Leave a comment Posted on children, homework, public schools, reading, teachers

Johnny Doesn’t Read Even When He Can

For years I required my advanced 10th graders to read 2,000 pages a semester, averaging 100 pages a week, based on books that they chose. That way if a book we studied in class didn’t catch their fancy, they had the freedom to find books that appealed to them as long as the selections were appropriate for their grade level and school use.

However, after struggling how to ensure that the reading logs students turned in each month documenting this task were completely honest, I decided to decrease the amount to 1,500 pages this year, 70 pages a week, hoping that would diminish falsifying the logs.

So what happened? The strategy did not work.

When asked if they honestly did the 70 pages of reading each week on their own, an average of 10 pages a day, 66% said that they had done all of the reading while 34% said they had not.

Here are some of their responses.

“I honestly have no excuse other than the fact that I have no time to read every day.”

“In this day of competition and cheating in school, it’s difficult to be completely honest because it can be damaging to yourself, sometimes even more than being dishonest.”

The biggest reason given for not reading was a lack of time. Yet teens find the time to watch nine hours of entertainment media a day according to Common Sense Media’s study released last month.

They can’t seem to find 10 minutes a day to read 10 pages in a book that they personally chose for themselves.

While many students did write that “reading is absolutely essential” to their academic and career success, some did not see it that way.

“I don’t think it is essential to get through high school and college.”

“We are used to visuals; one would rather have it read to us than read ourselves.”

“Reading books is pointless, they are just really dumb.”

“If I felt like it, I could be at least mildly successful without reading another written word in my life.” Remember, this student volunteered to enroll in an honors English class.

By the way, one of the requirements of the reading log is for the student and his parent to sign off on the paper as a way of securing the veracity of the work.   Evidently, students do not take signing one’s name to a piece of paper as meaningful.

I tell my students the best way to improve their writing and speaking skills is to read material at or slightly above their reading level. Just by seeing words in print will expand their vocabulary database.

Renaissance Learning, an education analytic company, discovered that students who read 30 minutes a day were exposed to 13.7 million words by the time they graduated high school, while those who read fewer than 15 minutes viewed only 1.5 million words.   Unfortunately, the former group represented 18% of kids while the latter 54%.

And the problem gets exponentially worse in college where there are textbooks not as watered down as the ones kids read in high school, another factor why so many college students struggle finishing a degree.

We are living at a time when reading books is not a viable option for kids in their spare time. Perhaps if they observed more of their parents reading a book it would interest them.

Think about this: how many teenagers will be receiving books as presents this Christmas compared to video games?   Books have become the new “underwear” present that evidently few people want under the tree.

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on Frank Sinatra, students

Sinatra’s Centennial Matters

New Year’s Day. 1994. Las Vegas. Frank Sinatra.

A moment when my life changed for the better.

That was the only time I saw Sinatra perform live.   And because of it, I have learned why Frank Sinatra is considered by so many as the greatest popular singer of all time.

What amazed me about the show was that at age 78, a time when he could have just sat on a stool and read off the teleprompter, he moved gracefully about the stage singing the songs as if it were the first time he sang them.

I went from buying the first “Duets” album that came out in 1993 (which was the number two album in the country on Billboard’s 200 right behind Pearl Jam’s “Vs.”) to now owning 70 CDs, 14 LPs, 7 box sets, 24 books, and 18 DVDs and videotapes.

As a teacher, you want to share your passions with your students, so I have infused lessons on connotation and tone with Frank Sinatra’s work.

When I teach Shakespeare, I use Sinatra’s rendering of the Gershwin classic “Someone to Watch Over Me” to show the importance of the proper reading of a line.   Just as some actors struggle making sense of the Bard’s iambic pentameter, others can make even the most novice viewer understand what the character is saying, retaining the musicality of the words.

In “Someone to Watch Over Me” the lyric goes “even though I may not be the man some girls think of as handsome.” Sinatra purposely links the words “man” and “some” to create the non-existent word “mansome” so that it rhymes with “handsome” the way George and Ira intended when writing the song. When other singers pause after “man,” the rhyme is lost.

