Jammed Detroit public school cited as hazard - Fire Dept. issues citation for class with 50plus kids

[Bozita]

Source: Detroit News

Last Updated: October 26. 2011 10:37AM
Jammed Detroit public school cited as hazard
Fire Dept. issues citation for class with 50-plus kids
Jennifer Chambers/ The Detroit News


A Detroit public school was cited Tuesday by the Detroit Fire Marshal's Office for overcrowding after a parent complained to fire officials that too many children were in her son's kindergarten class.

Lt. Gerod Funderburg of the Detroit Fire Department said the fire marshal's office issued a citation at Nolan Elementary School, 1150 Lantz.

"They went out today and issued a ticket for overcrowding," Funderburg said.

-snip-

The Detroit News reported last week that excessive class sizes at some DPS schools were still a problem six weeks into the school year. Specifically, The News reported that Nolan had 55 kindergartners in one class, while a DPS high school had 72 students in a science course.

-snip-


Read more: http://detnews.com/article/20111026/SCHOOLS/110260350/Jammed-Detroit-public-school-cited-as-hazard#ixzz1btoo4d00

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Video from Detroit's Fox teevee news:
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/fire-official%3A-detroit-school-cited-for-crowding-20111026-mr

[valerief]

1. American exceptionalism means "a great life EXCEPT for 99% of its citizens." nt

[No Elephants]

39. Well, our official ranking is "average" overall," but below average

in math.

Even our best subject, reading, is only 14 out of 34, which almost the definition of average.

"The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/07/us-falls-in-world-education-rankings_n_793185.html

Worse, our ratings fell, so we are trending the wrong way, to boot.


The richest nation on the planet, ranks 14 out of only 34 nations ranked--and sinking.

Priorities R Us!

[Bandit]

2. Simple fix for that...Lay off more fire fighters so they don't have time for inspections.

:shrug: I mean those kids are probably from Liberal households anyway, so what difference would it make if they got burned up in a fire because of over crowding... In fact it is a double positive sort of like crack cocaine.

[hue]

3. just one example of the ALEC agenda ...

cuts to education even at the risk of safety for the children.

[justabob]

4. 55 kids in a kindergarten?!!

That is insane. 72 in high school isn't good either, but 55 six year olds? with one teacher? That is not even a little bit safe, never mind being able to actually TEACH them anything.

[Aerows]

5. I wouldn't do that job for all the money in the world

55 six year olds is insanity. How they expect a teacher to handle that is mind-boggling.

[justabob]

9. no kidding

I don't know how teachers cope with HALF that number of kids.

[AnneD]

18. The legislature was insane in Texas....

this year but not that crazy...although the cuts will be deeper next year and school districts are already preparing a law suit against the state.

[du_grad]

21. During the baby boom in the early to mid 1950's...

...we had 50-60 kids in our kindergarten classes each half DAY. That's 100-120 kids a DAY! We did have two teachers, however. Part of the reason was that the nearby Catholic parochial school did not have kindergarten. Many of these kids went there after first grade.

I had 39 kids in my second grade class in 1956-57. My husband, two years younger than I, had 60+ boys in his 8th grade parochial school class with one nun dealing with them with an iron hand. Somehow we learned, survived, and grew up. I will admit there weren't as many behavioral problems in those days, although my husband has told me some good stories about his 8th grade year.

[justabob]

22. that is interesting

That is still too many kiddos, but things were a lot different then. I doubt that there were so many children that don't speak english for one. (No idea what the ratio is in Detroit, thinking of my own recent experience with my local district here too). I suspect that most kids lived in two parent homes too, and more likely than not, mom was at home to assist and reinforce lessons at school. The environmental stresses were much less too. I mean everything from traffic and bustle of cities, to parents having to work multiple jobs around the clock, to good food and less threatening tv images. That is not to say that everything was great back then, but it WAS different and much less stressful, especially if you were white.

[du_grad]

24. Times were different then

Yes, that is very true. I live about 60 miles from Detroit. If you have never driven up there, it is a sad sight to behold. There are sections of downtown that have been redeveloped right next to areas that are truly third world wastelands. The city has fallen apart after the exodus to the suburbs following the riots in the late 60's. My husband's mother grew up in Hamtramck, the Polish city near downtown. We drove past her old house a few years back. The street is a wreck. Most of the homes are empty, torn down, and trashed. It made me extremely nervous just driving there with a bunch of us in the car in broad daylight.

During the 50's I only knew a couple of kids whose moms worked outside the home. One folded laundry at a local hospital. The other worked part time at one of the spark plug plants that used to be here in town. Both of these kids were only children. My mom never had to work outside the home until she got divorced from my dad in the mid-60's. Believe me, all was not perfect in the 50's...

[Doremus]

25. All was not perfect ... indeed.

But one thing that *was* better were the wages.

Moms could afford to stay home and raise their children because Dad's salary was adequate to keep the roof over their heads and food on the table.

