Editorial: Class sizes here remain way too high

Monday, Dec. 6, 2004 | 8:59 a.m.

At first blush a new national study by the country's largest teachers union seems to suggest a pretty rosy picture for our public school classrooms. It says the average number of students in a Nevada classroom is 19, which sounds pretty good here in Clark County. Reading on in the study by the National Education Association, though, we see where this figure puts Nevada once again near the bottom in an important national category. The national average is fewer than 16 students for each classroom. With 19, Nevada has the sixth-largest class sizes in the nation.

Reading on even further, however, we quickly realize why 19 students sounded so good. This is a "statewide" average, of course. All the small rural areas were counted. It's a whole different set of numbers for the Clark County School District, fifth largest in the country and bursting at the seams with more than 280,000 students.

Agustin Orci, the district's deputy superintendent for instruction, said it's not unusual to have middle school classes with as many as 35 students. Some high school classes, he said, can have as many as 40 students. At these numbers, classes in the Clark County School District are between 130 percent and 140 percent larger than the national average.

Even in first through third grades, which are required by state law to be no larger than 15 students, class sizes are bursting. The district had to get a waiver from the state for the current school year, allowing the statutory limit to be exceeded. The average class size for first and second grade is 18 and for third grade it's 21. It gets worse as the grades advance. The fourth grade average is 29 and for fifth grade it's 30. What suffers as the class sizes get bigger is the individualized attention many students need.

Voters last month overwhelmingly approved a ballot question that asked whether education funding should be considered as the first order of business during sessions of the Legislature. The promise inherent in that question was that education would receive appropriate funding, as it would not get bogged down later in the session by political backbiting. The voters' intent was clear -- they want appropriate funding for the state's schools. More funding would allow more teachers, and therefore lower class sizes. As it stands, Nevada ranks 47th in the nation in respect to per-pupil funding. We do not consider this appropriate, and neither should the 2005 Legislature.