Gary Chartrand attacks the class size amendment again.

A couple things, first his children attended schools
that had smaller class sizes and often elite prep schools advertise them. None
say, hey come to our schools and we will pack them deep.

Second, if only my class had 30 rather than 22 kids
then I would be a better teacher, said no teacher ever.

Finally people like Chartrand and Bush and Thrasher
and the pro privatization crowd like to point to 

Florida’s improvement but never
acknowledge the citizen driven class size amendment. They usually just ignore
it though Chartrand does routinely attack it.

Last Summer I asked then Education Commissioner
Gerard Robinson, the state says the FCAT has led to increased scores, I say it
is smaller class sizes, why are you right and I am wrong?

He didn’t say I was wrong, in fact he said both played a role in increasing
test scores.



Usually these guys are on message but Chartrand can’t pass up a chance to
show us how ignorant he is.  

 Today in the
Palm Beach Post he said: Florida Board of Education
Chair Gary Chartrand, an appointee of Gov. Rick Scott, used a K-12 education
discussion to tee-off on the state’s class-size amendment, approved by voters
over opposition from Bush in 2002.



“In my opinion we are wasting money to the tune of half-a-billion dollars a
year,” Chartrand said Friday.



The amendment, which imposes limits on the number of students in classrooms,
withstood a ballot effort in 2010 to revamp it to apply only to a school
average. Chartrand said that’s the standard he’d like to see applied, allowing
money to be redirected to improve teacher performance.



Limiting the number of students in a class doesn’t help kids achieve but rather
is just “wasteful spending,” he said.



What’s wasteful is the state of Florida paying him
a salary.