January 13, 1999
Mr. President and Members of the Board.
My name is Kenneth Colburn. I am the father of two Montgomery County public school students. My message this evening is simple: you should include in the FY 2000 MCPS budget funds adequate to ensure that no class next year is larger than MCPS' own stated maximum size guidelines. Simple, straightforward and logical as this sounds, it has not happened for at least the past 10 years and it will not happen next year under the budget proposal which you are considering. There is no reason to believe that the guidelines will be met completely in the foreseeable future, much less that the substantially smaller class sizes proposed by candidates for local public office in the last election will be achieved in large scale.
A graph (Figure 7) in the FY 2000 Citizens Budget tells the story: the percentage of classes over the county guidelines rises and falls (shown by elementary, middle and high school), but there are always from just under 2 percent to (in the case of high schools in some years) over 12 percent of classes over the maximum sizes set by MCPS policy. Those guidelines are not low. The policy maximum is 28 students for grades 1-3 and 30 students for grades 4-6 (the sixth grade classes in elementary schools). For middle and high school, English class maximums are set at 28 students and other academic class maximums at 32 students.
As of October 31, 1998, there were 902 classes over the maximum size guidelines. Fifty-three of those were elementary school classes. There were also 63 combined grade elementary school classes. Thirteen percent of high school English classes were over the maximum. The budget proposal submitted to the Board provides for only 28.5 additional teachers for the goal of reducing class sizes, and that to match the 1995 staffing ratios.
We know we can do better in part because we see neighboring school districts doing better.
The plans in the budget proposal to reduce the size of first and second grade reading classes and some middle school math classes in schools not yet reached by this initiative is commendable. However, that initiative does not solve the problem of other classes over MCPS guidelines.
It will take money to solve this problem, money for additional teachers and in some cases money for additional space and related costs. The first order of business should be determining what that cost would be. The rough figure of $10 milllion in additional personnel costs has been mentioned. The Board of Education should ask for a precise estimate of the costs to meet the MCPS class size guidelines. That amount should be included in the budget which the Board approves.
The issue is the political will to provide resources to meet basic standards. After all of the lobbying and the testimony, and all of the pledges of support by elected officials, we still have a substantial problem of oversized classes. The proposals by elected officials for tax reductions even as basic needs have not been met show that we must redouble our efforts. The Board of Education must be the first body to commit to the resources to meet its own standards.