MEG

I’ve heard the same. And also that the benefit of class size isn’t linear. It’s a bell curve. Is 25 better than 50? Most likely. But how low can/should you go? Is 5 better than 25? Probably not and potentially worse. At some point things get too small and are detrimental to learning. I don’t know what the cut off should be though. But we’ve put too much money into decreasing ratios when the impact is likely small.

The biggest difference that I’ve read isn’t class size. High income and low income schools improve test scores similarly throughout the year (maybe a point or two less). It’s summer break. Low income school kids lose multiple test score points and high income school kids gain multiple points maybe even a dozen over the summer. Nobody wants to talk about significantly reducing summer break so instead we keep beating the class size drum.

“Skin Care During Pregnancy”

I truly appreciate this article! I would be forever grateful to see the follow up piece on all these with breastfeeding.

This is tough. I can only speak for myself as someone who has the option to interact and involve my family or not. We live far away and we are financially independent and do not need them for childcare. The power balance is in our favor. If they want to see/interact with their grandkids, they have to play by our rules. We try not to wield that stick with too much power. Even still, those conversations are tough and not something we look forward to.

We’ve found that addressing problems at the very first offence and not hoping that things get better is what works best for us. Then it’s still a small problem and the conversation can be quick.

For example, my mom posted a picture of my kid online when we said we weren’t going to be doing that. Had to ask her to take it down right away. She apologized and said she didn’t know the rule (unlikely but I’ll take it). But she knows that we hold the power. You want pictures of your grandkids? Gotta play by our rules.

Good luck!