Ann G. Mullin: Bring back teacher assistants
Some state legislators grasp the difficulties they’ve created as they legislated local school policy in the past. Smaller class sizes are great, but the local districts would have to pay for more teachers and perhaps even build more classrooms. Students could lose arts and physical education classes.
One solution could include repairing previous legislation that eliminated funding for teacher aides. Slightly larger classes would be more manageable pairing each teacher in K-3 with a teacher aide. Lots gets done with marginal costs.
Let’s get teachers and students the assistance and assistants they need. It’s time to repair previous errors. Not much time to get it done. Get busy. It’s their job. They are our kids.
Ann G. Mullin
Chapel Hill
This story was originally published January 28, 2017 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Ann G. Mullin: Bring back teacher assistants."