New report: Southern states should rethink raising class size in early grades
If every school in the country reduced class size by even one student, the annual cost would be $10 billion. (AJC file)
There is still a great deal of debate around whether smaller classes are worth the high cost. The Southern Regional Education Board takes on the topic in a new report, noting that it would cost more than $10 billion a year if schools nationwide reduced average class size by even one student.
The report, “Smart Class-Size Policies for Lean Times,” says that the public, when given a choice between “smaller classes with average-performing teachers” and “larger classes with better-than-average teachers,” emphatically chose better teachers over smaller classes.
The report also notes that it is difficult to get a true handle on class size and student-teacher ratios because “many states count personnel other than full-time instructors (such as guidance counselors, librarians, paraprofessionals and administrators) in the student teacher ratio. The result is looser and less rigorous than the strict average calculation.”
The report concludes: Some policy-makers and education leaders may be tempted to increase class size to cut costs. If cost cutting is the only goal, they should focus on the point in the K-12 pipeline where class-size reduction has not yet proven necessary to support academic performance — high school.
But SREB cautions that there are risks to raising class sizes in the early grades: Research clearly shows that students benefit most from smaller classes in the early grades, especially kindergarten through grade three.
The report references Georgia policy, noting that Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue asked the state Board of Education to grant districts any class-size waiver requests it considered “reasonable” for the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years. The statewide waiver has been renewed by the Board each year since and now extends through the 2012- 2013 school year.
Here is the official release:
A new report from the Southern Regional Education Board says that even when budgets are tight, states should protect smaller classes in the early grades and study the effects of larger classes on student achievement.
Research shows that students perform better in small classrooms, especially in kindergarten through third grade, according to “Smart Class-Size Policies for Lean Times.”
Yet shrinking class sizes is one of the most expensive education initiatives for states: Reducing average class size by even one student could cost the nation more than $10 billion per year. In Florida, a statewide class-size reduction policy cost nearly $22 billion over a nine-year period.
In the 1980s, SREB states, led by Tennessee and Texas, spearheaded policies to limit the number of students in public K-12 classrooms. The K-12 student-teacher ratio dropped over two decades by nearly three students in SREB states and by almost two students nationally.
In recent years, some states have altered their class-size policies as they weighed their cost effectiveness during lean times. About a third of all states — including 10 SREB states — permit waivers to provide flexibility. Florida adjusted its list of core courses, and Texas sought to move from caps to averages.
The SREB policy brief recommends that if states must consider enlarging class sizes to save money, they should:
•Consider the state’s record of student performance along with their current fiscal condition.
•Base change on research about impact on student achievement and teacher effectiveness.
•Require schools to monitor individual student achievement at any grade level where they enlarge classes.
•Factor in effectiveness of classroom teachers and how they assess it.
•Maintain smaller classes pre-K through third grade and for groups of students at risk of academic failure.
•Keep the public informed of any changes.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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67 comments Add your comment
wheelermom
June 15th, 2012
12:09 pm
FWIW – I know what Twain said about “lies, damn lies, and statistics” but according to Ed Week’s Quality Counts 2012, Georgia ranks 7th. Not 47th.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/qc/2012/16src.h31.html?intc=EW-QC12-CTR
From another perspective – my property taxes are RIDICULOUSLY low (<$1000/yr )when compared to my family in Massachusetts ($2500/year) and New Hampshire ($3500) – comparably valued homes, BTW. Yet, I feel like my children (now done, '05 & '09) got a better education here in Cobb than my nieces and nephews up north (some still in school, some from classes of '09, '10, '11). Empirical, true, but I often wonder what people are complaining about.
That being said, I am glad my kids are done – class sizes are too high, and the cuts have been too deep, IMHO as a parent. I see my friends and neighbors here, whose kids are still in school, complaining about things that weren't a problem for my kids – no field trips, no science labs, no books, etc. At a certain point we are going to have a negative ROI. I'm wondering when that point will come.
Lee
June 15th, 2012
12:11 pm
For those who say they attended much larger classes back in the 60s and 70s, that is probably true. Of course, you’re talking an era when America was still relatively homogenous with a white population of 85%+. Then the traitorous Ted Kennedy got the Immigration Act of 1965 passed which eliminated the National Origins Formula and opened our borders to massive third world immigration. Couple that with massive ILLEGAL invasions and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which pushed the special ed kids into mainstream classrooms, bow to politically correct pressures to take discipline out of the classroom, and you have the current recipe for disaster.
I’ve long been an advocate of grouping students by ability/achievement level and providing instruction commensurate with each group’s level.
Does it really matter if at the end of the semester, Group A is on chapter 20 and Group B is on chapter 12 – especially if that is the appropriate level and pace of instruction?