To demonstrate how the same words can have different meanings depending on how they are said, I play two versions of Rodgers and Hart’s “Where or When,” one recorded in 1958, the other performed live in Las Vegas in 1966.

In the earlier Capitol Records session arranged by Nelson Riddle, Sinatra narrates a wistful tale of love emitting a melancholy tone accompanied only by longtime pianist Bill Miller until an orchestra comes in during the final forty seconds.   And when it does, Sinatra, who was practically whispering the words with the solo piano, expands to full voice louder than the instruments. The effect emphasizes how the speaker cannot remember when this chance encounter will happen again.

While only eight years apart, the two versions vary so much in approach that they almost sound like different songs. With the tempo tripled, the 1966 translation arranged by Billy Byers is swinging, upbeat, sung by a narrator without a care in the world.

Horns not strings are prominently heard along with a driving percussion with the signature Count Basie sound beneath Sinatra’s carefree tone.

Playing one of the lovers, Sinatra interprets the lyric that if they were to meet again, okay; if not, that’s okay, too. No hard feelings. Move on.

He halts before uttering each “before” in “it seems that we have met . . . before and laughed . . . before, and loved . . . before” emphasizing the deju vu element of the couple’s feelings. Sinatra’s interest is more in the playing with the words rather than exuding the emotions in them. He then holds the final “where or when” as long as he can, emphasizing more of an end than an open-ended question as in the 1958 take.

This interpretation was the one that Sinatra continued singing in live performances the rest of his life.

And while that life ended in 1998, next week marks the centennial of his birth, an apt moment to reflect on why Sinatra matters in the history of American popular music.

 

Leave a comment Posted on 9/11, children, parents, Paris terrorist attacks, Uncategorized

How do you explain the Paris attacks to a youngter?

When my 12-year-old son asked me why the French flag appeared on Google last Friday, I knew I had to muster the best of my parenting skills to carefully answer his question.

This led me to thinking: With the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, just how much awareness should children have of what is going on in the world?

Ginny Goodwin, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the director of Burbank’s Family Service Agency, advises that parents consider a child’s age and maturity when discussing these events.

“Withholding information needs to be considered [including] limiting television viewing and protecting them from images” especially for youngsters, Goodwin said.

For more social media savvy teens, parents should “answer questions and help them process their fears and concerns.”

“Children need to feel secure, that adults have some control [and that] our country is working hard to protect all of us,” added Goodwin.

Parents need to understand that their children may pick up on their own fears so it’s important not to share such anxieties within “earshot of children.”

I remember on the morning of the 9/11 attacks, my wife and I made sure not to watch television until we dropped off our two-year-old at his daycare center. When I picked him up that afternoon, I was aghast that the teacher and aides were talking about the planes hitting into the buildings right in front of the kids.   I told the center’s director about the inappropriateness of doing that.

LMFT Samantha Bookman of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Program at Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills agrees that “it is imperative [parents] be highly vigilant about what adult conversations are happening within earshot of kids and not show their anxiety in front of them.”

“They are always listening, even when they don’t seem to be paying attention,” Bookman said.

Additionally, since “children and teens have an under-developed pre-frontal cortex, the area of the brain behind the forehead which calm fears,” explained Bookman, absorbing “scary information can be overwhelming and debilitating.”

The fears that exist today about unexpected horror that could happen in a flash harken back to what earlier generations must have felt during the Cold War with the potentiality of a nuclear holocaust hanging in the air.

Even today’s lockdown drills are reminiscent of the Duck and Cover drills school children practiced in the event of a nuclear attack during the 1950s and 1960s.

It makes one wonder when was the last time an American generation did not have the sense that the world could end or at least turn upside down in a moment.

I asked history professor Christopher Endy of Cal State Los Angeles this question.

