Class Size and Student Achievement
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-03-08/class-size-and-student-achievement
In Wisconsin the state legislature remain at a total impasse over a vote on legislation that would largely strip public employees of collective bargaining. Teachers are among state employees caught in the ongoing bitter battle over the budget and union rights. The governor of Wisconsin has already announced $800 million in cuts to schools. In Wisconsin and many other cash strapped states across the country, teacher lay-offs are expected and class sizes are likely to grow … but not everyone thinks this is necessarily a bad idea. Join us to discuss what’s lost and what isn’t as class sizes expand in the K through 12 years.
Guests
Diane Ravitch
author, professor at New York University, and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Leonie Haimson
executive director, Class Size Matters.
Eric Hanushek
senior fellow, Hoover Institution.
Kris Amundson
communications manager, Education Sector.
Kerry Sylvia
high school teacher, Cardozo High School, Washington, D.C.
Comments
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Though teachers hours are less but they work overtime setting up exam papers, evaluating quizes, assignments etc.
The reason why Asians are successful are their parents pay attention to their child's studies. Every parent spend time with the child putting their interests in the back burner. Whereas American parents especially African Americans spend very little time.
Teachers can not do the whole 9 yards.
There are weaknesses on both sides of the issue of collective bargaining. It is a positive IF the unions are proactive on behalf of the teacher. Here in S. Fla they are reactive & poor on performance aside from collecting dues. Removing collective bargaining should be up to the participant's vote not any government entity.
On the issue of class size, this should be determined by the character of the individual group of students. Well disciplined student often do not need high level of individual attention. Poor discipline is a common factor in S.Fl classes as a result of many cultural & language assimilation issues.
The attention should be made to increasing the number of Teacher Assistants, be these from a pool of Parents or recent graduates Teachers, the internship is beneficial for all involved.
It is common for new teachers to be overwhelmed by being thruster into a difficult situation with limited experiences. They quit & society has lost a potential good teacher & the investment in their education.
I'd like to point out the your guest that is speaking about Fairfax County high school class size being at 29 without a decrease in achievement is not comparing apples to apples. Those teaching in DC are faced with many more difficulties than those in Fairfax County. The socioeconomic status of the students is not comparable, nor are the demographics.
It is important to note that the example of Fairfax County, the number one school district in the US, is not the best example for comparison.
I taught for forty years, the last twenty as a secondary school English teacher. When class size is over thirty, a teacher's ability to evaluate student work in order to find ways to identify the remediation a student might need is sharply impacted. The teacher is expected to return work to students in a timely way, never over a week. Teachers just can't read and respond with helpful comments the essays of five or six classes of 30 or more students. The result is a shift to "easy mark" assignments--multiple choice, one sentence answers--which simply don't develop crucial thinking and creative skills. Yes, better teachers are always the best option, but it isn't the realistic option. We don't all live in Lake Wobegon where all the teachers and kids are above average!
I think the difference between Fairfax Virgina and the Midwest (where I am) is we no longer have paraprofessionals to assist teachers with larger classroom size. I think it is unfair not to mention this when using Fairfax as an example. Also, Fairfax schools tend to be more progressive than the their Midwestern counter parts.
As a science teacher since 2000 I can guarantee that class size does have an impact on learning. I have taught in both public and private schools and I know that the quality of education that my students receive is dependent on how many students I have per class. My class sizes have ranged from 20-29. In my classes of 20 I am able to conduct more challenging lab experiments, teach students how to write comprehensive lab reports and provide more effective assessments including projects, papers and lab practicals. When I have 80 students/year versus 130-150 I am a different teacher. With the larger classes I use more multiple choice, almost no papers, and have fewer interactions with students. I know that I will pay a premium to send my daughters to schools where small class size is guaranteed. I would love to see the legislators who are making these decisions spend one hour for a week with 30 adolescents and then say that class size does not matter.
Why is it that the whole discussion on the achievement of our children is placed solely on the shoulders of the teachers. The most powerful and influential people in a child's life are the parents. As a former teacher, by the end of the first couple of weeks could pick out who's parents were going to show up for conferences and those who wouldn't. Let's shift some of this discussion to the parents or lack thereof
I have been a GED teacher in Cleveland for 25 years. Have you considered the drop out rate of students who have dropped out because they didn't have enough attention? I heard that sooooooooo many times!
Also, even the greatest teachers can get burned out and that happens because the burdens are so great
Please, please let's not make the discussion a he said/she said about class size, where the quality of the studies and resultant data are very mixed, and focus instead on Dr. Hanushek's long term conclusive research on teacher quality. At long last, we are talking about quality variation among this unionized, protected work force. I would much prefer to have my son or daughter in a class of 30 with a fabulous teacher than in a class of 20 with a mediocre one. Dr. Hanushek's data bear this out.