Quite unlike today when the kids in those overcrowded classrooms go 'home' to a daycare center or an empty house because both parents must work to provide those same things.

[Psephos]

34. It's not that wages were better, but that the standard of living was lower.

On an inflation-adjusted basis, middle-class Dad's single wage was considerably lower than peak levels reached in the 1980s. However, the house payment was lower because the house was more like 1000 sq ft than 2000, there probably was no central air conditioning, health insurance premiums were far lower, there was likely only one car in the driveway (let alone garage), the family drove to its vacations at the lake in a station wagon rather than flew to Disneyworld, groceries were simple fare to support simple American meals. The kids didn't have cell phones, iPads, Playstations, or DVDs embedded in the car seat; the family TV was possibly color but definitely not wired to cable.

Two-income families became the norm after the rate at wages were gaining relative to the cost of basic necessities slowed, and families increasingly relied upon two incomes to maintain gains in living standards. Meanwhile, medical costs began an explosive and ruinous acceleration, college tuition grew at double-digit rates year after year, and housing entered a long-run bubble.

I've simplified, of course, but the year-over-year data from the BLS are unequivocal. For my purposes, I compared constant-dollar wages vs. constant-dollar purchasing power from 1960 forward.

Roll your own:

http://www.bls.gov/data/#wages



on edit: typo

[Laluchacontinua]

36. In 1970 the average house was about 1400 ft2. It's about doubled since then.

But the average house payment rose a lot more.


In 1960, the median household income was $5,600. To put these statistics in proper perspective; a new home would cost the average family three times its annual income. By 1970, the median household income had grown to $8,730 or 55.9%. Guess what? It would still cost the average family three times its annual income to get a new home....

In 1970, the ratio between income and new home cost was 33%. In other words, a new home cost about 3 times more than the median household income. By 1980, due to the horrific inflation during the 1970s, that ratio dropped to 23%. The new home was now 4 times more than the median household income. By 1990, the ratio had dropped further to 20% and was still at 20% in the year 2000. By 2006, the ratio had dropped to 15.7%. People can no longer afford new houses. The income is not rising nearly as fast as the cost...

http://mercyman53.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/the-cost-of-housing-1050-higher-than-1970-and-climbing/


And the square footage figures are skewed by *huge* houses that sell to the top 10% of earners. I live in a house smaller than the one I grew up in. My young relations are for the most part starting their married lives in condos & apartments.

And wages WERE better in the 70s. And were rising from the 50s through the 70s -- in more or less lockstep with productivity.

They're been stagnant since, except at the top.

[No Elephants]

27. I don't understand your point. Is it that 50 plus 5 year olds in a classrom is not a big deal

because they will somehow survive and learn and grow up anyway?

[du_grad]

30. It wasn't a big deal then, apparently

I was only five. This was how I experienced kindergarten. I went a half day in the mornings and there were 50+ of us with two teachers. I don't recall it being chaotic or disorganized. I loved going to school. My sister, who is three years younger than I am, had over 60 kids in her class. She was born in 1952.

I am sure the teachers were tired, but, again, you cannot project today's classroom of 50+ kids onto one from 50 years ago. The times were different. I don't remember my parents complaining about it. I was in split classes every year except 2nd and 6th grade. My second grade classroom had 39 children. I have no idea what the economics of the school district were like at the time. I remember levy campaigns. They added an addition onto our school because of the large amount of kids. This opened when I was in 3rd grade, which is probably why I had so many in my second grade class - there just were not enough classrooms to hold the influx of kids.

For the record, I graduated second in my high school class of 367 kids. Friends I went all through grade school with in the large split classes graduated in the top 10, were in National Honor, and went to college. Obviously not everyone did this well, but my point is that there are other things at work besides large classes that cause kids to do poorly in school. Nowadays I would not wish a classroom of 50+ kids onto any teacher OR student. Times are not the same.

[No Elephants]

37. I appreciate the clarification.

Your personal experience is interesting, but I was having trouble discerning how you felt about the thread topic.

Thanks for taking the time.

[wickerwoman]

28. And teachers were allowed to use corporal punishment.

It's a lot easier to manage 50 six year olds who are either terrified of you or terrified of their parents. When you don't get to threaten them with pain, your ability to keep a huge pack of them on task goes way down.

[du_grad]

31. The worst punishment that I remember was

having to stand out in the hall. I never witnessed any corporal punishment in grade school, or ever heard about it. No child in kindergarten was ever hit by any teacher. We were never terrified of our teachers (although my 5th grade teacher wasn't one to mess with. She was tough academically). Again, kids were sent to the principal's office or out in the hall, but were never physically harmed.

In high school, the boy's counselor paddled some of the boys, but no girl ever got "whacked." That was outlawed some time after I graduated from high school in 1967.

I heard stories about stiffer punishments in the local Catholic grade school than I ever did at my public elementary school.

[No Elephants]

38. Corporal punishment, even today, depends very much on the public school district.

Some still have paddles.

My school used none.