“The 1920s and 1930s were the last decades when Americans felt free from fear of widespread catastrophic attack,” said Endy. When relations with the Soviets “soured in the late 1940s . . . Americans’ fears increased dramatically.” And have remained so ever since.

While we can’t control what course of action governments undertake to combat the threat of terrorism, experts say that the average citizen’s best action is to go on with normal activities while being vigilant.

“There is risk in our lives every day . . . but we forget about it so that we can live our lives happily,” said Bookman. “And guess what? We are almost always just fine.”

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on reading, students, teaching

Evidently Reading is No Longer Fundamental

Kids don’t read that much today whether the material is e-books, online magazine articles or student newspapers; in fact, some don’t read at all.

This is not a scientific fact. I have no Gallop poll or think tank report to prove my point.   This conclusion is based on my first-hand observations along with nearly the unanimous view of fellow teachers.

Teachers have a tough decision to make with students who don’t read: go ahead and test them on material knowing that they will fail, dummy down the assessments so that even those who didn’t do the reading can still pass a test, or cut down on the amount of reading.

After years of resisting change, I have succumbed to the last choice. For the first time in my 27 years of teaching, I have lowered the amount of reading I expect students to do on their own.

Instead of asking students to read 30 pages in a book each night, now I have them read 20 pages. Let’s say it takes two minutes to read one page; that would translate to 40 minutes of homework.

During a recent short story unit, I discovered that a good one-third of my advanced students felt incapable or uninterested to read an 8-page story that would have taken about 15 minutes of their time; for them, this was a mountain to climb, a task they could not or would not complete.

And this assignment was for an honors English class where students receive an extra grade point like an advanced placement course.   These kids are considered to be at the top of their class, a cut above the rest, the type who will graduate college and end up in good paying professions.

What this tells me is that it is not about how many pages kids have to read, it’s that they just don’t want to read.

When faced with a hardbound book without pictures versus a handheld device with streaming video, there is no contest.   Devices rule.

The dilemma is, do schools continue doing what they have long been doing, handing out printed books and assigning nightly reading, or do they go in a different direction?

I had a colleague who didn’t trust that his students would do the reading of “Hamlet” so he read the whole text out loud.   Some would say that this was not the best use of precious classroom time, but others would say that at least the kids gained knowledge about the Prince of Denmark.

Years ago students who did not want to read books used Cliffs Notes. In today’s Internet age, it is Shmoop.

But there are students who don’t even put forth the minimum effort to read these so-called study aids.

It makes me wonder if reading is on the way out along other modes of increasingly anachronistic abilities such as writing in longhand and speaking over the phone.

Remember the old public service announcement slogan, Reading is Fundamental? Well, the organization behind it is still in existence.   Julie Rodriguez, vice president of literacy services, told me that an important aspect in getting high schoolers to read is explaining “how it will help them” in their future.

That is quite a challenge in a world dominated with emoji and emoticons as the modus operandi for communicating.

Nevertheless, teachers should not give up on expecting students to read.   Of the myriad services schools provide, let us not underestimate the refuge reading offers students from the electronic devices that consume their time outside of school.

Leave a comment Posted on parents

When You Care Enough to Send the Very Worst

Last weekend I went shopping at a Hallmark store to buy a birthday card for my youngest son.   I had a hard time finding one appropriate. The “son” cards fell into two categories: for little boys and for grown men.   Hardly anything fitting a child between 8 and 20.

What I had no trouble in finding, however, were raunchy cards which have taken over a sizeable portion of the shelf space.

One card showed a young boy discovering his mother’s tattoo near her rear end. Another one said “wishing you a birthday full of knockers, jugs, and hooters.”

Then there was a card with a drawing of excrement on the front with a saying inside not suitable for a family newspaper.

By the way, all of these tasteless cards were displayed at a child’s eye level with nothing to shield the front of them.

Years ago, there were alternative card shops whose specialty were risqué greeting cards. Never did I think I’d see those products in a Hallmark store.

