Nicolae Borota
Evaluation of Curriculum
Dr. Dugan
July 14, 2009

People often argue whether class size has any direct bearing on performance. In my research, I have found a few different sites that have tried to analyze the effects of smaller class sizes.
According to the American Federation of Teachers, they advocate reducing class size to help raise student achievement, especially in high-poverty, at-risk schools. They cite that more teacher- student interaction allows teachers to better help individual students because they are better able to get to know the students. The smaller class sizes also create fewer discipline problems. The students are more likely to be on task. They say that researchers have found that two or more years in the elementary school with small class size result in the student scoring higher on tests in the middle and high school level. They also found that those students are more likely to graduate and take the SAT or ACT and apply to college.
The AFT says that they support class size reduction plans that:
1. Aim for classes between 15 and 19 students each.
2. Target schools with low-achieving and low-income students.
3. Have a thoughtful implementation plan so districts have the time and money to provide adequate classroom space and hire highly qualified teachers.
According to another site, the EPE Research Center, a statewide study conducted in Tennessee found that learning gains of students make in classes of 13 to 17 students persist long after the students move back into average-size classes. What the researchers found was the poor and African-American students appeared to have the greatest gains from being in the smaller classes. “After kindergarten, the gains black students made in smaller classes were typically twice as large as those for whites.” The study found that students in grades K–3 did significantly better on achievement tests when they were in classrooms with 13 to 17 students per teacher than when they were in standard-size classes (22 to 25 students) or in standard classes with a teacher and an aide. Children from the smaller classes continued to perform better than children from the larger classes, even in subsequent years when all children were in standard-size classes.

The greatest obstacle to smaller class size has to be the cost. Not only would more classes have to be used, but more teachers would have to be employed. In California, for
example, school districts claimed nearly $1 billion in state funds for class size
reduction in 1996–97 alone.

According to the site, futureofchildren.org, a national poll in 1997 found that 83% of teachers and 60% of principals agreed that class size in elementary school should not exceed 17 students, but the national average is 25.










Conclusions from Class-Size Research
(http://www.reduceclasssizenow.org/structuredAbstracts.htm)

Boyd-Zaharias, Jayne & Pate-Bain, Helen. (2000). Early and new findings from Tennessee’s Project STAR. In Wang, M.C. & Finn, J.D. (Eds.), How small classes help teachers do their best. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Center for Research in Human Development in Education, pp. 65-97.

• Small class size facilitates the creation of a teaching and learning environment where teachers can consistently engage in effective teaching practices and help students achieve at high levels.

Krueger, A. & Whitmore, D. (2002). Would smaller classes help close the black-white Achievement gap? In J.Chubb and T. Loveless (Eds.), Bridging the achievement gap. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press.

• The estimated impact of assigning students to small classes (15) in the early grades instead of regular size classes (22) would reduce the black-white gap in achievement test scores by 38 percent in kindergarten through 3rd grade; by 15 percent in achievement test scores in grades 4-8; and by 60 percent in test-taking rates for a college entrance exam like the SAT or ACT in high school.

Krueger, A. (2003). Economic considerations and class size. Economic Journal, 113, pp. 34-63.

• Every $1 invested in reducing class size from 22 students to 15 students in kindergarten through third grade yields about $2 in benefits in total increased earnings for those students over their work careers.

Finn, J. D., Gerber, S.B., & Boyd-Zaharias, J. (2005). Small classes in the early grades, academic achievement, and graduating from high school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97 (2), pp. 214-223.

• Students who attended a small class for four years in the early elementary grades were significantly more likely to graduate from high school.
• This benefit was particularly salient for students from low-income households, where the positive effect on high school graduation rates was 9 percentage points for students who attended small classes for 3 years and 18 percentage points for students who attended small classes for 4 years.

Muennig, Peter & Woolf, Steven H. (2007). Health and economic benefits of reducing the number of students per classroom in US primary schools. American Journal of Public Health, 97 (11) pp. 2020-2027.

• Reducing class size in the early grades resulted in a net cost savings to society of an estimated $168,000 per additional student who graduated from high school by age 20.
• For low-income students, the cost savings per added graduate rose to an estimated $196,000.
• In terms of health, the life expectancy for added graduates increased by an estimated 1.7 quality-adjusted life years.
• Reducing class size compares favorably with childhood vaccinations in terms of quality of life years gained per dollar invested.
• Class-size intervention appears to be more cost-effective than most medical and public health interventions.

Levin, H., Belfield, C. Muennig, P., & Rouse, C. (2007). The public returns to public educational investments in African American males. Economics of Education Review, 26 (6), pp. 699-708.

• Public investment in research-validated education interventions (including the Tennessee Project Star randomized-controlled experiment on reducing class size in the early grades) increase the high school graduation rates of African-American males and yields large public benefits.
• Over half of these cost benefits would accrue to the federal government, which at present contributes less than 10% of the budget for K-12 schooling.

With all of these studies that have stated that smaller class sizes are beneficial, why do we still have to many K - 3 classrooms with an abundance of students? Here is a table that shows the average public school class size by state in K – 6 in the years 1993-1994.