ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 15, 1995 TAG: 9512190026
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-18 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KITTY J. BOITNOTT
IF HUGH Key truly wants to discuss education reform without the ``rancor'' his letter created (Dec. 11, ``Denying facts won't bring educational improvements''), he's going to have to do more than merely quote statistics from some arcane academic study he has found. He's going to have to do his homework so that he can understand and properly interpret the data before pawning all of it off as fact.
For example, while administrators may not be included in the full-time equivalency figures he found in his University of Virginia data, Key either fails to understand or is deliberately misleading readers by not pointing out that elementary music, physical-education and art teachers are included in the configuration, along with librarians and guidance counselors, and special-education teachers whose classes are, by virtue of their very purpose, not as large as regular classes.
To demonstrate how ``facts'' can be misleading, let's take a large elementary school of 600 students with four sections per grade level, kindergarten through fifth grade. That would break out to be 100 students per grade level and 25 students per section (i.e., classroom). The teacher-pupil ratio: 25. Add in the special-area teachers and special-education teachers mentioned above, however, and look what happens;
Between the specialists (art, music, physical education, library and guidance along with, in the case of Roanoke County, a reading teacher) and special-education teachers, you may have 10 or more teachers added to the staff. When you divide 600 by 34 instead of 24 (the number of actual classrooms), you get a pupil-teacher ratio of 17.6.
Does that mean the classroom teacher has only 17.6 pupils in his or her class? Certainly not. The classroom teacher still has 25 students on his or her roll, while the specialists each have a pupil-teacher ratio of 600 to one.
I also urge Key to take another look at the hours that teachers work. Again, a little homework on his part has gone begging. The average teacher must work 50 or more hours per week since much of the grading and planning that is required must be done at home or at school after children have left for the day. Obviously, Key has never had a teacher in his family, nor has he known one on more than a mere acquaintance level or he would know this. Again, he has demonstrated a remarkable lack of knowledge on a subject he claims to know so well.
Key should know that Virginia's teachers do not have, have never had and have no hope of ever establishing a ``union'' as such. That word is used by public education's detractors and critics as a red herring to stir up public sentiment against educators, the education ``establishment'' and the educators' professional organization (the Virginia Education Association). Virginia law prohibits public employees from being unionized. Again, if Key had done his homework, he would know that.
Kitty J. Boitnott, of Roanoke, is president of the District 4, Virginia Education Association.
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