Texas Schools Face Bigger Classes and Smaller Staff - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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Jeff Bernstein on 17 Mar 12Texas Education Agency data for the 2011-12 school year show that the number of elementary classes exceeding the 22-1 student-teacher ratio has soared to 8,479 from 2,238 last school year. Texas has had the 22-student cap for kindergarten through fourth-grade classes since 1984, and districts can apply for exemptions for financial reasons. But during the 2011 legislative session, to ease the pain of a roughly $5.4 billion reduction in state financing that did not account for the estimated influx of 170,000 new students over the next two years - and after an attempt to do away with the cap failed - lawmakers made those exemptions easier to obtain. Texas schools, which have shed approximately 25,000 employees this school year, including more than 10,000 teachers, have jumped at the chance to trim costs.