Bigger and Bigger Schools

Over the last several decades schools have continually gotten larger, enrolling more and more students. High schools with multiple thousands of students, while originally an urban phenomena, have become the norm. This has brought a myriad of problems, originally found only in city centers, directly into suburban schools. Many of these problems are founded in the sheer number of students that schools are attempting to educate. Inherent in their design, schools with large numbers of students will inevitably mean assembly lines and mechanization of everything from instruction, assessment, lunch, P.E., and every other aspect of school life. The reasoning behind this model being that large numbers of students can be facilitated with minimal staff which means big savings for the district. However, there is a large problem in running schools like a factory: every student is different.

As numbers within districts increase, schools have further streamlined the educational process. At some point in this process, despite the many good intentions of educators, the student loses their name and instead becomes a number. In large schools, the end result is often not an environment of learning but one of management and pushing students through. The current, industrialized model of education does not recognize that every student cannot fit into one mold. Every student is different and has special learning needs to reach their greatest potential.

It is not surprising that there has been drastic increases in the number of students suffering from depression or social anxiety. Many of these students attend school and are everyday lost in a sea of students. Even students that may have been portraying obvious symptoms of depression or social anxiety for years my go through the system unnoticed because they never interact with an adult. Even for those students who are found and need additional helps, there is generally not help readily available to them either because of the volume of students or because the mechanized system cannot (or will not) meet their needs. A mechanized system, while efficient for the manufacturing of cars, is not a good fit for education. Students need individualized attention. They need a chance to stand out, shine, and become individuals, not simply and nameless face lost in the crowd.

At the Web-Based Academy for California (WACA) we believe that schools should be smaller, more intimate, and more concerned with each individual student. WACA is committed to helping each student work out their individualized future and to creating an environment suitable for each to walk along the many avenues to success. For more information regarding WACA’s philosophy of education and educational program read the charter petition at www.WACAed.com.