Dear Lincoln Residents, Hi again, this is Peter Buchthal and I am running for one of the two open Lincoln School Committee spot. In my previous email, I showed everyone data that a high percentage of Lincoln Parents of school age children are dissatisfied and have withdrawn their children from the school district. Lincoln loses students, more than our neighboring communities. Until we dig a bit deeper, we won’t know the reasons.
I have written previously on Lincoln Talk about how small the Lincoln Class size compares to many of our well performing peer communities like Weston. When I came to Lincoln 10 years ago before the birth of my eldest, my broker and the locals I met said the school is small and we are incredibly lucky to have such small class sizes. Now that my children are all a bit older and in 3rd, 2nd and Kindergarten, I am starting to challenge that premise. On Thursday, I wrote that I grew up in one of the best public schools in the nation. They paid their teachers really well and got the best. I fondly remember my 3rd grade teacher, Mr. Shoe (Shoemaker), my 5th grade teacher Mr. Gosen, and many others. They were simply amazing. I believe we should spend generously in our school to ensure that every student reaches his or her full potential. However, I am partial to spending resources thoughtfully. We have been making active policy choices that lead to a cost per student at least 25% higher than our peers based on DESE data. Unfortunately, these policy choices are not providing us any visible advantage versus our neighboring towns. In fact, rather the opposite, judging by last spring’s survey results (and our latest winter iReady results: 38%, or more than 1 out of three students in the Lincoln campus has “Relative overall placement is one or more grade levels behind”. In a future post, I will discuss a potential action plan that needs to be considered based upon our recent iReady results. Let’s zoom in on class sizes. Our current policy was apparently established by a study <https://www.lincnet.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=4978&dataid=10863&FileName=5.5.CSRC%20Final%20Report.pdf> conducted in 2015 by a Class Size Research Committee appointed by the Lincoln School Committee. That Committee endorsed small class sizes. The Committee based its conclusions on a 1980’s study conducted in Tennessee (project STAR), which had class sizes of 15 students rather than a more standard 22. Lincoln has since then had average class sizes that are approximately equal to those recommended by project STAR. If small class sizes are truly so superior why aren’t more towns taking this approach? Well, according to the Massachusetts Department of Education (DOE), the small class size advantage is a costly myth. In particular, project Star has been replicated in modern studies with disappointing results. I will just copy paste their paper’s key findings: <https://www.doe.mass.edu/research/reports/2017/12class-size.docx> *Small classes are popular, but evidence of their positive impact on student outcomes is disappointing—and the choices districts make about class size have real, though often hidden, costs. This policy brief explicitly aims to help inform district class size choices by summarizing the research evidence on class size and putting those findings into the Massachusetts context.* *In this brief, we highlight findings from the research literature on class size:* § *Early evidence from the Tennessee STAR experiment (the same study the Town of Lincoln used to base their small class policy) was promising, but studies using other data and settings more similar to the current education policy context suggest little effect.* § *Most modern studies show much smaller impacts than the STAR experiment or no effects at all.* § *Little convincing evidence in the current educational context shows that small classes generate greater improvements in student outcomes for black or low-income students.* § *Reducing class size can have unanticipated negative impacts on average teacher quality.* So after all, we may be spending all those resources for naught. It sounds like we are shooting ourselves in the foot by spreading ourselves thin and as result compromising our average teacher quality and our ability to supplement our school’s offerings. How do we sort out this mess? We need to start a dialogue with the new Superintendent and identify all of our policy choices. I am not suggesting we start axing teachers. The first thing we need to do is to stop hiring additional staff. The outgoing Administration appears hungry to add to its numbers and is proposing we add another 2.5 FTEs for next year (page 28). <https://www.lincnet.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=11409&dataid=26412&FileName=8.1.1%20FY24%20Lincoln%20Public%20Schools%20Preliminary%20Budget%20book2022.11.28.pdf> Having stopped or delayed the hiring, we need to rethink how we deploy our resources. An obvious intervention that needs to happen is to bring the number of classrooms down to three in the middle school grades. We can use those resources to provide incremental offerings, which should lead to higher student engagement. In a few years, natural attrition of retiring teachers and low performers will bring us back in-line with our peers with superior results. It is worth mentioning that our debunked class size policy is partly responsible for our decision to build a school that is much more generous than our needs. Our new school <https://www.ewingcole.com/portfolio_page/ballfield-road-campus/> was built for 650-660 students <https://lincolnsbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Compiled_Ed-Programs_2018-0424.pdf>, which is 20% more than our current enrollment. Except for this year’s 4th grade, today's school enrollment <https://www.lincnet.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=11404&dataid=26127&FileName=Enrollment-22Oct01.pdf> easily supports 3 sections per grade with an approximate average size of less than 20. Our school was built with 4 classrooms in each grade even though we currently require four classrooms in only the 4th grade. Having an extra classroom in each grade that is only needed once every ten years is truly excessive and suboptimal. As built, I would argue that the school could house a lot more students than the architects 650 estimate. We have 4 sections per grade plus added underused hub spaces which is the size of an additional classroom in grades 3 thru 8 which comes to 924 ((4 sections per grade x 9 grades x 22 students per grad) + (6 hubs x 22students )) = 924). In fact, based on Massachusetts School Building Authority guidelines <https://www.massschoolbuildings.org/sites/default/files/edit-contentfiles/About_Us/Roundtables/Designer/DRT_Mar_2017_Presentationl.pdf> (page 36), *our 165,000 sqft school <https://www.ewingcole.com/portfolio_page/ballfield-road-campus/> is large enough to house 1,000 students (165 square feet per student), almost twice as many as we actually do. We would have shaved tens of millions of dollars off our $97M school <https://lincolnsbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023-01-11-LPS-SBC-Presentation-DPI_final_Rev.pdf> if we had only adopted generally accepted practices on class size. *
-- 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.
