Dateline: New Bedford, MA

Both Freetown Elementary and Assawompset Elementary have asked for additional teachers, citing class sizes in the 30s. This website, however, shows the student/teacher ratio at Freetown to be 17:1, while this website shows the student/teacher ratio at Assawompset to be 16:1. A discrepancy between class size and student/teacher ratio is normal because most schools have teachers on the payroll who don’t in fact have a class of their own but rather act as support for classroom teachers - perhaps by taking over their classes for brief periods, acting as consultants, or working with small groups of students. However, a discrepancy between class sizes in the 30’s and a student/teacher ratio of 17:1 seems excessive.

The Rochester town council has voted in favour of renovating and expanding the overcrowded Rochester Memorial School. The cost of the project is calculated to be $26.5 million - a large amount, possibly enough to build a modest castle. This posting from Jay P. Greene’s blog discusses school construction costs, pointing out that the per-square-foot costs for schools are much higher than the per-square-foot costs for factories and houses. Surely if we can put a man on the moon we can figure out how to build schools for the same amount as factories. And don’t even get me started on the sense of building huge centralized schools that most kids can’t walk to - versus small, flexible neighbourhood hubs.

Comments