{"id":563,"date":"2010-12-04T16:35:28","date_gmt":"2010-12-04T20:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/?p=563"},"modified":"2011-04-08T20:02:11","modified_gmt":"2011-04-09T00:02:11","slug":"does-class-size-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/?p=563","title":{"rendered":"Does class size matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Many moons ago – summer of 2009 – there was an AP piece<\/a> about the increase in class sizes across the US and further chatter on blogs like Eduwonk<\/a> and the like that it isn\u2019t really about class size but more about teacher effectiveness – which is right on. An effective teacher is far more important than smaller classes – at least the little-here-little-there small that school districts tend to implement. As researcher Eric Hanushek said in the AP story, “All the research suggests the number of kids is much less important than who is teaching the class.”<\/p>\n

Friends have asked about this issue, and below is something that a former colleague of mine pulled together on it for our PTA. (See it also here<\/a>.) Yes, it\u2019s a little wonky but gives a sense what the research says about class size and its impact on achievement, student behavior, and teacher satisfaction.<\/p>\n

Here goes:<\/p>\n

Class Size and Impact on Student Achievement\/Performance<\/strong>: The one seminal study – known as the largest, best-designed experiment on the impact of class size – is the STAR Project (Mosteller, 1995<\/a>), completed in 1995. This longitudinal study controlled for unwanted variables for which previous studies on class size had been criticized, such as teacher training, socioeconomic background, and curriculum material and programs. The results showed that (1) long-term exposure to small classes (in grades K-3) generated substantially higher levels of achievement and the (2) extra gains associated with long-term exposure to small classes were greater the longer students were exposed to those classes. In addition, although all types of students experienced extra gains from long-term exposure to small classes in the early grades, those gains were greater for students who are traditionally disadvantaged in education.<\/p>\n

The study also showed that students who were exposed to small classes in the early years were able to sustain the advantages in achievement as they moved on to upper grades. The students were months ahead of those from standard classes on the local standardized test, earned better grades, and dropped out at a lower rate. In high school these students took more advanced and foreign language courses, graduated at a higher rate, and volunteered to take college entrance exams at a higher rate than students not exposed to small class sizes in the early years. Additional conclusions drawn from STAR include:<\/p>\n