In the press release for the re-launch of this Shoebox line, the company freely admits that “the entire collection has been updated with . . . language reflected in today’s world” and

“reflects how people today talk, text, tweet and post.”

If the litmus test is “language that reflects today’s world” then why not just delete any level of decency and publish cards with f-bombs and drugs?

On their website, Hallmark states “that our products and services must enrich people’s lives” and that we “are committed to . . . high standards of ethics and integrity.”

How do these repulsive cards follow those guidelines?

I contacted Hallmark to see how they can justify offering such an off-color line of cards and still uphold their company’s core values so explicitly expressed on their website.

Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Steve Doyal told me that “our goal is to appeal to a wide range of people who want to connect with one another through laughter.” It appears that Hallmark is hiding behind the “humor” rationale to explain away the crass words and images that appears on several of their cards today.

Some of the high school sophomores I teach to laugh at immature jokes that are not suitable for young kids. But they are 15-year-olds.   So when companies create sophomoric material, ignoring that there are impressionable children among us, it boggles the mind.

Anyone who wishes to provide feedback on these vulgar products can comment on Hallmark’s website. Curiously, when I submitted a comment mentioning a card with multiple uses of the f-word that is slang for flatulence, the following error message appeared: “We’re sorry, but we have encountered the following issue(s): your text contains inappropriate language.”

Exactly my point.

According to company spokesperson Jaci Twidwell, Hallmark does have taste guidelines, yet strives to provide a “wide breadth of products” to their consumer base.

Even if one allows it is in good taste to print a greeting card depicting excrement, why not at the very least instruct your merchants to display these cards in some way so children don’t see them?

So in order to sell more cards, the standard has to be lowered, the content edgy.

The company’s long-standing slogan “when you care enough to send the very best” seems to have been forgotten.

I wonder what Hallmark CEO Donald J. Hall, Jr.’s grandfather and company founder J.C. Hall would think of this new line of greeting cards. His reaction might be so objectionable that it would fit right in among the other Shoebox offerings.

Leave a comment Posted on lockdowns, public schools, teachers

Schools Need More Secure Campuses

Everytown for Gun Safety reports that on average a school shooting occurs every week in America.

It is difficult to wrap one’s mind around such a statistic.   A school should be a haven for children, a safe place for parents to have their kids while at work.

When students go to school, all are expected to return home safely.

Only these days, there seems to be no sanctuary from maniacs causing death and misery to innocent people, the most recent example being the tragedy that happened last week at Umpqua Community College in Oregon.

How ironic that since 9/11 no foreign terrorist attack has hit our shores, yet terror has become more prevalent in the form of Americans who plan and execute random shootings on school campuses.

Have lockdowns and bomb threats become part of the culture of going to school for students and teachers?

When I took teacher credential classes at Cal State University, Northridge many years ago, there was never a discussion about what to do during a lockdown because Columbine was still more than a decade from happening.

As if teaching does not have enough challenges, now there is a sense of potential dread that at any given moment, completely unannounced and in the blink of an eye, a teacher and her students may face a deadly threat. Once that notion has been planted, it cannot be redacted from one’s psyche.

The common strategy on dealing with a shooter on campus is to have a lockdown, locking doors, turning off lights, and hiding under desks.

I have had to sweat it out over two real lockdowns that thankfully turned out to be harmless but were still emotionally trying for the two-hour duration as I huddled with 30-some students under tables on the floor with the lights out, some students sobbing.

The main rationale for this procedure is so that when the police arrive on the scene they won’t confuse who the shooter is.   Frankly, if I heard shots in the classroom right next to mine, I have no idea how I might react. It seems to me that making a run for it in the opposite direction of the shooting would produce a higher survival rate than cowering on the floor and listening for the shooter to approach.   A locked door would hardly deter a determined killer.

While the public and political pundits debate gun control, the local schools boards in our communities should work independently on how to better secure school facilities.

In Glendale, all elementary schools have secured entry doors that require a buzz-in.

