Class Size Reduction "Not a Silver Bullet," New Research Review Finds; Poor and Minority Students Benefit Most Quality Teaching, Political Climate, Are Key Determinants of Success

Teachers College @ Columbia University:

Ask the average parent or teacher what change they'd most like to see in their school, and there's a good chance the answer will be "smaller classes."
Now a new review of major research on the subject finds that reduced class size is far from a universal panacea, and may have no bearing at all on student achievement unless enacted under the right political, economic and academic conditions. Those include quality teaching, targeting of schools and children likeliest to benefit, and avoidance of perverse incentives that can spawn unintended negative consequences.

"Class size reduction is not a silver bullet," writes Douglas Ready, Assistant Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, in his paper, Policy, Politics and Implications for Equity. "Establishing appropriate class size is a balancing act between children's development needs and contemporary fiscal realities. The matter assumes even greater complexity when we consider the relationship between class size and educational equity."

Ready's review of the literature does show that poor and minority students are likelier to benefit from class size reduction efforts than white students and students from wealthier families.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 4, 2008 12:00 AM
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