The Kansas City, MO school district announced this morning that the plan to close almost half of its schools passed the school board vote. The school district, which is on the brink of bankruptcy, will close 29 of its 61 schools. These closures will cost 700 jobs, including 285 teachers. This will leave 18,000 students to attend 32 schools that may be k-12. The major restructuring is causing many angry parents to speak out and consider home schooling.
Teachers are also feeling the heat, because many of the teachers will be required to reapply for their jobs.
The closure and combining of schools is something that we are familiar with here in Iowa - with many of the smaller schools being consolidated into larger schools to help delegate resources. In KC, however, this may cause schools to become considerably larger. The students will be in schools that have a higher student:teacher ratio.
Considering the information pertaining to motivating students by having an autonomy-supportive environment and well as a competence supportive environment this consolidation may be worse for the students that believed. With less time to devote to students, teachers will be unable to take the time to provide rationales, accept negative affect, use informational language, and nurture inner motivational resources. The students will have lower perceived levels of autonomy. In addition, schools that put this much pressure on their faculty will have less ability to support competence. The teachers will have to teach to a wider range of abilities due to the large class sizes so there will little opportunity for optimal challenge.
What do you think of the consolidation of schools?
To learn more about the specifics in KC, check out this article.
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