Scott Anderle, Assistant Director of Student Support Services for GUSD, said that due to the recent bomb threat evacuation that took place at Hoover High, the district was able to put into use newly installed high definition cameras that aided in the investigation.

But even the most sophisticated equipment can’t detect an impending threat. That is where vigilance on the part of everyone is needed.

“We get our best info from students,” Anderle said.

The district will be examining modifications to its current lockdown procedures for an active shooter such as allowing the classroom teacher to make the decision whether to stay put or to relocate students to a secured location away from the incident “if it is safe to do so.”

No one wants schools to resemble penitentiaries, but in today’s America, prisons seem safer than schools.   When is the last time you read about a mass shooting at a prison?

Leave a comment Posted on public schools, teacher shortage, teachers, teaching

Every so often, like the re-emergence of El Niño, the topic of a teaching shortage reappears on op-ed pages and talk radio.

California needed more than 21,000 teachers to fill positions this school year because the number of teacher candidates has declined by more than 55 percent, from 45,000 in 2008 to 20,000 in 2013, as reported by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

With fewer people going into the teaching field, shouldn’t the powers that be examine how to increase interest in it?

Working conditions and salary clearly are not selling points.

Much of the negative aspects of teaching stem from the lack of control teachers have over their own profession.

Schools are still structured top-down as they have been for a century, with teachers viewed more as factory workers, not master-degreed professionals who can problem- solve without the intervention of those outside the classroom.

Teachers know how to improve their profession but do not have a voice in the matter, impotent in their subservient roles. How many college students would gravitate toward such a future career?

It wasn’t that long ago that the concept of site-based management was seriously championed as a way to involve teachers in the decision-making process at a school. But that grand idea vanished.

So, education bureaucrats continue to mandate so-called reforms such as Common Core standards and standardized testing that teachers are expected to deliver with little input.

Meanwhile, everyone goes about business as normal, not questioning why people don’t want to become teachers or why so many who do end up leaving within the first few years.

Clearly, there is a disconnect between those who work in the classroom and those who do not. Overlooked is the daily energy drain on interacting with upwards of 200 kids.   Taken for granted is the amount of secretarial tasks performed by teachers: taking attendance, uploading homework, inputting grades, getting supplies, making photocopies.

And then there’s money. Teacher salaries do not reflect the education and training required nor the level of responsibility an effective instructor shoulders.

In fact, beginning teachers in Glendale can’t afford to live in the city.

Consider that the median price of a house in Glendale today is nearly $700,000, according to Zillow. After a 20% down payment, the $560,000 loan would result in a $2,500 monthly mortgage payment.   The starting salary for a teacher in Glendale is $43,000, meaning the monthly take home pay is around $2,800. Add in property taxes and the teacher ends up in the red.

Harjot Kaur, my student teacher from Cal State University, Northridge, teaches three classes, then takes three classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, plus an online course—all unpaid.

So why does she make the financial sacrifice to train as a teacher considering she would not be able to live in the community in which she teaches?

“The low pay is devastating, but this is my passion so I push the reality aside and go on,” Kaur said.

Let’s face it. We all hope that selfless people join the military to protect our country. We all hope that decent people become firefighters and police officers to protect our society. And we all hope that quality people join the teaching ranks to mold our future commodity—children.

But hoping will only get so far.   An overhaul of the teaching profession is long overdue.   And it will take teachers themselves to blast the clarion call since those in the upper echelon of education show no interest in changing the status quo.

Is there any chance of that happening in our lifetime?

One can only hope.

Leave a comment Posted on 9/11, students, teaching

Sept. 11 quickly turning into a page in a history textbook

Fourteen years ago today an incomprehensible tragedy struck the United States—a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

When the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, those who were watching the news on television assumed it was a horrible aviation accident. But when a second plane struck the South Tower, the unimaginable became real.

In 102 minutes, both skyscrapers had collapsed as did the idea that America was immune to foreign terrorism.

