<p>Yes, (in answer to your post 497, I believe.) So massive & with such momentum that the State DOE cannot keep up with charter requests. Not enough time to scrutinize the charter applictaions, often, & possibly not enough of a recording window to make even your figures current. They're coming across the desk, and it's just "yes, yes, yes, whatever...." Not a single charter homeschool I know of (for example) has had a plateau or decrease in enrollment since inception. Every year enrollment expands, & every yr. hiring of teachers is outpaced by demand.</p>
<p>Given the <em>rate</em> of charter applications, the State has estimated that over half of the CA public schools will be chartered by the year 2015. Some of us think that's a conservative estimate, as the rate continues to multiply, & that estimate was made a couple of yrs. ago.</p>
<p>epiphany you are nitpicking. I meant in context to the message I was replying to just above mine. Of course teachers are working. When students do extremely well it's usually because they know how to learn not because one teacher is doing something extremely well. I have experience with teachers and students, I have been in the classroom. It's my experience that all but the best, most naturally gifted students learn best in a smaller setting with direct adult attention. A teacher in a classroom of 30 children can't give any one child the kind of personal attention a parent can at home. Large group teaching is not the best way to learn. I don't have the time to explain that in detail and I'm not going to argue. The entire educational system needs to be revamped and people need to stop blaming the feds for what is going wrong in their neighborhood classrooms. I'm talking about elementary school when they either learn the basics or they are behind for years, maybe forever.</p>
<p>"When students do extremely well it's usually because they know how to learn not because one teacher is doing something extremely well."</p>
<p>You deny that you are making broad generalizations, yet continue to do so. This is another dubious one.</p>
<p>The fact that you "have worked in the classroom" does not make you an expert on whether students other than your own are learning mostly, partly, or in spite of the classroom teacher. </p>
<p>And yes, we teachers also know that most students learn best in smaller class sizes. (Although not everyone, it should be noted; some students benefit, depending on their ages, needs & their personalities, from larger groups, not smaller ones.) However, classrooms of 20 are often a luxury given property tax bases & State + any other gov't subsidy. That class size is much more typical of a private school, or a school where that's the default size due to heavy, heavy attrition. (That attrition is often due to poor school resources, and can be due, yes, to a poor or poorly prepared teacher.) There's no single reason for classroom failure of results. My point being that a poorly run school and/or poorly taught classroom will not experience a significant improvement by a reduction in class size, if the teaching personnel is not excellent. It will just make it slightly less stressful for the bad teacher to be in that environment.</p>