The Department of Education has conducted research that bolsters the case that our small class sizes should be reevaluated when our new Superintendent becomes the CEO of our district.
The paper you cited (from 2012) should be compared with the more recent 2017 Massachusetts Secretary of Education policy brief provided as a resource to all districts in the Commonwealth. This 2017 Massachusetts Class Size and Policy Brief <https://www.doe.mass.edu/research/reports/2017/12class-size.docx> was written by Amy Ellen Schwartz <https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2022/july/biden-school-dean-amy-schwartz-appointment/>, the current dean of the Biden School of Public Policy at the University of Delaware. In short, this brief supports larger classes, stating that “reducing class size can have unanticipated negative impacts on average teacher quality” and that “most modern studies” on class size “show much smaller impacts than the STAR experiment or no effects at all.” What’s more, smaller classes require more teachers and perhaps surprisingly, teachers are becoming increasingly hard to find for our school. The Lincoln Middle School had a difficult time staffing a class. They ended up promoting someone internally without any relevant education or teaching experience. Until we pay more, we may continue to have difficulties finding teachers. I haven't done much research at our peer school districts besides our neighbor Weston. To be sure, their average class sizes are larger than ours, and their test results are superior when compared to Lincoln. Peter On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 8:41 AM Benjamin Shiller <benshil...@gmail.com> wrote: > I would like to push back against recent claims that smaller classes do > not improve outcomes. A recent study in a top journal (implying the study > was highly scrutinized and passed) shows that exogenous changes in class > size have meaningful impacts on a variety of long run outcomes. Smaller > class sizes are found to be better, and pass some notion of a cost benefit > analysis. > > Link to final published study: > https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/128/1/249/1839904 > > Link to earlier version of the paper that is not behind a paywall: > https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/6857958.pdf > > While I fully agree with the notion that we should look hard at how to > improve the outcomes of our students (both for parents and because better > schools = higher property values), larger classes seem to hinder that > effort. > -- > The LincolnTalk mailing list. > To post, send mail to Lincoln@lincolntalk.org. > Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/ > . > Change your subscription settings at > https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. > >
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