Michael Atherton asserts that there is no evidence linking student acheivement and class sizes. In fact, there's a lot of evidence on the question of class sizes and achievement, but there are a lot of problems interpreting what it means. In any phenomenon as complex as student achievement, there are a host of co-dependent variables that are nearly impossible to disentangle. For example, we know that there are a number of family background variables that influence student achievement: * Socioeconomic status of parent(s) * How often the family moves * Education level of parent(s) * Among many others And there are a host of non-class size variables about schools that influence student acheivement: * Pedagogical choices about presentation of content * Experience level of teachers * Instructional resource availability * Many others And these studies that attempt to deal with these co-dependent variables run into another host of problems: 1) Measurement - test scores are imperfect measurements of student academic acheivement. 2) Selection bias - frequently the smallest classes are reserved for challenging students, while it is assumed that "good" students can be productive in larger classes. 3) Uneven distribution - the average class size in a school, district or state is not the same as what an individual student experiences. 4) Confounding variables - longitudinal studies about student academic acheivement are confounded by an increase in hs graduation rates, which should depress average scores since otherwise "low achieving" students would have dropped out at a greater rate and artificially inflated earlier scores.
Whew! Well, suffice it to say this is an extremely difficult research proposition. Nonetheless, there are a couple of studies that I want to highlight. Much of this is culled from an excellent review of the literature available online (Ehrenberg et al, "Class Size and Student Achievement," _Psychological Science in the Public Interest_, v. 2 #1, 2001, http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Journal_Samples/PSPI1529-1006~2~1~003/003.pdf) * The STAR study in Tennessee created an experiment where students were randomly assigned in different size classrooms, attempting to control some of the above confounding variables. While the results of this study are hotly debated, one of the clear conclusions was that minority students benefited in a statistically significant way from smaller class sizes. In the MPS, closing the racial achievement gap is an important objective. * The research of David Card and Alan Krueger used 1980 census data and school records to examine the impact of class sizes on the earnings of white males born in the 1940's (obviously given the segregated nature of public schools at that time, this restriction on sample makes sense), and concluded there was a statistically significant impact on earnings. * The SAGE experiment in Wisconsin, while a small sample, has largely replicated the larger experimental results of the TN STAR research, that is, that there are muddy results, but there's a clear benefit for minority students. The relevant question here, to me, is "what is the relationship between class size and these other variables?" Anecdotes here and elsewhere suggest a change in pedagogy caused by increased class sizes. The challenge of maintaining discipline in a large class, the impossibility of providing detailed and individualized feedback with 150-200 student loads, and the concomitant changes in how teachers teach and students learn seem to be relevant, since discipline and pedagogy do have measureable and direct impacts on student achievement. I am a teacher at a community college who is also involved in general education assessment. The challenge of gathering relevant and actionable data to measure student acheivement is tremendous. The desire of policymakers to simplify the problems of schools into a simple and easy to measure formula is understandable, but doesn't really get to the real issues about how students learn and what works. On the flip side, dismissing class size as irrelevant to achievement is similarly short-sighted. aaron klemz cooper +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "I am not sure what a revolution in the academy will look like, any more than I know what a revolution in the society will look like. I doubt that it will take the form of some great cataclysmic event. More likely, it will be a process, with periods of tumult and of quiet, in which we will, here and there, by ones and twos and tens, create pockets of concern inside old institutions, transforming them from within. There is no great day of reckoning to work toward. Rather, we must begin _now_ to liberate those patches of ground on which we stand - to "vote" for a new world (as Thoreau suggested) with our whole selves all the time, rather than in moments carefully selected by others." - Howard Zinn, "The Uses of Scholarship" Aaron Klemz, Minneapolis, Minnesota [EMAIL PROTECTED] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