Like many, I went to work the morning of Sept. 11 in a daze not quite knowing how to begin my first class. Obviously, I would have to acknowledge what transpired.   And I knew that I wanted students to have a way to express what was going in their minds.

So I did what any English teacher would do, had them write down what they were feeling.   Then I offered my lectern to any student who wished to share with the class. We spent the whole period talking about it.

As the day wore on, I spent less time discussing it with students for when Period 6 came, the kids had pretty much their fill of the disaster.

For those of us who lived through that time, it may be incredible to realize that more and more young people have no first-hand recollections of it.

The 15-year-olds currently in my classes, while alive in 2001, only learned about the tragedy in the fifth or sixth grade when a moment of silence took place at school on the anniversary date. To them, 9/11 might as well be the assassination of President Kennedy.

How quickly a flash point for some yellows into a page in a history textbook for others.

That is a key role museums play in bringing to life a historical event so it remains relevant.

My wife and I visited the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York over the Labor Day weekend. We were fortunate to have Mark as our tour guide because he was a young teen when 9/11 happened and now as a man in his 20s shared personal experiences.

He talked about how New Yorkers were friendlier to one another immediately following the event, recalling how neighbors who were strangers joined in a spontaneous candlelight walk.

Equally emotional are the museum exhibits including the curled up front of a fire engine that had melted from the heat, and the chapel-like room which projects a victim’s photo on a wall with the voice of a loved one remembering that individual.

Then there are the walls with all of the faces of the nearly 3,000 people lost, most of whom were in the prime of their lives and, if still living today, would still be middle-aged.

And then there is another wall to a room that contains the unidentified remains of over 1,100 people.

According to the museum’s website, about “40% of the WTC victims” have not been identified, with the most recent person being identified as recently as this March.

Walking through the museum and viewing videos of a time that I actually lived through makes for an eerie sensation, a reminder that those of us with first-hand experiences will one day pass away, with only this museum to serve as an eyewitness.

I wonder if future generations will fully grasp how unsettled we all felt during 9/11 as it unfolded.

The Sept. 11 Memorial comes close to bottling those terrifying moments.

Leave a comment Posted on parents, school calendar, students, teachers

Parent Input is a Must in Developing a School Calendar

Last month I wrote about the early start of school in Glendale and now there is an online petition, Save Our GUSD Schools, for parents to sign who want to push it back closer to Labor Day. Currently, the petition has surpassed 2,000 signatures, nearing their goal of 2,500.

As previously explained, the shift of the school year from September to August has to do with secondary students finishing their fall semester final exams before Winter Break, as well as providing more time to learn material before the Advanced Placement Exams in May.

While all school districts have 180 days of instruction, Glendale schools begin earlier than all other neighboring districts in Burbank, Pasadena, La Canada, and Los Angeles because of the extra days off within the start and end dates, thus stretching school over 296 days compared to Burbank which begins one week later but ends almost a week earlier due to fewer days off.

For the past two years, Glendale schools have closed on the Friday before Labor Day weekend. If this trend of lengthening 3-day weekends into 4-day weekends continues, schools may have to start in late July.

Next year’s first day of school will be the earliest ever: August 8.

Besides the early start date, here is another curious characteristic of Glendale’s calendar. Looking at a month-by-month breakdown of the number of school days, notice that the 180-day year is split unevenly, with 85 days in Fall and 95 days in Spring, a 2 week difference.

Aug. = 16, Sept. = 20, Oct. = 21, Nov. = 15, Dec. = 13, Jan. = 16, Feb. = 19, Mar. = 17, Apr. = 21, May = 21, June = 1

If GUSD kept Labor Day as a single holiday, and Thanksgiving as a two-day holiday, there would be 89 days in Fall and 91 in Spring, close to an even split.

Also peculiar is that students need to return to school for only two days following Memorial Day.   Again, cut out two of the oddball days so children and their families can celebrate the end of the school year along with high school graduations right before the Memorial Day weekend.

