Student-Teacher+ratio+article


 * Oregon schools pack in **
 * most students per teacher in history, state says **

By [|**Betsy Hammond | betsyhammond@oregonian.com**]

December 02, 2013

Oregon's student-teacher ratios, long some of the highest in the nation, rose to dramatic new highs of about 22 students per teacher in 2012-13, [|the state reported] last week. The national average for 2011-12, the most recent figure available, was 16 students per teacher, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That suggests that Oregon teachers, on average, shoulder about 35 percent more students than the typical U.S. teacher. Oregon's new high of 22.6 high school students per teacher exceeded the previous record by 2 percent and was fully 3 students more per teacher than in 2006-07, [|the state said]. In Oregon elementary schools, there were an average of 21.4 students per teacher -- higher than the student-teacher ratio in Oregon high schools just two years earlier. Student-teacher ratios are not the same as class size, which is harder to measure. The average class size is always bigger than the student-teacher ratio, mainly because all teachers have planning periods during which they do not teach, while some teachers work with small groups of students who have special needs, forcing the typical teacher to take on larger classes. Classes of 30 or 35 students were widely reported in Oregon middle and high schools last year. The federal government has not yet reported state-by-state student-teacher ratios for 2012-13. But it appears that only two states, California and Utah, pack in as many or more students per teacher as Oregon does.