Great program. I’m a history teacher w/ 38 years of experience. Class size makes a difference when trying to give effective and critical feedback to students. I like my students to write essays, expressing their view on a particular topic and supporting their view w/ evidence from our studies. When grading those essays, the effective feedback I can give on those essays diminishes significantly if the class size is more than 30. When the class size increases, the time I can spend on each paper is compromised…so, fewer essays and more “quick grade” assignments. They can be effective, but I do not get the benefit of reading what they think and how they think. Those are higher level thinking skills which are not necessarily measured by standardized testing but are definitely measured when students go in to the real world. Lydia
The profiles of the participants don't identify Mr. Hanushek as a participant on the research advisory board of the Education Sector, the same institution that Ms Amundson works for. All it indicates is the reason they're viewpoints are so similar, I believe. It would've been better to have more independent views represented than have been presented.
Thank you,
Robert
Class size DOES matter.
I recently retired from 30 years in corporate engineering management and developed a university level course and have been teaching this for the past four years.
During my career, I was aware that new college graduates had very little hands-on experience in actual engineering skills - and it is this upon which my course is based. It is a senior level course for mechanical engineers...
I have been fortunate to be able to limit my class to 30 students, and thus have the opportunity to work closely with them.
What I am finding is that I am spending as much time correcting their grammar, spelling, and sentence structure in their reports as actual information content.
Over their college years, the students have been in large classes - way too large for a Professor to actually grade the reports. ( I was speaking to one of the department faculty last week : he told me his classes totaled 500 students !! ) Thus what happens is that teaching assistants actually do the grading - and they are little better prepared to do so than the students being graded.
Size Does Matter : the students in the USA are not being effectively educated .
Part of the problem lies also with the Family - how many parents take the responsibility to assist with the education of their children rather than "just expecting someone else to do it " ????
I suggest another program based on the book :
" Academically Adrift Limited Learning on College Campuses " by Richard Arum
Regards,
Alex
Orlando Fla
To say that increasing class size doesn't matter by looking at test scores is just silly --teachers are getting better and better at teaching to the test, and are even more likely to do that if the class size is large. It's too difficult to really help students learn, so they simply teach the students how to succeed on the tests.
I also went to a parochial elementary school with a class size of 50. We were challenged and learned and succeeded. Your guest makes an important point while not knowing it. She mentions that the classrooms now have a much more diverse group of students in the same classroom. Teachers are asked to teach to all those levels at the same time. This is an impossible situation to expect the same achievement level as a more homogenous group: the type of class that could achieve with a class of 50.
Classrooms seem to be built for about 25 to 30 students. Put in too many, and the rows are narrow, inappropriate student interaction tends to increase. Even older classrooms that may have been built for 30 - 40 are now filled with reading centers, science activity tables, computer clusters. And teachers need to be prepared to provide activities and supervision for a wide range of ability levels and interests.
As a society must we choose whether the goal of public education should be to provide the best education opportunities, bar no expense or education with the goal to eradicate illiteracy and/or develop basic competencies? What's the overall educational philosophy of public education?
This shouldn't be solely about students. ITeachers are just as important as students, and should be able to expect some fairness in their workplace.
t's common sense that adding students to a class adds work to a teacher's workload: more exams to grade, more calls to parents, etc. Teachers work very long hours already. Why do we think it's reasonable to expect teachers to take on many hours of additional work each week and be expected to maintain or even improve output, while being paid the same (and, currently, less) wages?
Do we want to cut costs in education? Then enable schools to fire under-performing teachers. I spent five years working in private industry, in advertising, where if you aren't good at your job and pleasant to work with, you're fired. I left that job to become an art teacher, and it blows my mind that this doesn't happen in public education. tenure is a ridiculous, expensive concept that costs taxpayers and students.
Just discussing class size does not address more of the fundamental problems addressing the education system. Smaller class sizes do allow teachers to work through required work better but it is the system that needs fixing. The fundamental idea of setting up the teacher as the only source of knowledge in the classroom doesn't work in the modern world. The Montessori approach for instance develops individually motivated learners who can operate in a highly autonomous fashion, freeing the teacher to work individually with all students when they need it. Class size has much less impact in this way and classes could be much larger. This system works!
Listening to this show the solution seems easy even with budget cuts:
1- stop mainstreaming kids with disabilities.
2-place kids in classes according to their abilities- more uniform teaching enviroment
When I went to public school, we never saw the kids with emotional problems, etc. They had separate schooling. We were also placed in classes according to our abiliti
In the 70's I taught 6 classes. I had about 50 children per class. That's 300 children a day.
I grew up in Catholic schools and classes were large but we were similiar in background.
It is true that class size makes a difference.
If any parent had attempted to teach my first classes, s/he would have fled.
This is a class issue. Richer people find alternative schools. Poor kids sit in huge classes.
Remember please, the only ongoing indicator of children's success in school is their parents economic background.
I've taught for 35 years. Generally I have be accounted a good teacher.
