In education reform there are two schools of thought on class size debate. The first believe small class sizes are preferable. These leave teachers with more time for each student to address individual learning needs supporters say. The other camp believes small class sizes are expensive. They say there is no hard evidence that small class sizes lead to a higher quality education. Is one side correct or is there some middle ground?
On May 20th, James Gale, a middle school teacher from Bath, wrote an editorial in the Portland Press Herald. Gale decries education funding cuts that have come as a result of the economic downturn. The seeming push to run schools like corporations also disturbed Gale. Reductions in the teaching staff will lead to a decrease in the quality of Maine’s education according to Gale. “Let us keep classroom sizes small at all costs,” said Gale. Quickly, I disagree with Gale’s assertion that, “when it comes to education, there must always be money.” First, no one made education cuts at the state or local level because they liked taking an axe to budgets – well maybe a few did. There in fact was not enough money to go around, unless governments wanted to raise taxes. Second, I’m not sold on the belief that a good education must always need more money. Yes, it does need adequate funding, but learning is about a whole lot more than if there is enough money for the drama club. (The arts are important. Hold your flames.)
May 29th, Pete Hope, a former teacher from Pemaquid, wrote a rebuttal of Gale’s editorial. Hope argues Gale fails to define what small class size means and that he has not seen any studies that point to small classes improving the quality of education. Though he taught classes of between 12-15 students, Hope claims that never impacted the quality of his teaching. “If a teacher can’t manage and provide quality of instruction to a class of 20 to 25 students, he or she should be doing something else,” said Hope.
Not including in class teacher aids, or other classroom specialists, the current student teacher ratio in Maine is currently 10.5 students to 1 teacher. The current national average is 15 to 1. If you count all staff the ratio is much lower at 5 to 1. For the purpose of this discussion we will only look at the straight teacher/student ratio. In 1988 the student teacher ratio sat at slightly above 14.5 to 1. This number has declined steadily to the current 10.5 to 1. The shrinking student teacher ratio is of course directly related to the decline in student enrollment (-6.2% from 1999-2008). The decline in Maine’s population and the increase in average age of Maine residents are also related to the falling student enrollment numbers.
Setting the money concerns related to this issue, do small class sizes lead to a better education for all Maine students, as Mr. Gale insists? The benefits of small class sizes seem intuitive. With less students, a teacher could devote more time to student instruction than classroom management. Research shows that there are no conclusive links to an increase in student achievement and a reduction in class sizes.
Two of the most well-known class size reduction programs are Tennessee’s Project STAR and California’s Class Size Reduction (CSR) Program. Both programs began in the mid-1990′s and focused on reductions in K-3 classrooms. The results of both have been mixed.
A 2002 report from the RAND corporation stated that based on data available, there was no conclusive link between small class sizes and student achievement in the California CSR program. Though teachers had more time for individual student attention, there has been no significant change in the content or delivery methods of instruction. Districts implementing CSR showed some increase in test scores, but no one was sure class sizes were the sole factor. At the same time CSR programs began, California started many other reform programs. Researchers have had difficulty determining which ones have positively impacted learning in the state. “It would be nice if we could give an unequivocal answer to the achievement question,” said Brian Stecher, senior social scientist at RAND. “Then people could decide if the benefits were worth the extra cost. Unfortunately, we can’t. The state launched so many new programs at the same time that it is difficult to separate out their effects from that due to CSR.”
Spyros Konstantopoulos, an assistant professor of education and social policy at Northwestern University, found similar results in his study of Tennessee’s Project STAR program. In his study(PDF Warning), Konstantopoulos compared the achievement gap between the lowest and highest performing students. The study found that small class sizes did help for some student, but not all. Student already performing well improved. Low-performing students did not show improvement. Rather than shrinking the achievement gap, Project STAR increased it. Not the results one would hope for.
There have been other studies done. The two cited tend to represent what is currently out there. For every study showing some increase in achievement, there are just as many studies that show no improvement from small class sizes, or are inconclusive. Is this a push for Maine to move to a 30 to 1 student teacher ratio? Of course not. With the diverse population density of this state, that’s just not an option. Could the STR increase without destroying Maine’s schools? It could. An average increase to even 15 to 1 would be within the bounds of most other class reduction programs around the country, often between 15-17 to 1. It could save districts money, leaving more cash for other programs.
This is not a push for a blanket increase in the student teacher ratio. A one-size-fits-all increase wont work in Maine. The state is too spread out and the population density too diverse. Nor are small class sizes a silver bullet. No one reform is. Efforts in Maine would be better spent on reforms with a greater ability to help students. We have long had class sizes below the national average. That will continue. To fight any increase however is a misuse of our money and our minds.
UPDATE: NancyEH posted a link from the Education Commission of the States. The ECS conducts education policy research and analysis, hosts workshops and debates on ed policy – state, regional, and national – and other works in other ways to assist those who shape policy. A PDF from April examines policies that reduce class size and those that maximize them in states. Links are provided in the pdf to more detailed explanations for each point of view. A short excerpt appears bellow.
From the ECS:
The logic behind keeping class size low is powerful: The fewer kids teachers have to deal with in a classroom, the thinking goes, the more time they can focus on delivering high-quality individualized instruction. Evidence indicates that class sizes have the most effect in the K-3rd grades, especially if those classes are below 20 students.
Many states have chosen to keep classes small by using one of two approaches:
1. Placing caps on the number of students who may be in one classroom
2.Enacting initiatives to reduce class size.While these approaches may sound very similar, and experience a certain degree of overlap in some states, they do have some key general differences.
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