[OhioChick]

6. 55 kindergarten kids and 72 HS kids in a class is insane...

Not to mention fire/safety hazards.

[rubberducky]

7. So what will be THE answer to overcrowding? Virtual schools to the rescue!

One of the winger radio stations has a poll today about teaching grades K-12 online.

[HereSince1628]

8. I've lectured to freshman biology classes of wekk over 120.

I've lectured in university classrooms where the registrar put limit on enrollment at 200. Yes, I know all the stuff about 'best methods' and small group p2p. But if you walk into most universities and colleges you can find lecture halls that accommodate the huge intro classes that make up the bulk of many science departments' revenue streams.

72 students in one sitting does real injury to an instructor's ability to use alternative teaching approaches (especially when the seats are in a ramped auditorium and bolted to the floor) that are supposed to be student centered rather than class centered, but it's common at college and university levels.

[dash_bannon]

10. Overcrowded classrooms

How in the world is a student supposed to learn from an overcrowded classroom. How in the world can a teacher/professor do his/her job of teaching to a class that size? It's unmanageable.

[HereSince1628]

15. It limits what is possible in the classroom.

Class size is a matter of economics as well as educational effectiveness. Often the balance is shifted toward economics. This this greatly disadvantages students who need personal attention and benefit from other than auditorium presentations.

A full-time instructor usually needs 20-25 students in each course (at teaching colleges rather than research institutions that's usually 3 courses per semester) in order to cover both instructional costs and institutional overhead.

Many upper division and graduate courses in the biology programs I was around had courses with a dozen or fewer students enrolled. The minimum for a course to 'make' was typically 6. In order to have a program in some area you must offer courses at least once every two years, that means keeping courses with very low enrollments or dropping programs. Hard choices.

To make the budgets work that two solutions are currently used...non-tenure part time instructors are used extensively (paid between $1500 and $2000 per course at small schools and up to $5000-$6000 at larger schools) these folks typically are 25-40% of the instructors at a college, but they often teach over 50% of the total contact hours). Additionally the introductory and non-majors (distribution requirement fulfilling courses) often have very large enrollments. All of that is because the cost effectiveness of low paid part-timers with no benefits teaching in large intro courses pays the bills making low enrollment specialty/advanced courses within the major possible.

[CreekDog]

33. yes it does for example in a fire, it limits how many of those students will live afterwards

i feel like we're talking about a plane crash and your talking about the seats being adequate.

:shrug:

[glowing]

12. One could argue that a basic intro course should be more of a review.

All of my really tough classes never had more than 25 in the class and lab. However, basic biology that was a general science that everyone had to run through, was more than a bit benign. And for anyone struggling, there are Prof hours and student tutoring programs and study groups that can help out. I did go to a smaller University, so it was still possible to know most of the people in my major in the Science school.

However, in high school, this is the first times that these items are being introduced, and there are a lot of different levels within the class. A large student to teacher ration is ridiculous for the teacher and the students. AND they wonder why drop out rates are at such high levels in the US.

[Mojorabbit]

17. Still ,55 kindergarteners!

It would take over an hour just to get them all to the potty after lunch! I worked day care as a young woman long ago and the logistics of just basic care would be a major challenge. Finding time to do any teaching would be a trick in this case. Getting them in and out of their jackets would take over a half hour working quick. Washing hands another half hour. Yikes!

[HereSince1628]

20. I agree. 55 kindergarteners is warehousing not educating.

[AnneD]

19. Comparing college kids...

to high school, middle school and esp kinders is comparing apples to oranges. There is no excuse for this, esp the elementary level. Young kids need a low ratio to learn things like reading and math. Hurray for the Fire Department.

I hated my college science lecture courses for that very reason. I would happily take a grad student that I could sort of understand to a monster lecture class. What a rip off.

[CreekDog]

32. so what, that wasn't a fire hazard

but aside from that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

:wtf:

[sarcasmo]

11. Worst industrialized nation on the Planet. How many of those 72 High School kids

will graduate?

[cmd]

13. My first job was with 51 first graders and another teacher

I began in April and was hired to teach about halt kids the letters of the alphabet. There poor children had gotten very little attention all year because the regular teacher had to be more of a policeman than a teacher. I spent over twenty years in a kindergarten classroom. 15 - 18 students is tops if you want to teach them anything. 55 is impossible.

[LuckyLib]

14. Now let's talk about the "achievement gap", shall we?

:banghead:

[dtexdem]

16. Oh but class size doesn't matter -- so long as the teacher has been adquately victimized ...

by anti-public-school demagogues.

[City Lights]

23. Unreal!

:wtf:

[No Elephants]

26. The priorities of this country seem FUBAR.

[KamaAina]

29. So why is Detroit closing all those other schools?

Clearly they're not "surplus".

[Psephos]

35. Because Detroit is desperately broke.

Fewer buildings open means lower building costs and fewer support staff. It's similar to two families crowding into one apartment.

[hack89]

40. Shrinking population, shrinking tax base, shrinking budgets. nt