Band-Aid for a Head Wound

There's a sizeable list of bills slotted for the House Education and Social Services Committee. We here at Alaska State Politics.com plan to go through the list more thoroughly later this week. Here is a sneak preview of one of them. It is presented by freshman Rep. Kawasaki. HB 70, mandates that the student/teacher ratio in Kindergarten-Third grade classrooms be at least one teacher for every 18 students. It sounds fine, and from Rep. Kawasaki's point of view, he may be able to get some NEA union votes or campaign money out of the deal. Okay, I admit that was a bit cynical.

But let's say for a moment that Rep. Kawasaki really wants to help out schools. Is mandating this ratio really going to make a substantive difference? I am skeptical that it will. The problems in education Alaska faces as a state, are not a lack of administrative mandates or top down imposed standards or lack of funding. The problems are institutional and structural. The major players in state politics (unions, administrations, AND parents) have an interest in maintaining these structural and institutional circumstances. That's all fine in theory, you might say. It isn't theory. When I attended First-Third grade, they were joined classes, many times with as many as 25 students. That is, when I was in first grade, the second grade class was in the same room with us, and they were taught by the same teacher. For those three years, I had the grade above me in the same room. There are many reasons and circumstances this was able to work, and few, if any, of those reasons and circumstances can be found in the schools of Alaska.