Taking the First Step :: essays papers

Taking the First Step On January 27, 1998, in his State of the Union Address, President Clinton proposed an idea that would immediately spawn a national debate. The goal that President Clinton sought was to reduce class size in grades 1-3, nationwide, to an average of 18 students per class. The president’s plan was to provide enough funds to school districts so that an additional 100,000 teachers could be hired. Throughout the rest of his proposal President Clinton covered every other questionable aspect of this plan. Realizing that new schools and classrooms would have to be built, President Clinton called for a school construction tax cut (Clinton 1998). President Clinton was very adamant about his proposition. However, there were, and still are, those that cannot and will not look past the money issue. Building new buildings and hiring new teachers, among many other changes to be made, will be extremely costly. Many critics have asked why the President’s proposed money cannot be spent on programs to better the school systems, rather than on completely rebuilding them. Case Studies Many studies have been conducted in school districts throughout the country, all of which have experimented with different class size reduction (CSR) techniques to determine whether or not President Clinton’s goal can be achieved. According to the April Press Release of the 2001 Legislative Session for the state of Maryland, the General Assembly, along with Governors Parris N. Glendening and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, have instituted a record amount of investment projects dealing with education. Among those passed by the General Assembly is an Early Childhood Education initiative in which $19 million will be used to lower class sizes, create all-day Kindergartens, and buy new library and other support materials. This will help to raise standardized test scores later on. In addition, an extra $11 million will be spent on various new Pre-K programs. In 2000, the state of California created a Federal Class Size Reduction Program. The chart/road map that was produced investigated the steps that had to be followed in order to ensure that funds were being used properly, and that all classes, in grades K-3, were reduced. Long before President Clinton’s proposal, states were exploring ways to decrease class sizes. In fact, between the years 1985 and 1989, Tennessee conducted their famous PROJECT STAR (Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio). The study split the K-3 classes into three different class types: small classes, (containing only 13-17 children per teacher), regular classes (containing 22-25 students per teacher), and regular classes with a teacher’s aide who was in the classroom full time.