Latest study: Reducing class size doesn’t benefit student achievement
As often happens within education research, major studies contradict one another, and that is again the case with the new study on whether state-mandated class size reductions in Florida improved student achievement. In a word, the study out of Harvard said “no.”
The question bears consideration here in Georgia where many systems are increasing the number of students in a class to save money. (By the way, the author of this study, Matthew Chingos, co-wrote “Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities.” and here is an interview I did with him on that book.)
According to the official release:
A new study finds that Florida’s 2002 constitutional amendment mandating a reduction in the size of classes in school districts throughout the state had no discernible impact upon student achievement, either positive or negative.
Florida’s constitutional amendment, which forced districts to use state funds for class reduction unless they had already reduced class sizes to an acceptable level, had no impact on average student performance. Students in schools where districts were not forced to spend their money on class size reduction improved as much on state tests as those attending schools in districts subject to the constitutional mandate. The study also found no significantly different impact on the average performance of ethnic and racial groups or between economically advantaged and disadvantaged students.
The study, conducted by Matthew M. Chingos, a research fellow at Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance, analyzed student-level data provided by the Florida Department of Education to follow all students in grades four through eight who took the state reading and math tests between 2001 and 2007. During this time, average class size was reduced by about three students. Chingos found that students attending schools that were required to reduce class size did no better on state math and reading tests than students attending schools that were given funding to spend as they saw fit. The study also showed no discernible impact on student absenteeism and behavior problems.
“We do not know from this study whether giving districts more unrestricted state funds has positive effects or not,” Chingos said, “but the study strongly suggests that monies restricted for the purpose of funding class-size reduction mandates are not a productive use of limited educational resources.”
The class size amendment is estimated to have cost about $20 billion over the first eight years of the program and $4 billion per year subsequently. Florida’s voters will be asked this coming November whether or not they wish to revise the constitution’s class size requirement to apply to average class size in each school rather than the size of every individual classroom.
“This study is extraordinarily important given the great strain that Florida’s class-size reduction policy is putting on the Florida state budget,” commented Paul E. Peterson, director PEPG. “I hope this study serves as a wake-up call to state legislatures across the nation as they make tough budgetary decisions,” he added. In recent years, 24 states have mandated class-size reduction policies.
In an essay in the journal Education Next, Peterson — who is also editor-in-chief of Education Next — offer insights into why this research study does not agree with an earlier study of class size out of Tennessee that found benefits:
Peterson writes:
Why do his results differ from those found in Tennessee? Chingos does not offer any definite explanation, but here are some possibilities. The teachers in Tennessee knew they were participating in an experiment, which if successful could persuade the legislature to make class size reduction a statewide priority. Knowing that a positive result could be of benefit to them, the teachers assigned to smaller classes might have become more assiduous and enthusiastic than those assigned to larger classes.
Secondly, the schools with larger classes did not receive comparable fiscal resources in Tennessee, as was the case in Florida. The gains in Tennessee may have come from extra resources, not anything specific to class size reduction. Finally, the Florida information tells us what happens when a state government tries to bring about class size reduction on a large scale, whereas the Tennessee experiment was limited to only a fairly small number of schools and to much larger reductions in class size.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
125 comments Add your comment
RobertNAtl
May 19th, 2010
3:18 pm
Can’t comment on higher grades, but from my observations as a volunteer in K-2 classes the past three years, for K-2 grades, class size is a very important factor.
Second comment is that I think a number of posters have it exactly right, discipline (or the lack thereof) is the key variable in moving to bigger class sizes. I am beginning to think we should move children with constant disciplinary problems into a separate school, just to keep them from disrupting the students who were raised by their parents to behave in school. Undisciplined children (or, to put it another way, crummy parents) are the biggest problem in public education today, and sop up a grossly disproportionate share of public education resources.
aaaah
May 19th, 2010
3:21 pm
It is so easy to claim smaller classes are better, or researchers who don’t teach in classrooms don’t understand what it is like in classrooms, etc., etc.. However, if teachers want the public to consider our ideas to be just looking for an easier working environment or just continuous whining, we must be able to show the differences in results somehow. Unless we can show that smaller classes do produce something positive, then why should the public support such a policy, specially in an economic disastor we are dealing with right now?
