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When Does Small Class Size Help Student Achievement?
Studies over the last twenty years have provided researchers and educators with the opportunity to observe reduced-size classrooms and gather data on student achievement. Class-size reduction has been deemed successful when students show marked improvement in learning through formal evaluations.
Success is most likely for students in smaller classes under the following conditions:
• When the student-teacher ratio is reduced significantly.
No one is completely sure how small classes should be to maximally benefit students. Project STAR, a leading study from Tennessee, defined small classes as those with 13-17 students. Regular-sized classes were defined as those with 22 or more students. When tested, students in small classes consistently outperformed students in regular-sized classrooms (Pate-Bain, Achilles, and others 1992). The most notable student gains came from low-achieving students with impoverished socioeconomic backgrounds (McRobbie 1998; Illig 1996). In light of these results, many states have begun shrinking class size to 17-20 students per teacher.
Clearly, a drop from 35 students to 18 students is dramatic, and some specialists believe class-size reduction must be this substantial before significant student gains will be evident. Merely reducing class size from 25 down to 20 is an ineffective form of implementation.
• When reduction initiatives are implemented in grades K-3.
The most effective class-size reduction initiatives have focused on the early grades. Project STAR focused on grades K-3. Similarly, California’s Class-Size Reduction (CSR) initiative targets kindergarten through third grade.
When reduction initiatives are implemented in early grades, young students are more likely to get the extra attention they need to learn basic skills in reading, writing, and math. These students, research is now showing, will carry the effects of a small class with them throughout the remainder of their academic careers. Tennessee’s Lasting Benefits Study, a followup to Project Star, has found that the gains due to small classes were still evident in reading and math through grade 8. (Nye with Hedges and others 1999).
• When certain services and technologies are available to achieve the small-class effect.
When well-trained teachers employ effective instructional techniques, students achieve more. No organizational reform, smaller class size included, will substitute for high-quality teaching, as many studies have documented (McRobbie and others 1998). If professional development that guides teachers in small-class instruction is used in conjunction with effective teaching practices, a strong curriculum, and smaller classes, researchers will be more able to examine the true effects of class-size reduction (Beall 1998; U.S. Department of Education 1998).
Teachers and students must have sufficient classroom space and access to materials and services. Some schools seeking to reduce class size have struggled with this issue, whereas others already have the resources available. In California, with the implementation of CSR, school districts have scrambled to accommodate more classes with fewer students, sometimes having to schedule classes in hallways or in portable classrooms.
Class-size reduction should be viewed not as an end but as a means to an end. Teachers still need access to specialists, special programs, and other schoolwide services. Although there is evidence that the need for special services and programs is reduced in smaller classrooms, class-size reduction is a reform that should be used in conjunction with a variety of other practices.
A major advantage of small classes, teachers uniformly report, is that they can devote more time to instruction because they do not need to spend as much time on classroom management. These possibilities are realized when all the conditions for a positive small-class experience are in place and a teacher can truly take advantage of a reduction in student numbers.
Wise policymaking seeks to produce the greatest student gains from finite education dollars. To reach this goal while attempting to reduce class size, policymakers must pay particular attention to the conditions noted above (a target of 13-17 students per class in the primary grades, with adequate training and support for teachers). Although specific scenarios may differ from state to state, research has shown these basic elements to be of utmost importance in the implementation of class-size-reduction initiatives. CL
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