But alas, the educrats continue to pound square pegs into round holes and act dismayed when everyone gets hit with splinters….
teacher&mom
June 15th, 2012
12:23 pm
SAT Participation has increased since the 1970’s. Also, students taking the SAT in 2011 are more diverse than in the past.
2011 saw an increase in SAT participation among traditionally underrepresented student population:
*44% were minority students
*36% were first-generation college goers
*27% do not speak exclusively English
*more than 350,000 utilized the SAT fee waiver (indicating a larger participation of economically disadvantaged students)
Sources:
http://media.collegeboard.com/homeOrg/pdf/sat_particip_20ytrend.pdf
http://media.collegeboard.com/pdf/cbs_2011_nat_release_091411.pdf
http://media.collegeboard.com/homeOrg/pdf/2011_cbs_race_mostdiverse.pdf
http://press.collegeboard.org/releases/2011/43-percent-2011-college-bound-seniors-met-sat-college-and-career-readiness-benchmark
Janet
June 15th, 2012
12:38 pm
I have experienced both a private kindergarten with very small number of students (14 kids with 2 full time degreed teachers) and an overcrowded public kindergarten in Suwanee (with 27 kids with 1 teacher and part time parapro).
As a stay at home mom and active classroom volunteer in both situations, I can unequivocally say CLASS SIZE MATTERS!!! And the differences are astounding in terms of what could be accomplished in a day and also in terms of maintaining control of the classroom. I will say that in my situations, all teachers were great. But the student/teacher ratio made all the difference between getting a good education and barely mediocre one. Apparently Gwinnett is striving for barely mediocre. Sad.
Entitlement Society
June 15th, 2012
12:57 pm
I, too, have experienced both a private kindergarten and an APS kindergarten with similar stats regarding student teacher ratios. Having spent a great deal of volunteer time in each class room over each of those two years, if it’s not class size, I don’t know what it is, but there’s a huge difference. At the end of the year in the APS kindergarten you had at least a couple of kids who couldn’t even form letters to write their own names!!! I was appalled. Obviously, the teacher couldn’t devote enough time over the year to be able to adequately help these floundering children (and obviously they weren’t getting any support at home). So, so sad.
lyncoln
June 15th, 2012
1:21 pm
Solutions,
Here’s one counterpoint. Score trends on the NAEP in mathematics are positive over time.
“Scores for all three age groups showed a positive linear trend-an overall increase from 1973 to 1996.”
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/web/98462.asp
Also, using the data tool, one example shows 4th grade scores nationally on the NAEP from 1990-2011 rose from 212 to 240. Looks like a successful trend there.
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/
On a different note:
How many students took a calculus class in high school in 1970? I’m going to assume that the percentage is much lower than it is right now. If we are teaching more students calculus in school than we were 40 years ago, that would suggest that we are doing a better job of educating now than in the past.
Double Zero Eight
June 15th, 2012
1:24 pm
@ Entitlement Society
The sad truth is many parents send their
kids to school primarily for what they perceive
to be a “free babysitting service”. As a result,
they could care less if their child was “learning”.
It is basically the parents fault the children could
not write their “own names”.
I guess that once a student gets to college,
class size does not matter. At UGA and Tech, it is
common to have 150 students in some lecture classes.
I do believe that class size mainly matters
in kindergarten and elementary school. By the time
they are in high school, students should have a good
foundation and be able to keep up.
William Casey
June 15th, 2012
1:34 pm
@LEE: I’ve long been an advocate of grouping students by ability/achievement level and providing instruction commensurate with each group’s level.”
I’m with you on this as long as there is a concerted effort to improve assessment of ability and “ability grouping” does not become a rigid track system. In my experience, human beings develop at differing paces and historically, ability grouping systems have not taken this into account.
Entitlement Society
June 15th, 2012
1:58 pm
@ Double Zero Eight – You wrote that “The sad truth is many parents send their kids to school primarily for what they perceive
to be a “free babysitting service”. As a result, they could care less if their child was “learning”. It is basically the parents fault the children could not write their “own names”.
So, why were there only children in the public school kindergarten that couldn’t even form letters to write and not in the private school? I’m still going to put some blame on the 25:1 ratio versus the 9:1 ratio.
Furthermore, if, as you say, it’s the parent’s fault that the children cannot write letters (which most child learn well before kindergarten anyway), why do we even have public school teachers? Just asking…
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
June 15th, 2012
3:32 pm
William Casey & (T)eacher and mom,
About 15 years ago, a bill requiring admins to spend five days per year in a classroom was introduced by Representative Ben Harbin of Evans. The bill was passed in both houses but with an amendment added without the knowledge of Harbin. Under the stealth amendment, admins could opt for inservice hours instead of classroom hours.
How many of our educational “leaders” escaped from the classroom at first opportunity? Too DAMNED many! How many wanted to go back for only 5 days per year? Too DAMNED few.