@ Maureen and Matthew Chingos
May 19th, 2010
4:38 pm
My daughter who graduated from UGA with an undergrad in biology did some fairly high level genetics research under a Post Doctoral student in a UGA lab for 2 years. Although she was a good researcher, she decided being a “lab rat” was more isolating than she wanted. She’s a “people person” who happens to be very talented in science. She got an Masters of Arts in Teaching after she graduated. During her masters program, she was very frustrated with the “educational research” she was required to read and study. She found that “educational research” was nothing like the rigor and control required in pure “scientific research”. She found it difficult to respect research that did not follow the scientific method with stringent control groups, intense peer review, and the ability for numerous other researchers to duplicate the exact results. I guess she takes after her dad who is a CDC research scientist with over a hundred scientific publications.
When cancer researchers develop a treatment protocol, do you have any idea how many times this treatment must be duplicated and duplicated and duplicated again with the exact same controls in place and the same results seen before other scientists will accept the treatment as efficacious?
As a 30 year retired teaching veteran, (regular ed 10 years, gifted 11 years, teacher trainer 10 years – class sizes from 20 to 34, low, middle, upper income schools, ESOL certified, you name it – I’ve taught it), I think educational studies added value to my teaching. I found the ones who adhered closest to the scientific method to be the most valuable since I could reliably duplicate the results with students in my classroom.
I do understand my daughter’s frustrations. You can’t really compare educational studies to the scientific studies of my husband who is a virologist with research published in Nature and Science. His studies are very controlled, peer reviewed and able to be duplicated with the same results each time as long as you follow the same protocol.
Currently, my daughter is a science teacher in a high school. She is extremely enthusiastic, loves her students, and loves teaching. Her passion for science has her teaching her students the importance of the scientific method, insist that they are meticulous in their labs, and requires them to state their conclusions in a logical and well written manner. Virtually all of her students passed the science EOCT, 40% at the Exceeds level. I think they did so well because they had a competent teacher who is well versed in the subject matter and has that ephemeral ability to understand what enables students to make the connection between what is taught and what is learned. I don’t know if she will stay in teaching. Quite frankly her father and I are encouraging her to leave public education. We would like to see her go back to graduate school and get another degree so she can teach at a college level. That seems like a more attractive working situation.
Former FL Teacher
May 19th, 2010
5:24 pm
I left FL just as this lower class size amendment was implemented. The class size caps only applied to core classes. The definition of a core class, however, was strictly limited. Honors and AP levels of math, English, science, and history were designated as electives rather than core classes. Average class sizes for these courses were increased to 30+ in order to compensate for the reductions in class sizes for regular and remedial courses in the same areas. This method of implementation of class size reduction would seem to skew the findings in a study such as the one described here.
FLAWoodLayer
May 19th, 2010
6:52 pm
I’ve taught classes as small as 9 and as large as 37 in my teaching career thus far. Class size most impacts the teacher not the student. Most teachers’ behavior does not change when their classes decrease thus contributing to the lack of student impact. If you have a class of 15 instruction should be different from one of 38. Good teachers make it work regardless of class size, weak teachers fail regardless of class size. Teachers benefit when they have less paperwork to wade through and that may create a happier teacher but with instructional change it does not matter.
BTW, I wonder if the hours parents actually read to their children over the last say 20 years has increased or decreased? Want to boost reading scores? Read to your children! Teach them how to read before they enter school. Spend time talking with them. Don’t use Dora, or the Wii, or any other electronic device to raise your child. That will do more than anything else to boost student achievement.
student » Twitter Trends
May 19th, 2010
8:16 pm
…
TERRIBLE STUDY…
Jabberwocky
May 19th, 2010
8:24 pm
Ms. Maureen….I am going to disagree with you about attitudes toward research in general… Many people DO indeed question the results of research on cancer and other health related studies. There are many , even those in the Health professions who point out very often that CORRELATION DOES NOT MEAN CAUSATION. In many of the studies regarding causes of health problems the variables are absolutely not controlled and are questioned by many, many intelligent people.
