Class Size Reduction: The Next Great Leap...Backward

MYTH: Student-teacher ratios in today’s classrooms are too high. Students are short changed and do not receive appropriate teacher attention. As a result, children are not able to reach their true academic potential. Smaller classes would result in better student-teacher interaction, children would receive the attention they deserve, and test scores would increase.

Since the mid-1960s, student achievement and test scores have been steadily declining while discipline problems have increased. One option to reverse these trends is to reduce the size of classes. Common sense dictates that large classes increase teacher work loads and stress, limit the amount and quality of individual attention that teachers can provide students, breeds unfavorable student behaviors, and diminishes the academic potential of students. On the other hand, smaller classes result in increased student-teacher interaction, reduced teacher work load and stress, better classroom management, fewer discipline problems, and improved student achievement.

This idea has captured the attention of the National Education Association. The NEA has promoted this concept tirelessly to school districts throughout the land with varying degrees of success. Arguing in favor of the "common-sense attractiveness" of the idea, class size reduction (CSR) promises to be an uncomplicated way to increase educational efficacy. The NEA recommends an optimal student-teacher ratio of 15 to 1. To achieve this goal would require an initial hiring of only 100,000 new teachers. Therefore, the solution to declining test scores, academic achievement, and discipline problems is to simply hire more teachers.
Sounds like a good plan.

Now, before you set your hair on fire and run screaming to your local school board demanding that they hire more teachers, let’s take a closer look at class size reduction.
In the 1950s, the national average student-teacher ratio was 30 to 1. By the 1990s, the student-teacher ratio had fallen to 19 to 1. This is a decline in the ratio of 37%.
From the late 60s to the late 90s, spending on public education increased 61% more than inflation. Over the same period, achievement and test scores declined. From the mid-60s through the 90s, the average SAT scores fell by 58 points. Despite a reduction in average class size, and increased spending on education, both promoted as essential to educational improvement, scholastic achievement plummeted.

Educationists love to compare U.S. students with students in other countries. International test scores are consistently higher than equivalent U.S. scores. Yet, class size does not appear to be a significant factor in nations with larger average class sizes. For example, Korean classes average 49 students while in Japan, the average is 36. Both countries trounce U.S. students on test scores.

Is there any evidence that smaller classes actually produce the results promised? In 1985, Tennessee began a controlled experiment called "Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio" (STAR). The STAR program was planned to provide "scientific evidence on the effects of class size reduction." The goal of the program was to reduce the ratio to 15 to 1 (based on the same vague research used by the NEA that pointed to that ratio as significant).

About the only significant finding of the STAR project was that the relationship between smaller class size and improved achievement was in kindergarten or first grade. Subsequent improvement did not follow in grades beyond K-1. If the theory was sound, it should have shown continued improvement in each successive grade level. Achievement gains, therefore, in grades K-1 were not, in and of themselves, the direct result of smaller class size, but reflected a "one-time acquisition of social and learning behaviors useful...in subsequent years."

Sixteen Austin, Texas schools participated in a CSR program in the 1980s. Each school was given $300,000 each year over a five year period to be used to reduce the student-teacher ratio. At the end of the five year period, only two schools were able to demonstrate any significant improvement. And those two schools, unlike the other 14, had invested heavily in "intensive teacher training, and rigorous academic standards," in addition to CSR.

In 1993, Nevada’s "Class Size Evaluation Study" found that "achievement levels remained about the same when small classes were compared with larger classes."

Between 1995 and 1997, Wisconsin initiated a CSR experiment called "Student Achievement Guarantee in Education" (SAGE). In contrast to Tennessee’s STAR program, SAGE went beyond CSR, but had as its goal the same 15 to 1 ratio. In the SAGE program, other factors introduced were "a revised, rigorous academic curriculum, professional development, and accountability initiatives," to name a few. Achievement gains were realized under the SAGE program. However, because of the other variables, "one cannot assume that any increases in student learning are due to class size reduction alone."

