Some folks in Greensboro aren?t at all happy about the school district?s longstanding policy of trading in teacher-assistant positions for additional teachers to reduce class sizes in early grades:
A sea of red-clad parents and teachers met the Guilford County Board of Education on Tuesday night with placards and cheers that declared their frustration with deep cuts to teacher assistants.
More than 80 people, including tykes who arrived in strollers or in their mother’s arms, rallied outside the board’s Eugene Street offices. They called for a stop to the district’s policy of cutting teacher assistants in favor of reducing class size at poor schools. Superintendent Terry Grier has been an advocate of this policy. Assistants also have been culled as part of budget cuts.
Since Grier’s arrival in 2000, the teacher assistant force has been slashed by more than three-fourths. There were nearly 1,300 assistants at that time. Today, there are about 370.
Grier?s policy, given the narrow range of options a public-school superintendent has in expending tax dollars, is precisely the correct one according to the available research. Small class sizes, particularly in kindergarten, may have a modestly positive effect on performance. The presence of TAs does not. It will be interesting to see if a sensible, research-driven policy can survive political pressure.