ScienceTeacher671
May 19th, 2010
9:12 pm
If class sizes don’t matter, why do the really expensive private schools all brag about their extremely small class sizes? (The number of teachers with advanced degrees is usually another statistic prominently featured on their advertising.)
I’ve taught gifted science classes with up to 35 students, and except that it’s really crowded doing lab in a room built for 2/3 as many students, it works fine.
On the other hand, when you’re teaching “collaborative” classes with highly variable ability levels, 25 students can be a nightmare. Trying to meet the needs of gifted students and students who can’t read (some because they are dyslexic and some because they are mentally retarded) while keeping the behavior disordered student(s) in check can be more than two teachers can handle.
Tony
May 19th, 2010
9:46 pm
From the Tennessee study, once the class sizes get below 15 is when there is a significant and positive effect on student achievement AND these effects were only seen in classrooms heavily affected by high minority populations and heavy impact due to poverty. Florida’s class size constitutional amendment was extremely costly and was doomed before it got out of the gate. In addition to the burdensome costs, Florida also enacted extreme budget reduction measures and restricted local districts’ abilities to raise revenues through property taxes. To “study” the class size effect in the midst of all the other “hand-tying” measures was a bit unfair to the teachers, students and school systems of that state.
What attracts good teachers?
May 19th, 2010
10:18 pm
“Reducing class size doesn’t benefit student achievement” and …..
“Class size most impacts the teacher not the student.”
That is simply not true.
My daughter went to Kindergarten at Briarlake Elementary in DeKalb Schools in 1989. It was and still is an affluent, close-in neighborhood with well educated parents. At that time schools could place 31 students in a class with a paraprofessional. As these students progressed through 3rd grade (4th grade she went to Kittredge Magnet School), every year there were 3 teachers to teach 90+ students. Her Kindergarten and second grade teachers were okay. Her first grade teacher was not so great. Her third grade teacher was very good.
My daughter excelled. As a teacher in another school, I worked with her all the time, read to her every day, took her to plays, concerts, puppet shows, traveling, took her to the public library every week, and looked at every concept she was learning in school and made sure she understood it. She had no developmental delay or attention problems. By December of her first grade year, she was reading chapter books. She scored in the 99 percentile of the nationally normed Iowa Test of Basic Skills in math and reading every year. She became a voracious reader. She was successful in college, grad school, and is successfully employed in a professional capacity.
Sounds wonderful. Class size and teachers don’t really matter. No it doesn’t matter – Not to my daughter and to many of her classmates class size did not matter.
But 31 primary students were almost overwhelming to the teachers. One child slipped out of school on a consistent basis. One was very aggressive to other children. If the teacher sat him apart from other students because he was disruptive, he urinated in his seat. You could say there were some distractions that wore the teachers out. How much energy did they have for the children that just needed some individual attention?
What’s missing in this study are the children who slipped through the cracks. My daughter and her Briarlake classmates are now 25, and I can look at some of the kids (still kids to me) who are her age who had problems in the early years – they weren’t special ed or behavioral problems – they just needed some extra help to get them up to grade level. To this day, I can see where these same young adults have had problems (more than a few could not make it through college). I can trace it back to these huge class sizes and the inability of teachers to be able to provide the help they needed.
This study doesn’t look at what happens to students 20 years later who did not receive the attention they needed. These students weren’t in any disaggregated group who would show up on standardized test results. And there are enough students like my daughter to pull the scores up to high levels.
Schools are supposed to prepare students for life. I’ve seen what happens when classrooms are packed with 30+ students. Why anyone would advocate this is beyond my comprehension.