Accumulated evidence not withstanding, the state of California in 1996, mandated class size reduction for grades kindergarten through third grade. An appropriation of $1.5 billion was dangled out there as an incentive to schools to reduce the state wide student-teacher ratio to 20 to 1. California’s plan resulted in an immediately perceived teacher shortage. To fill the vacancies created by the plan, districts were forced to hire inexperienced, sometimes unqualified teachers or lose out on a portion of the Sacramento Cash Cow. Though the ratio was reduced, the quality of instruction was reduced as well, negating any possible academic gains realized from CSR.

Some major findings did come out of the various CSR experiments, studies, and programs. One was that small classes only at the kindergarten and first grade levels appear to be beneficial to initiating higher academic potential. Small classes beyond that tend not to demonstrate a linear progression of improvement beyond those levels. Another significant finding appears to be that of (gasp!) teacher quality.

Over 1100 studies focusing on class size and academic achievement have failed to find any significant relationship between the two. Yet, despite a dearth of evidence to support their claims regarding the benefits of class-size reduction, the NEA continues to pound the CSR drum.
There are other factors relative to class size reduction that the NEA would rather not disclose in its zeal to swell the ranks of teachers. Staff salaries can represent up to 80% of a typical school district’s budget. Staff includes all paid employees of a district: teachers, aides, administrators, custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, etc. If teachers represent about two-thirds of a district’s paid staff, an increase of 50% in the number of certified teachers would increase to only 85.7% of total budget allocations for teacher salaries.

That doesn’t sound like much of an increase. And, indeed, in this situation those promoting CSR would say that staff salary allocations would represent a modest increase of only 5.7%. In truth, the actual increase translates to 40% more than the previous budget with no corresponding increase in non-teaching, support, and physical plant budgetary considerations. Toss in the cost of more classroom space to handle the increased number of classes and the 40% number begins to skyrocket. Consider also additional curricular materials, books, supplies, and staff training, maintenance of the new classrooms, more custodians, more food service, more utilities (heating, cooling, etc.), and the 40% increase seems like a bargain. The figure of 85.7% of the new school budget allocated for staff salaries is for a budget at least 40% higher, and in all likelihood much higher, than before.

Where does that money come from? Certainly not the NEA. It comes from tax payers in form of higher property taxes. Funds not received from this source come from increased income taxes that are redistributed through the U.S. Department of Education in form of incentives to schools. Case in point: the unworkable No Child Left Behind Act offers billions to cash strapped schools if they hop on the NCLB band wagon. (FYI: the Department of Education was elevated to Cabinet level in 1979 by Jimmy Carter as a pay back to the NEA for its endorsement of him in the 1976 election. Is there an NEA/DOE connection? Well, as they say, that’s a wholenuther story.) Either way, the taxpayer is compelled to fork it over with little or no return on the "investment."

Teaching today has become little more than containment and baby sitting. This is due in large part to frightened, easily intimidated administrators who routinely sacrifice teachers on the alter of self-preservation. They cave when faced with unreasonable demands of special interest groups. In the absence of good leadership and administrative support, teaching becomes an exercise in futility. Administrators reluctant to allow classroom teachers to perform as per their job descriptions, or are unwilling to support faculty with discipline matters, send a message to students that learning is not meaningful. If teachers can’t teach because of poor support or training, class size is irrelevant.

In summary, class size has been shown to be an insignificant factor in improving academic achievement. It appears, however, that the emphasis should be placed on (are you ready?) teaching. Instead of tossing money down the CSR rat hole, it would be better spent on ongoing staff training. Equally important is administrative support of faculty. This can be accomplished with no increase in capital expenditures.

So, the NEA is desperately seeking 100,000 new teachers in the name of class size reduction. But if class size is not a factor in academic proficiency, what, then, is the fuss all about? The answer is that smaller classes mean more teachers. More teachers mean more money and more political clout. In the end, the NEA gets what it wants: smaller classes, and more teachers (especially more teachers). In fact, the only group that benefits from this stratagem is the NEA.