Christine Walters, school board president, said that the GUSD calendar is “a contract item which has to be negotiated” with GTA (Glendale Teachers Association). So how much weight will the parent petition carry in deciding any changes?

Last year, BUSD sent out an electronic survey on their calendar. What they discovered was that the majority of parents did not want a whole week off for Thanksgiving because it would extend the school year into June. So the board members listened to their constituents and, with the approval of the district’s unions, had the calendar reflect the wishes of the parents.

There are some Glendale and Burbank district employees who have to scramble for child care due to their children attending the other city’s schools, each district’s Spring Break often occurring on different weeks.

Here is a proposal. Have All BUSD and GUSD school board members, PTA presidents of all schools, and teacher union presidents of BTA and GTA meet to discuss a common calendar.   Develop a few sample calendars and present them at public forums. Then, email parents in both cities to vote on them. The calendar with the most votes gets implemented.

Nayiri Nahabedian, Glendale School Board Member, said that she is “not opposed” to a common calendar, while Roberta Reynolds, Burbank School Board Member, thinks that having the same calendar is “an interesting idea.”

If such a meeting would occur in the near future, there would be plenty of time to go through this process and have a unified calendar in place before June.

The calendar issue will be discussed at Tuesday’s GUSD school board meeting so any interested parents or employees should attend.

Leave a comment Posted on parents, Public Education, public school, students, teachers, teaching

Memorizing 200 names: Part of a Teacher’s First Day

My head is throbbing, my throat’s on fire, and my limbs are numb.

The cause of these symptoms? The opening day of the school year.

While I’m beginning my 27th year as a teacher, each start of school gets more challenging.

One would think with more experience, the easier it would get; however, with each year, I learn more, and in sharing all that I know with students, it causes stress on how to fit it all in.

Plus, there are the usual tasks that require completion within the first few days such as creating spreadsheets with the rosters, typing seating charts with the correct names students wish to be called (not the ones on the rosters), collecting signed parent forms, and photocopying handouts that cover the entire school year.

Since I’m teaching an extra class this term, I have even more students than normal. I discussed this challenge with my students, one of whom asked me, “How do you memorize the names of 200 students?”

It’s funny how it takes a 15-year-old to remind me how numb I’ve become to the reality of that number.

For years now, California ranks near the bottom among states in per pupil spending and in key education factors.   However, according to the most recent National Center for Education Statistics report, the state can lay claim to one category: the highest student to teacher ratio in the country of 23 to 1.

But that number is deflated since “teacher” includes educators who are specialists. The reality is that most classrooms average in the mid-30s.

It makes sense why some parents remove their kids from public schools and go the private school route where ratios are less than half.

Whether or not class size makes a difference in the learning process is an issue that has no clear evidence to support either viewpoint.

Still, there are the raw numbers that can’t be disputed in terms of the alarming amount of work that is required of public school teachers: the ability to know 200 vs. 100 students’ names, the amount of time to evaluate 200 papers vs. 100 papers and to modify lesson plans, the cost of additional books, supplies, and equipment, the lack of mobility to move about in a room with 40 vs. 20 students, and the warmer the rooms are due to the additional body heat.

It also is difficult to call on 40 students in an hour-long class than one of 20, meaning a larger share of kids remain mute each day.

Imagine an attorney meeting with 200 clients every day. Or a physician seeing 200 patients a day. It does not happen.

If a doctor were to see one patient for only 5 minutes at a time, it would take him nearly 17 hours to get to 200 patients without any breaks. And who would think 5 minutes qualifies as a quality healthcare visit?

In a state with a large non-native English speaking population, expecting that educators with their extraordinary workload can have all their students meet the Common Core standards is quite an undertaking.

It is time for Californians to question how much longer can such overcrowding continue when schools are held to high accountability measures.

If the goal of public education is to house students, consider what we are doing a success. But if the charge of schools is to illuminate ideas in the minds of young people, to enable them to realize the potential of their abilities, deep-rooted changes must take place.