Educator2
May 19th, 2010
10:21 pm
If the study shows no significant difference in lowering class size by 3 students- Why is the conclusion that class reduction should be eliminated altogether? It SHOULD mean that another study is needed to see what is the number of students needed to show a significant difference. Is it a reduction of 5 students, 8 students or 10 students, etc. from a class of 30 students or a class of 25 students, etc.? The goal of the study should be determining what class size does make a significant difference in achievement in order for effectively funding and use that data to cap class sizes. However, unfortunately this study is focused on studying an economic policy rather than an educational policy (as previously stated by a blogger). I wonder if he was hired by the school system and how much was he paid for this study. Thus, questioning his impartially to the results.
Educator2
May 19th, 2010
10:25 pm
@What attracts good teachers- Excellent points!
Educator2
May 19th, 2010
10:27 pm
Correction- The goal of the study should be determining what class size does make a significant difference in achievement in order for “effective” funding and use that data to cap class sizes.
worriedabouted
May 19th, 2010
10:30 pm
Don’t forget that the best way for students to learn is through hands-on activities. I can tell you that in most Science classrooms, we do not have the space or equipment for 35 students in a class to be able to carry out labs and hands-on activities!
I’m so frustrated for the kids’ sake, I want to cry. I have a couple of classes that have leveled out to about 20 kids and a couple of classes that remain at 30 kids right now. The difference is HUGE! There is MUCH less distraction in the smaller classes. I can assess assignments efficiently and give the students direct and timely feedback in the smaller classes. We also accomplish a lot more work in those classes each period. When we do stations labs, I can keep it to about 3 kids in a group in the smaller classes. This assures that each member must be an engaged, active participant in labs. In the larger classes, it often has to be 5 to a group which often ends up with a few kids talking and fooling around and a couple of kids working in each group.
Yeah, sure, class size makes no difference. Keep telling yourselves that Department of Education.
@ worriedabout
May 19th, 2010
11:06 pm
I can understand your concern about labs. Labs above 24 students in high school are unsafe for students. Lab accidents go up dramatically after that number. DeKalb Schools does not require labs because we have such large class sizes and they know accidents are more prevalent in large class lab class sizes. Even universities with 150 students in a chemistry or biology class don’t have over 30 students in a lab situation. I guess science lab safety was not looked at in this study. Or maybe the author doesn’t feel labs are necessary for science.
Dr. John Trotter
May 20th, 2010
12:50 am
Bad Discipline. Bad Students. Bad Schools. It’s fun telling the truth.
ScienceTeacher671
May 20th, 2010
6:44 am
Back during King Roy’s administration, the state was supposedly going to decrease the maximum for lab classes to the NSTA-recommended 24.
Still waiting….
ateachertoo
May 21st, 2010
12:17 pm
I taught special education classes with more than twenty five students in a class at the middle school level in Florida. I would rather serve in combat in Iraq than do that again. Teachers are the least respected and most taken advantage of professions, next to police officers.
Education board allows local school systems to determine class sizes « East Metro Atlanta Libertarian Party
May 24th, 2010
1:42 pm
[...] from its local board before raising class sizes.Before the naysayers get started, class sizes have no impact on grades, according to a study from [...]
denise
May 28th, 2010
9:08 am
In their senior year AP students apparently cannot learn in a class size greater than 25 when being educated in public schools across America; these same students, praise the Lord, CAN learn in survey couses of 50 or more at top tier colleges just a mere matter of months after graduation. What gives??? Small classes, with no regard to class demographics, present unreasonable costs to taxpayers. But who cares about that when we adopt wasteful policies “for the children”.
rb
May 28th, 2010
9:40 am
Several posts asked for studies to see exactly what size reduction… 6, 8, 10 produce benefits to student learning. Not once did they ask for a ROI (return on investment for all you teachers) calculation to see if a slight achievement uptick is worth the millions of taxpayer dollars per fractional-point increase. I’ll bet if you reduced class size to one-on-one tutoring you’d see achievement scores increase…and we taxpayers would be flat out broke!
