Ed Week, December 1, 2010

I am busy trying to catch up on my Ed Week blogging... Even though this article on budget woes and class size is from December, it is still a hot, current topic.  See "Class-Size Limits Targeted For Cuts" by Sarah D. Sparks.  In the dark days of this current financial crisis with painful budget cuts looming, this article offers some comfort.   According to the Tennessee Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio or STAR project, smaller class sizes in the early years produced students with better academic and personal outcomes throughout their school years and beyond.  This study followed more than 7,000 students in 79 schools over 4 years back in 1984.  Students in K-3 were randomly assigned to either classes of 13-17 kids or more typical classes of 22-25 students.  The children in smaller classes performed better than their peers in the larger classes on tests at the end of the study.  Apparently this is a linear relationship:  Every student removed from class improves the situation of those remaining.  This study and others spurred the nation-wide efforts to reduce class size.  The U.S. Department of Education currently guesstimates that the current average class size for general education classrooms in the U.S. hovers around 25 students.  Because of financial concerns, many states have relaxed their class-size capping policies since 2008.  Critics of class size limits make the case that the improvements in academic success are not significant enough to warrant the extra expense.  Data from the OECD show that several "high-performing" Asian countries actually have very large class size averages:  Japan:  33 and South Korea: 36.  Past class size reduction policies have also not been implemented in ways consistent with what the research indicates is best, i.e. classes of 13-17 as in the STAR project.  Other researchers argue we should spend money on improving and training current teachers.  A school in New York was described that is utilizing trained parent volunteers and instructional aids to teach 90 minute chunks of core subjects such as reading, math, science, social studies, and foreign language in the mornings.  The afternoons are devoted to electives with larger class sizes.  These electives, i.e. art, build on the lessons from the morning.  Perhaps there are some creative ways to get around the increase in class sizes that is definitely coming to Salem-Keizer in Fall of 2011.
I myself attended both public schools and Catholic schools.  My 6-8th grade classes at St. Eugene's had 40 kids in each class (20 boys and 20 girls).  The nuns ran a tight ship, with a very strict classroom management style.  Learning was definitely taking place.  Although as a parent I would definitely prefer to keep the number of students in my children's classes down to between 20-25, I recognize that our school district is in hot water.  I would hope that the administrators will consult the teachers, the ones in the trenches, to ask for their input on how to make the best out of this situation.  The article I read in the the Statesman Journal today indicated that although class size was going up, the numbers were no where close to the 45 kids in a class that were rumored as possible!