To the Editor:

The education system and the people who administer it have done a fine job in many respects but still fail to understand the shortcomings of the system and are either ignorant of the further needs of students or too pompous and/or unwilling to make the effort to change the status quo!

I am referring to the remarks and reluctance of the Voorheesville School Board with regard to its refusal to recognize the benefits of smaller class size. Smaller class size should not be held up against the enrichment of a better education! Enrichment of class studies is important for the students who naturally gravitate to an education but small class size is necessary to the students who struggle with learning. Do our educators and administrators not understand this?

Smaller class size should not be considered the cherry on the sundae by our school board leaders. Smaller class sizes should be a primary objective of our education system.

All students, either advanced or learning impaired, benefit from smaller class size where a teacher might have more one-on-one time with a student and hence affect their education with more personal positive contact.

By stating that enrichment outweighs the need for smaller class size shows the opinion of someone who cares more for the advanced student than the struggling student. I went to Voorheesville schools and this has always been the case.

Pompous parents with children who do well in school because everything in their support system works, have little time to think of struggling students with a poor home-life situation and their needs at school. Let’s face it, school board members often come from families whose children have good home lives and good support systems.

Good students are naturally going to be good students in almost any setting. It is the poor students with poor home lives that struggle to learn and need the most personal one-on-one attention.

I will admit that ability to learn well or not, does cross the divide of rich or poor but the rich often do not acknowledge the needs of the poor and learning disabled, and the poor  often do not take the time to become involved in their kids’ education. Of course there are some exceptions.

How can it be beyond the comprehension of a school board member that students leaving Voorheesville might have difficulties with writing composition or writing legibly. This points out that the school board member is only taking note of the success stories coming out of the school and disregarding the school’s failure to help its most needy. Smaller class sizes will address struggling students’ need for more personal one-on-one attention from the teacher and maybe more academic interaction with their successful fellow students!

Class sizes should never exceed 12 to 15 students. Think about how much time in a 45 minute-class a teacher can personally affect your child’s education with 30 kids in a room. Not much believe me; I remember being there.

Now cut the class to 15 and the light of education may shine through enough to brighten the mind of the student who is otherwise lost in the crowd. Who is so stupid as to deny this is obvious?

The school system has an obligation to help all students succeed not just the ones who take to learning naturally. The school system, whether they like it or not, must parent students as well as educate them.

The school has our children for most of the day. Let’s analyze a child’s day for most middle-class or lower middle-class working families. They get up early; the parents get ready for work; and the children get ready for school — a quick bite to eat — hurried conversation about what will happen that day and then off to work and school — not a lot of quality time spent together.

The school now has the children for the next seven or eight hours and then unfortunately sends them home too early where they are often unsupervised by adults because their parents work until 5 o’clock and won’t be home until near six. Now it’s time for dinner and only if home life is “normal” the family may eat together and have conversation about the day and its events as well as what's’ upcoming.

Now it’s 7 o’clock and time to do homework that many parents cannot help with because they don’t understand it themselves and have other responsibilities and pressures from life to attend to. Now it is 9 o’clock and the child wants a little leisure time to watch TV or something before bedtime at 10 or 11 o’clock Get the picture!

Family life may not be perfect and quality interaction is elusive for many children. The teachers must represent the parent at school when they have the children and, in order to impress a child, the classes must be small with more personal interaction. This should be the priority of every school!

This is more important than funding sports programs and all other extra-curricular activities. I’m all for sports programs and extra-curricular activities and welcome them if the taxpayers will pay, but not at the expense of a better academic education for all by having more teachers and smaller class sizes.

What will it take to change the system and recognize the bleeding obvious? We act like we don’t understand the failings of our education system and we don’t  want to fund the necessary changes.

Spend the effort and money on more teachers and a longer school day and you won’t have to support the uneducated and failed lives of the unfortunate through welfare and entitlements! Where are our politicians on this issue and where is our State Education Department?

The money is in the coffers of the state; they just refuse to spend more on education, which is the only thing that can truly lift people from ignorance and want! I think our leaders either suffer from ignorance, stupidity, or a lack of the will to change the current system. It’s obviously shameful!

Timothy J. Albright

Meadowdale N.Y.