Commentary: Bigger classes mean more demanding workload

My head is throbbing, my throat’s on fire and my limbs are numb.

The cause of these symptoms? The opening day of the school year.

Though I’m beginning my 27th year as a teacher, each start of school gets more challenging.

One would think that with more experience, it would get easier. However, with each year, I learn more, and I feel the stress of trying to share it all in the classroom.

Plus, certain tasks require completion within the first few days. These include creating spreadsheets for the rosters, typing seating charts with the names that students wish to be called — not the ones on the rosters — collecting signed forms from parents and photocopying handouts that cover the entire school year.

Since I’m teaching an extra class this term, I have even more students than usual. I discussed this challenge with my students, one of whom asked me, “How do you memorize the names of 200 students?”

It’s funny how it takes a 15-year-old to remind me how numb I’ve become to the reality of that number.

For years now, California has ranked near the bottom among states in per-pupil spending and in key education factors. However, according to the most recent National Center for Education Statistics report, the state can lay claim to one category: the highest student-teacher ratio in the country, 23 to 1.

But that number is deflated since “teacher” includes educators who are specialists. The reality is that most classrooms average in the mid-30s.

It makes sense that some parents remove their kids from public schools and go the private-school route, where ratios are less than half.

Whether or not class size makes a difference in the learning process is still up for debate.

Still, the raw numbers that can’t be disputed point to the alarming amount of work required of public school teachers: the ability to know 200 versus 100 students’ names, the amount of time to evaluate 200 papers versus 100 papers and to modify lesson plans, the cost of additional books, supplies, and equipment, the lack of mobility in a room with 40 versus 20 students.

It is also more difficult to call on 40 students, compared with 20, in an hourlong class, meaning a larger share of kids remain mute each day.

Imagine an attorney meeting with 200 clients every day. Or a physician seeing 200 patients a day. It does not happen.

If a doctor were to see one patient for only five minutes at a time, it would take him nearly 17 hours to get to 200 patients without any breaks. And who would think five minutes qualifies as a quality healthcare visit?

In a state with a large non-native-English-speaking population, expecting that educators with their extraordinary workload can have all their students meet the Common Core standards is quite an undertaking.

It is time for Californians to question how much longer such overcrowding can continue when schools are held to high accountability measures.

If the goal of public education is to house students, consider what we are doing a success. But if the charge of schools is to illuminate ideas in the minds of young people, to enable them to realize the potential of their abilities, deep-rooted changes must take place.

BRIAN CROSBY is a teacher in Los Angeles County and the author of “Smart Kids, Bad Schools” and “The $100,000 Teacher.”