[etni] Less at their lessons?

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(To read the whole article, go to - www.etni.org/news/smallerclasses.htm
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Less at their lessons? 
Haaretz - February 25, 2005 
 
In October 2003, a committee in Alberta, Canada submitted
recommendations for improving the local school system. The program was
called "Every child learns, every child succeeds." Among the
recommendations, most of them adopted by the local authorities, there
was one in particular that probably made a lot of parents and teachers
happy: downsizing classes. 

The committee recommended that the number of children in the lower
grades - kindergarten through third grade - should not exceed 17. In
Grades 4 to 7, the optimal number would be no more than 23; in Grades
7-9 - 25; and in Grades 10-12 - 27. It was felt that classes for
minority groups, new immigrants and at-risk youth should be even
smaller. The local authorities even approved an annual budget of 194
million Canadian dollars to cover the costs of this reform. Teachers
and parents in many Israeli cities, for whom the norm is close to 40
children per class, can only sigh with envy. 

Today, a month after the Dovrat Commission on Educational Reforms
submitted its report to the government, the public debate revolves
around a topic that wasn't even on the list of recommendations -
smaller classes. When the teachers met for the eighth time last week to
discuss the implementation of the report, after previous talks failed to
yield any focused discussion, delegates of the teachers' unions suddenly
raised two issues: violence in the schools and overcrowded classrooms.
The former was not addressed by the Dovrat Commission; the latter was
dropped after consideration, mainly for financial reasons. 

(To read the whole article, go to - www.etni.org/news/smallerclasses.htm
)


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