William Casey
June 15th, 2012
4:40 pm
Too many education “leaders” have NO significant academic classroom experience.
dekalbite
June 15th, 2012
8:52 pm
When my daughter was in Kindergarten, she had 31 students in her class with a teacher and a paraprofessional. As she moved forward she had the same size classes in first and second with a para and in third with just the teacher, no para.
We lived (live) in an affluent neighborhood with involved parents so most of the kids did okay even with these large class sizes. However, there were some kids that had some difficulty with reading and/or math. They weren’t special education candidates, just had some developmental delay. With such large class sizes, their needs were not addressed. No fault of the teachers. The teachers just had too many children to give these students the individual attention they needed.
My daughter’s friends who were having a difficult time in the primary grades never really caught up. They had a hard time in middle school and also in high school. They started but did not finish college. They are now in their late 20s, and IMO – the impact that these large class sizes had on them in the very early grades can be seen over 20 years later.
I know this story is anecdotal, but I have watched these few friends of my daughter’s who struggled in the early grades miss out on educational opportunities as they progressed into the intermediate, middle and high school years and be unprepared for college. The problem with these studies that conclude class size doesn’t matter is they do not look at what happens to these struggling students as they grow up. What longitudinal study on class size looks at these same students who just need a little individualized attention (and cannot get it because of such large class sizes) in 20 or 25 years?
Talktome
June 16th, 2012
12:13 am
Class size matters and it does not matter. An excellent teacher will be able to teach in any size classroom. However, along with a larger class size, comes behavioral issues. A not so good teacher will not be able to do the job with 10 children. And that’s a fact. Three things need to happen in order to change our school system. 1. Get rid of racism…No it won’t happen. But as long as we have teachers who don’t care if the children they are teaching learn or not…our children will not learn…no matter what the class size. 2. Parents must get involved in their children’s education journey. Parents can no longer leave all learning up to teachers. Why would you totally trust what your children are learning up to other people? 3. We must get qualified teachers to teach our children. Qualified does not mean attending Harvard. A good teachers truly cares about the students. A good teacher has the ability to teach all children…no matter what the background. A good teacher has true integrity and will do the right thing when no one is looking. Two out of the three changes will make a different in our school systems.
Anonmom
June 16th, 2012
10:18 am
Class size matters a lot — the kids in the classes are much more diverse than they used to be — the teacher just can’t give the kids what they need with so many kids in the class. If the classes were homogeneous and were grouped with all level 1, level 2s and level 3s isolated and non-inclusive then maybe they could run slightly larger but even then, they would “top out” over 30-35. There’s a reason the top private schools run classes under 20 per class. Discipline is a huge issue…. it’s minimized in a more homogeneous classroom. Teachers need better training and national certification (Georgia has one of the weakest certification exams in the country). Administration is much too top heavy and needs to be flattened … too much money is spent in administration. I’m all for getting the Dept. of Ed in DC out of education — it’s wasting dollars. I agree that we are spending much less than our “friends” in NJ, Mass and NY in taxes used for education but I’m so cynical at this point that I think it would all be wasted away…… Now if it went to vouchers and fed in at the bottom of the pyramid, we could begin a discussion with a new paradigm.
Frustrated Teacher
June 16th, 2012
12:40 pm
Class size matters when the educational system pushes for inclusion based classes. I can teach a class of 35 students just fine, if they are all on the same level and are high performing students. However in one class of 35, I had four students with severe emotional disabilities, two with Autism, three with ADHD (and one of those was so severe I often had to stop class to prevent the child from running out the door!), and six with limited English proficiency. I don’t think ANY teacher could effectively teach in that situation. Our school system has also decided to raise class sizes by three students next year to save money, and again, each class will be fully inclusive as they don’t have the money for special education teachers to teach self contained.
Good Mother
June 16th, 2012
8:01 pm
We should LOWER class size in the early grades?
DUH.
Dr. Monica Henson
June 17th, 2012
1:01 pm
Elizabeth posted (and many other educator posters echoed, at least implicitly): “No matter what the research says…” This is the problem with the average American schoolteacher, and with many (if not most) school administrators. Until public educators K-12 begin paying attention to what the research says, and acting on it, then as a group they will never get the kind of respect they so openly hunger for, that accorded to physicians, scientists, attorneys, and others classified by practice and by society as professionals.
In addition to far more years spent in postsecondary preparation, those in the professions in this country are expected to know the research base in their field, adhere to it, and in many cases, contribute to it. This is not the case with K-12 educators, and comments prefaced with “No matter what the research says” only serve to perpetuate the public perception of K-12 educators as not deserving of the respect that doctors and scientists receive.
How many of us would want to be treated by a physician who proudly and loudly disputed medical research, complained that s/he didn’t really know what it said because s/he doesn’t have or take the time to read it, and prescribed treatment based on so-called common sense” and his/her own personal preferences and feelings, many times in direct contravention of the medical research base?