Last year I had broken windows and there was no heat in my room. At Lockwood, scheduled renovation and the demands of class-size reduction caused loss of a library, which was converted to a classroom, and brought numerous portable classrooms to the site. Libraries are necessary to develop life-long reading habits in children. Even well-off schools failed to dodge the facilities bullet, the report found. But they had a science room, a computer room and a library, all converted into classrooms.
Science is now a cart of test tubes that moves from room to room.
Worse, the researchers project that if the California state budget takes a downturn in the future, class size might climb again, leaving schools with both crowded classrooms and permanent cuts in science facilities, computer rooms and libraries. According to the research team, most education research shows that academic achievement is not significantly affected until class size falls below 15 students, far fewer than California's target of 20 students per teacher. But we found the quality of teaching was going down, and we think this trade-off may not be worth it. There may be increasing happiness in teachers, but we don't think there will be an increase in test scores. This site is produced and maintained by the Office of Public Affairs , University of California, Berkeley.