by AFT President Sandra Feldman
March 1998

Parents and teachers
were right all along
about class size.

Class size has been a hot issue for years--especially for parents and teachers. It seems like common sense that students learn better in smaller classes where the teacher has more time for each child. But up until now, we haven't had conclusive evidence that smaller classes are more effective, and people who hold the purse strings have generally dismissed them as a big waste of money--or, when unions fought to get smaller classes--as a ploy to make things easier for teachers.

As a result, many public school students, and especially poor kids in inner-city schools, have been crowded into classes of 30, 35, or even 40 students. And many parents who had the money have pulled their kids out and enrolled them in private schools--no problem getting small classes there.

Now, reducing class size in the early grades is on the national agenda because President Clinton included it in his State of the Union education package. And governors of both parties are saying they want to reduce class size--some have already done so.

What caused the turnaround? A number of recent studies show that parents and teachers were right all along: Smaller class size really works. In the early grades, all children learn better in classes of 15 to 17 students, and the gains are even greater for poor children in inner-city schools. Here's what the new studies tell us:

-- Effects that last into high school. "One of the great experiments in education"--that's what eminent Harvard economist, Frederick Mosteller, calls STAR, the Tennessee class-size study. STAR researchers analyzed the achievement of K-3 students who were randomly assigned to classes of 13 to 17. They found that kids in small classes did much better than students in regular classes in math and reading, every year and in all grades. The small classes made the biggest difference in the scores of children in inner-city schools. Researchers are still following students who participated in the experiment, and they've found that the benefits of small classes in the early years last at least into high school--long after students are back in regular-size classes.

-- A 16-point advantage for African-American boys. SAGE, a Wisconsin program, begun in 1996-97, reduces class size for K-3 children in certain high-poverty schools. At the end of the first year, SAGE kids had made significantly greater improvements in reading, language arts, and math than children in similar schools. African-American boys did especially well: Their total scores went up 56 points compared with 39.4 for students in comparison schools.

-- Half a year difference in fourth-grade math. Harold Wenglinsky, a researcher who analyzed fourth and eighth-grade math scores on the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress, found that "fourth graders in smaller-than-average classes are about half a year ahead of fourth graders in larger-than-average classes," with the "largest effects" (three-fourths of a year ahead) for low-income students in urban areas. And the effects are even more substantial for urban eighth graders.

--Who says vouchers are better? Princeton professor Cecilia Rouse did a careful study of student performance in Milwaukee elementary schools-- both public schools and those accepting vouchers. She found that public school students in certain special schools where the pupil-teacher ratio was reduced to 17 to 1 progressed as well as voucher students in math. And they made "substantially faster" progress in reading than voucher students. They are poor, minority kids, just like the students in voucher schools.

We know what works

Are smaller classes a good idea, particularly in the early years? These studies answer that question once and for all. They confirm what many parents and teachers always maintained. And they show that smaller classes are especially valuable for poor children. This should make the people who talk about using vouchers to "save" a few poor students--by sending them to private schools with small classes--stop to think. Reducing class size could help districts get these good results for all their children, not just a few.

We already know what works to raise student achievement: high academic standards and proven programs taught by teachers who are well-prepared to carry them out. Now we know that smaller class size works. None of these things by itself is a panacea, but together they can do the job for our kids--if the adults in charge have the intelligence and determination to use them.