We’re losing good teachers every day.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average number of students enrolled per teacher in the U.S. has only grown from 15.41 percent to 15.96 percent in the last 10 years. This is a highly misleading number because it’s based on overall enrollment per teacher. So it’s using other staff positions to figure the average.

In one of the most credible studies of class reduction size ever completed in the 1980s, researchers compared Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) testing results between class sizes of 15 and class sizes of 22. They found that students in the smaller class were three months ahead of the students in the larger class.

 Changing careers is definitely something many teachers are considering, but it’s not their only option. Educators in public schools are moving to private and charter schools, where student-teacher ratios are 12:3. Who wouldn’t want to have fewer papers to grade, fewer behavior problems, or fewer outlandish parent requests to accommodate?

We also know that smaller class sizes would help restore the joy of teaching and retain quality educators. Routinely, state legislators who vote on education funding choose to ignore the voices of teaching professionals.

So what’s next? I think it’s time we take action, raise our voices, and walk hand in hand with parents and community members to our legislatures and other governing bodies. We can not and will not be crowded out of our own classrooms.

No. Teacher. Left. Behind.