Leading author says reduce teacher workload
William Ouchi argues in a new book coming out this month that one of the keys to student achievement is decreasing the Total Student Load or TSL. He says teachers should teach no more than 80 students at a time. The reason this book may be of interest here in Baltimore is that Ouchi's first book, "Making Schools Work," touched off a change to decentralization in New York and other major cities. Andres Alonso, who came here from New York, immediately gave principals more authority over their budget and their curriculum. And that, Ouchi argues, often has led to principals making decisions to hire more teachers and reduce other staff in the building so that teachers have fewer students. This change does not mean that classes are necessarily smaller, although I guess it could. Rather it means that the typical high school teacher may teach fewer classes. So instead of having to grade 120 student papers, the teacher only has to worry about grading 80.
This research is written about in a recent piece in Education Week. The work follows from a report done several years ago in Maryland on writing that concluded the most important changes that could be made to improve writing would be to reduce the workload of English teachers. I haven't heard that happening around the state, but I may have missed a trend.
I wonder if any city teachers have seen a reduction in their workload as a result of decentralization? What is happening to teachers in surrounding counties? Is your workload increasing?
Baltimoresun.com's 
Comments
This is refreshing. Usually I hear only about class size, when it's actually class load that probably most affects teacher performance.
When I started teaching in Baltimore City on the block, 90-minute, semester schedule, I taught around 80 students at a time. I was able to really get to know my students, to get work immediately back to them, and never felt more effective as a teacher.
Since moving to the yearlong 50-minute schedule, my numbers are invariably between 145-165 at a time (your estimate of 120 is way low). It takes a long time to grade essays and much longer to notice issues with students. I felt much more effective with the smaller load, even though the overall class size hasn't changed that much (an average of 25-26 to an average of 30).
Posted by: bmoreteach | September 29, 2009 10:03 AM
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Posted by: MrRational | September 29, 2009 10:21 AM
In response to the question of whether decentralization has led to a reduced teacher workload:
In my particular school I've noticed just the opposite trend.
With decentralization, and principal control over budgets, I've seen an increase in workloard for most academic teachers in my buidling. (Workload for trade and HSA teachers has remained steady.)
In my opinion the principal, looking at the budget, has had to make several cuts that encourage being as cost effective as possible. As a result, most academic classes are now taught for 90 minutes for a semester, rather than for 45 for an entire year. The schedule is not built to enhance student learning, it is built so that teachers who were teaching five 45 minute classes per year now teach 6 classes per year. Five classes of twenty five yields 125 students - six classes of 25 yeilds 150. It's interesting that in the comment above, the opposite schedule shift had the same effect. maybe this suggests that principals everywhere are trying to squeeze more out of teachers, they're just using different methods to do it.
Posted by: Nadine Von Canstricus | September 29, 2009 11:33 AM
Reduced class sizes--I wish! Over the past few years, the class sizes in my school were able to remain in the 25 per class range. Guess what--test scores and student achievement went up. Now we have class sizes in the 30-35 range. Teachers are overwhelmed already. Wonder what this will do to the gains we have made in the past couple of years. It isn't just the decentralization that caused this issue but the refusal of administration to recognize the need to keep classes small and get rid of TRULY unneeded positions. The students recognize the issue as well as the parents. I know we are in a rough economy but class size is the number one thing that almost everyone agrees makes a difference in the quality of education. I agree with Nadine. Teachers and students are once again bearing the brunt of the cost cutting measures.
Posted by: vetern teacher | September 30, 2009 6:02 AM
Reducing the work load isn't only about reducing class size or the number of preps. It is also about the amount of paperwork we have. It seems like we are given more paperwork to do every year. Between the documentation required for Special Education, absent students, discipline issues, etc., it's amazing we have time to write lessons and grade papers. Plus there's the time spent trying to use SMS and navigate TSS on a server that's extremely slow. I feel like I'm working 2 full time jobs right now. How much longer can we take this? If the BTU didn't spend so much time organizing cruises and nights on the town it might have time to find out what teachers are going through and then actually do something about it.
Posted by: avalon | October 1, 2009 6:07 PM
Over the years, I have been a part of several school systems who would periodically review the curriculum and other related responsibilities so that the cummulative effect was to not continuously load on new requirements/responsiblities without removing some. I agree with Avalon. The 7.2 hour day is just the beginning. I work many extra hours every day and most weekends. Something needs to give. I want to teach. I want to plan! The paperwork is so huge it is almost not possible to do.
Posted by: elisabeth | October 1, 2009 10:33 PM
Thanks for this well written article. I hope It will be soon come under consideration and will benefit us all.
Posted by: Druckerpatronen | October 7, 2009 7:02 AM
This is probably the biggest reason why teachers burn out and leave the system. Better funding seems like the only answer, I'm not holding my breath.
Posted by: Corey | October 8, 2009 10:22 AM
It was a nice article...thank you for posting
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Posted by: craigspr | October 16, 2009 7:48 PM