Cincinnati schools gave me an "outstanding" rating. This is not a common rating.
Why do we continue promoting students so that we have high school students reading at a third grade level? It seems to me that education is more effective (for the students and teachers) if the teacher is working with students of a similar education level.
Is a simple solution to this problem to be more honest and accurate in our year-end assessment of student's abilities?
As a retired public school teacher of 37 years, I wonder where the politicians and commentators send their children. Do they attend expensive private schools with less than fifteen students in all classes or are they enrolled in public schools with more than thirty students per class?
Is some of the problem the composition of the classes? We have mainstreamed disabled and learning challenged students with others. Is separating those with these challenges a better solution to settings where their needs can be addressed, allowing increased sizes for those without disabilities.
I am a special education teacher in a city school district and I love my job. I grew up in the suburbs and went to a suburban district where the families were mainly professional upper-middle class. My siblings and I would have done fine in larger classes because our parents took a huge interest in our education and pushed us to succeed. I think where we see schools failing is where we have less parent investment in their students. As a society we cannot just hold teachers accountable for the success of children, the parents should be accountable too.
I have taught for 10 years + in private and public schools from preschool special education up through middle school. I think that a huge part of the problem is the public, media and politicians criticizing the teachers individually for a problem that is much more complex than just class size.
One of the guests commented that in her district they went from 25 to 29 in a class and saw no difference in test scores. IF the scores were already less than what they want, WHY would you push the limit. It doesn't make any sense. It seems that IF education IS as important as everyone says, then you would try to IMPROVE the environment to improve the scores.
Class size is integral to control of the classroom. We talk about having effective teachers, yet we don't want to provide teachers with an environment that is conducive to effective instruction. In my experience, behavior problems often arise -- even among the highest achieving classes -- when student numbers arise above 27 students. No one can learn if the classroom is not controlled, and class size often goes hand in hand with a disciplined classroom.
I have taught in DC, Northern Virginia (Alexandria City Public Schools) , and now live in Chapel Hll, NC, where I am a graduate student in education at UNC-CH. Time and again, the chief complaint among my fellow teachers has been and is class size. It is impossible to provide the same amount of individual attention to students in a large class of 35 as it is in a class of 25.
We in the U.S. want the best schools in the world, yet we don't want to pay for it. If we want high achievement, we must reprioritize our funding to ensure we are spending money on the things that will help our students most. Buying iPod touches and SmartBoards for every classroom (two things my school district did last school year) are not wise investments of our education system's fiscal resources. Hiring more teachers and giving students an environment where they can actually learn from an experienced teacher is where we should be spending our educational dollars.
I was born in a small farming community, where the largest graduating class had been a whopping 65 kids. Needless to say my early education was done with no more than 10-15 kids per classroom. However, we moved to Chapel Hill, NC when I started Middle School, where class sizes were more like 20-30 people. Where I was a straight A student in my tiny community, I nearly didn't finish High School (in the best school system in North Carolina at the time, mind you) and although my teachers were wonderful, I fell behind and got lost in the mess of too many kids for one teacher to make much impact. Even though it would cost a lot, doesn't the future of our economic prosperity lie in ensuring we give our kids the BEST education there is? And wouldn't that include making sure our teachers all have what they need to make the most impact?
Just a quick search of private and parochial school web sites will show that small class size is one of the selling points these schools use to market themselves.
If small class size is not important, then why would private and parochial schools site small class size as one of the reasons people should take their children out of the public school system?
Could it be that private schools and parochial schools have not received the message that larger class sizes don't really matter? I don't think so. I think they know better.
Thank you.
Class size is a CODE WORD. The reason you need smaller classes is because of all the behavior and learning difficulties. And the outside of the class staff -- we have someone who does nothing but reviews assessments to see if we make AYP. And there are so many reading specialists, we lost our science teacher to hire more! I don't think there is much research on if the special teacher half hours even work.
I am the mom of two kids in a "successful" school district in Chapel Hill. But it is still a disaster. The kids who do well have well-to-do families and the teachers generally know they will take care of themselves, so all of the resources and time goes in to "filling the achievement gap." This GAP is mis-named, because it is a socio-economic and cultural gap which means the kids deal with CRAMMING to fix the gap but it is just a change in a test score, not a real change in the gap.
The reality is, not everyone can go to college and sooner or later our money woes are going to get us to be real here (like Europe). A big class of well-behaved students is teachable. But this is such a rare thing, there is no reason to even talk about it. Until the educational system can talk about the real issues of how important HEADSTART is, but also how we are enabling kids in later grades by having so many special teachers who pull them out of class for endless "special help" ... without being called a "Classist" or "Racist" will be really useful! What has the Establishment been smokin, if they thinking that one teacher can address the inclusive classes with 5 gifted, 5 with profound learning disability, and 5 with serious behavior issues, and the 10 in the middle (who are ignored).