NJ Governer Chris Christie tells it straight!! - Page 2 - US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum
May 28th, 2010
8:23 pm
[...] not smaller class size. Here is a study from HARVARD that comes to that same conclusion. Latest study: Reducing class size doesn’t benefit student achievement | Get Schooled More pay is great, if the teacher is good! I am all for merit pay for great teachers. They pay for [...]
clear2me
June 10th, 2010
7:50 am
1. Sudies are interesting. They drive money and policies. However, studies are often overturned with a closer look and repeated research. There is an ebb and flow to ‘all’ studies. Remember all of the dicussion over phonics and whole language? In the end…we need a good blend of both…
2. I have a brain. I am in the classroom. I know the benefit of a smaller class size. I am the one facilitating ‘thick questions’ and inferential comprehension. I know how my class learns and absorbs concepts more clearly when I can break them into small groups and assessments. When student’s anxiety can be reduced, laughter implemented, and confidence gained, they flourish. I am building children that will be adjusted for the the long haul…not just a standardized test. That is something that cannot be calculated by any real research. So Matthew Chingos spent an unusual amount of time (an effort) on a study that I find meaningless. I do not need his study to drive my classroom. I am the professional in the classroom. I see clearly how class size drives my methods. He cannot know my results. He has no knowledge of my records, He does not sit at the ‘connection table’ with me and my students. He is an outsider making an inside decision. It would be like me going into an operating room and trying to determine a surgeon’s efficient use of time and how many surgeries he should be doing. Meaningless. There will be other studies down the road that make his become obselete. Ridiculous indeed. Mr. Chingos go sit in the classroom. Follow the engaged learning that takes place (follow the children of large and small class sizes) and then at least your research would have some credible merit. Your Harvard pedigree does not phase me. I see clearly the faces of real research in front of me each day. I know the time involved with small and large classes. I am the expert.
.3. Three students might very well have no real effect on the Florida class size. That would depend on the grade (they are all unique with different objectives), the teachers in the study, and the academic ability of the students. There are tremendous variables that were not accounted for in the study. I might reach 15 second graders extremely well. Three gifted students would not change the mix up much…three learning challenged children might make a world of difference. Everything depends on the teacher, the ability of students, and the support of parents and administration. With every state in a financial crisis we will have to be alert to studies done to drive state budgets because money is obselete. We are the professionals in the classroom. We don’t need studies to drive our methods. Educators should be included in any real the research…but then the outcome would not be what President Obama and our goverment would need to make all their radical cuts.
I appreciate Mr. Chingos’ study that is presently being circulated; but in light of drastic teacher layoffs, and increased class sizes, (in Florida and Georgia) I just don’t buy a word of it. Time will tell the rest of this research evidence.
Watch and see…
Jeannie Jones
August 28th, 2010
11:09 am
Yes, from a 25 year Florida Veteran teacher who is certified in everything.
Class SIZE does make a difference. Presently, I have 170 ESOL Reading
Students and it is simply crowd control in my classroom on a daily basis.
You cannot differentiate instruction, or teach students to read with 30 students
who speak different languages. For years it hasn’t worked in our high schools.
We continue to exhaust our teachers to save money. Many quit and move on
to other jobs.
In China teachers look drained and exhausted. Many get sick because there
are 40 students in their public school classrooms. It is ridiculous to believe that
children can learn and make terrific gains when crowded together. I have done
research experiments in public schools where the number of children is kept to 23
students in both elementary and middle school and there were terrific gains made
by every student. I should have taken pictures of the exhausted teachers in China
last summer and there faces say it all, “We MUST have class size amendments
to protect both teachers and students. Remember our ultimate goal is that
we want children to learn and they can’t when their teacher is physically drained
and exhausted.
Jeannie Jones
August 28th, 2010
11:12 am
I apologize for the wacky way the text is all over the page. I am not sure what happened.