I come here as a seriously concerned new resident of Montgomery County. We moved from DC to Maryland in late April, mainly because of the reputation of the school system. Now that we've moved we have discovered a bit of the "wizard of oz" syndrome � lots of reputation, but wait till you see what's behind the curtain.
Before moving, we did extensive research on schools, taxes, and other standard of living issues in both Fairfax County and Montgomery County. We called schools and did research on the Internet to pinpoint our house search. We studied SAT score trends, average teacher to student ratios, and curriculum. Our problem was we didn't ask the right question � how many kids are in each class for each teacher? What we now realize is that student teacher ratio numbers do not reflect class size.
My daughter Casey is 8 years old and is one of 29 in her third grade class. Two additional children are added from the special Ed program for part of each day. The other third grade classes have 29 and 28 students each, with additional children added for a portion of each day, bringing them all to over 30. This is absolutely unacceptable. Children will not reach their potential in classes that big where teachers spend most of their time attempting to keep order.
Burning Tree has put in place a new math program this year which groups children by skill level; Casey's section has 33 children, her best friend's has 35. She has already told me its difficult to many of the concepts being taught, that there are so many kids it is hard to ask questions, and that it is difficult to stay on task. Students are falling behind, and teachers are having difficulty instilling important skills to overly large classes. That is unacceptable. No schools in this county should expect children to learn in classes this big.
Third grade is an important time in the development of basic skills like multiplication, creative writing, and cursive. Children are already falling behind and it is only October.
As the County Council addresses class size for future budgeting purposes, there should first be a reexamination of current class sizes for those schools already wrestling with overflowing classrooms. We need to put additional teachers in schools now! If we can't add classes let's review reallocating current resources to move non-classroom personnel such into the classrooms. The teachers and the principals should be commended for doing a credible job with the resources they are given, but there are just so many rabbits left to pull out of the hat.
Our taxes are very high, and there is a budget surplus � I would rather the money go directly to the schools, not a tax cut. I noticed in a Gazette report last week that the proposed guidelines would only increase school funding by $14 million more than the current budget year. That isn't even a 2% increase and will not allow for either cost-of-living adjustments or for school enrollment rising. A reduction in class size needs to go beyond the level of campaign rhetoric � it is time for action!
The county and its elected leaders must be held accountable for providing the resources necessary to educate our children. Montgomery County schools have enjoyed an excellent reputation that will be lost quickly if this continues. If people begin to understand the class size problems, people will vote with their feet and move to Fairfax instead of Montgomery County. You will lose tax base, lose the window of opportunity to turn this situation around, and sadly, lose the faith of the citizens.
I called the elementary school where we looked for a house in Virginia to get their third grade class sizes � 20, 21 and 23. They clearly have set their sights on children, not on unfulfilled promises!
I will close by quoting my daughter since I am here on her behalf:
The only thing wrong with the school is the class size, they can fix it with the blink of an eye. It's like hello, all you have to do is give us more money to hire teachers and then you will have smart kids in school who will be able to go to college.