Class Sizes, Big or Small?

Students, teachers and administrators everywhere are hearing about the topic of class size reduction and it's benefits versus the costly measures that are being taken in order to implement this movement in education. Research has indicated that people agree with the idea that small educational settings will undoubtedly provide success for schools, students, as well as teachers, but the inevitable problems that go along with reducing class sizes are also of major concern to the communities that surround the school.

There are many factors which have contributed to the idea that class sizes should be reduced including: falling test scores, rising drop-out rates, increased school violence, trends toward career and character education, along with techniques favoring learner-oriented strategies that people feel need to be changed to better our students. The question is, what measures can be tolerated to reduce class sizes? What sacrifices will the community have to make in order to solve the problem? There is no conclusive evidence that leads us to a definitive answer to this problem. So, the class size debate lives on in communities everywhere, and there doesn't seem to be a clear answer on the horizon.

Some educators believe more and more that students, especially in the primary grades, would benefit from a class size reduction to a national average of 18 students per classroom. Studies such as Tennessee's Project STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio) have shown that smaller classes are better for both the teacher and the students in both educational and social aspects. It is obvious that the nation is motivated to try to improve school climate for both students and teachers, and the reduction of class size is one avenue that they are pursuing.

Other states are looking into the possibilities that the reduction of class sizes will have on their young learners. Some states, such as Ohio, are using funds from the Class Size Reduction Program to turn low-performing schools around by reducing class size from 25 to 15. In Maryland, students in grades one and two have stated that they are benefiting by having a class size of no more than 15 students for reading instruction. Finally, in Pennsylvania and Mississippi, funds are being used to recruit and prepare qualified teachers so they too can reap the benefits that smaller class sizes seem to produce.

A supporter of this movement, Michael Klonsky, a Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, summed it up by stating, "A compelling body of research shows that when students are part of smaller and more intimated learning communities, they are more successful." Other notable supporters of this faction include former Vice President Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Richard Riley (Secretary of Education) to name a few.

Schools that are large already, and are considering class size reduction, have many options. Some common ways of accomplishing a more intimate atmosphere are described in the following plans. A House-Plan assigns students to groups (houses) within a large school where teachers and students belong to the same house. In this plan, the houses are governed by the school and don't develop their own curriculum or programs. Usually houses participate in extra-curricular activities of the school. Mini-Schools' Plans are similar to House-Plans in that they operate within a larger school structure, but this model generally establishes their own curriculum and instruction but depend on the larger school for their budget and support staff. Schools-within-schools are autonomous units that plan their own programs, have their own staff, and receive their own budget. The only connection between the schools-within-schools is that they share a common space. These are all options that supporters of smaller classrooms are looking into.

However, this movement toward fewer students per classroom is not without opposition. Locally, a University of Rochester professor Erik Hanushek disagrees that this movement toward smaller classes is necessarily the answer. Hanushek states, " If you have a choice between a small class with a bad teacher or a large class with a good teacher, which would you choose?" It is apparent that Hanushek's view of class efficiency is not dependent upon the quantity of students but on the quality of the teacher.

However, more people are interested in the hard-line economics of reducing class sizes rather than pointing the finger at teachers. For example, In Rochester New York, Penfield High School has been toying with the idea of reducing class sizes for quite some time. There has been talk of expansion of the current building, and even talk of creating a separate high school, in order to reduce the number of students in a given classroom. The problem: money. The cost of renovating a school is astronomical, involving a complicated network of committees and boards that negotiate what plans will be approved, and what plans will be tabled. In Penfield's case, the red tape has accumulated for the past five years, and the student body is increasing dramatically. The bottom line is that expansion faces a lot of opposition within a community. Not everyone has children that are in primary or secondary school, and these people have very realistic concerns about where their tax dollars will be allocated. Penfield, as stated earlier, went through a major renovation five years ago. Should the community be pressured into spending that much more money after such a short period of time? In order to have any sort of expansion plan set into motion, the support of the community must be present. Creating smaller class sizes is an expensive, time consuming process that may cause members of the community to balk when it comes to the allocation of funds.

In my personal experience I have been a part of both large and small settings and I have become partial to smaller settings because the personal attention really contributes to my success. In larger settings I was pushed to become more independent, however the lack of individual attention assisted in slipping grades and isolation from peers. I feel that in an educational setting, the well-being of the youth needs to be kept in mind when considering class size. I personally feel that if there is evidence that points to class size reduction being important to the success of students, money should take a backseat and we should improve the schools as much as we need to.

It is apparent that the reduction of class size in primary grades benefits learners, assuming that the quality of the instructor is present. However, it is also apparent that many communities have significant concerns about their tax dollars and where and how much they are expected to spend their money. As long as this impasse exists, smaller class sizes will be considered a luxury that only exists on the horizon.