school will be empty as the young population grows up. Then they are stuck.

At the start of the school year they can only hire for what students there are currently, then, when 300 new students move in during the year the class size goes up and there is not extra funding that comes with those 300 kids for new teachers. CA doesn't send their money with a kid that moves out of the state. The money a school is given is only a one time a year deal. The district can't just pop up a new school overnight. I understand that, We even went to school completely in trailers one year while the building was built at the same time. And more teachers isn't just hiring a teacher, it includes buying a trailer to put a classroom in etc. its more than just 'hire a new teacher'

The district needs to adjust funding mid-year to adjust for new student additions.

Class size reduction or rather teacher/student ratio is not as simple as it appears nor are the research results consistent whether you look at the STAR project in Tennesee, the SAGE project in Wisconsin or the debacle in CA. In some cases, class size reduction led to higher student achievement but in other cases it did not. What the research seems to show is that the class size needs to get down to around 15-17 students before you see much change in student achievement and that it leads to higher achievement for minority students more than other students, especially in the K-3 grades.

In addition, class size reduction is very expensive with of the cost of additional teachers and the need for more classrooms. Florida is finding this out now as did California several years ago.

The primary question is a cost effectiveness question: what policy/program will lead to the greatest improvement for the $9.3 million? What are the other alternatives and what do they cost? If class size reduction is the choice,then it might be more effective to target struggling students in K-3 classes first since funds are so limited.

Sorry Veritas, I have taught in elementary classrooms of 21 and 37. There is a BIG frakkin difference!!! You can use "research" to support any cause. Ask someone on the front line if you want to hear how it plays out in real life.

The problem we run into with research is that most of the "large" classes they studied had up to 25 students! Most Utah classrooms would consider that lowish! So, it can be argued that we would see the same level of improvement by decreaseing class size by 5-7 students that STAR and other research saw decreasing from 25 to 17. Another point to consider is that Utah way underperforms its demographic. Every other state that has similar populations to ours (many middle-class intact families, low poverty levels, etc.) tests much high than Utah does. How tragic that our huge classes invalidate Utah's demographic advantages and we perform equal to areas with entrenched poverty and other social disadvantages. Class size does need to be balanced with infastructure and high quality educators, but frankly, we are failing on all fronts. There isn't proper infastructure, we can barely staff districts with qualified teachers, and class sizes are huge. If we don't start chipping away at this problem, it will only get worse. Everyone with be impacted because it will affect the longterm health of Utah's economy if we don't prepare the next generation to sustain the fabulous growth we've had. It's everyone's problem!

Our class sizes were 30/31 growing up. My parent's, baby boomers, were much higher. We attended parochial schools where the schools get 1/3 the money for each child than the public schools get. The money that goes to the prochial school comes from tuition, not taxes. (Which means the state can pay more per pupil to each public school cause there are less kids going to the public school. With that much more money why are test scores so bad? Get back to teaching basics and stop making every assignment a group assignment. Have math/science twice a day instead of all those electives. Though our scores were fine, even though every day we also had religion classes. But all the others: music, art, gym were once a week. More time was given per day to reading, english, science and math.

Babies are a blessing. Hopefully more people will have big families - means 1 or 2 workers alone won't be supporting each senior collecting social security in the future. Parents of big families will eventually be paying school taxes on their property tax bill as empty nesters. As do couples before they have kids.