MEA Votes

Throughout 2008, MEA has been holding hearings all over the state about Michigan’s dropout crisis and what works to keep students in school. Today is the final one of those hearings in Kalamazoo. (To learn more about this effort, go to www.mea.org/dropouts.)

One of the things we’ve heard at every hearing is the need for individual attention for students – attention that makes students feel cared for and helps make what’s going on in school feel relevant to their life and interests.

But it’s hard to forge those critical relationships and make things relevant to individuals when you’re teaching five classes of 35 students each.

That’s 175 students. To give each of them 10 minutes of individual time per week would take nearly 30 hours – and that’s on top of the group teaching time, grading, preparation and meetings that are necessary in a teacher’s day to day job.

To reduce the approximately 15 percent dropout rate in this state, we have to reduce class sizes. The overall academic benefits of smaller class sizes are clear. But in terms of making sure students make it through to graduation, small class sizes are an essential piece of the puzzle.

But it’s only one piece. To be successful in ensuring all students graduate from high school and move on to college or other career training, we need support from both in and out of school. That’s why encouraging broad sectors of the community to attend the Oct. 20 Dropout Prevention Leadership Summit in Lansing is so important. Only through concerted community action will we stem Michigan’s dropout crisis and ensure a strong economic future for our students and our state. To learn more about the summit, visit www.midropoutsummit.org.