Does size matter?
Posted
November 27, 2006 at
11:27 pm by
Prescott
Get your mind out of the gutter, I’m talking about classroom size. Pop quiz — you have a choice for your 2nd grader: a class with 30 kids, or only 20? Seems like a no-brainer, but a story in the Chicago Sun Times indicates it’s perhaps not quite as intuitive as it seems:
The 25 highest-scoring schools in CPS [Chicago Public Schools] average roughly seven more kids in their primary classrooms than the 25 highest-scoring suburban schools, or about 27 kids vs. 20, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of state public school data indicates…Chicago’s 25 lowest-scoring schools averaged around 7½ fewer kids per primary classroom than the city’s 25 highest-scoring schools, the most recent state data indicate.
Last year, a school in Chicago’s Edgebrook neighborhood topped out at 40 kids for its only 1st grade class — and posted the highest test scores for the city’s neighborhood schools. I know around here it seems the big bitch of the majority of parents focuses primarily on class size. Perhaps if we shift our mindset a bit and instead look to improve the things that principals cite as being most influential on education quality — poverty, teacher quality, and parental involvement — instead of blindly throwing money at school construction budgets, we might be able to slowly form an effective grassroots organization to fix the mess of our education system.
Tags: class-size, Education, school |
8 Responses to “Does size matter?”
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1. Ortizzle said:
November 29, 2006 @ 1:20 am
I am a teacher.
Teachers are the lowest paid professionals. In the world. Period.
You get what you pay for. Fortunately, there are a lot of dedicated professionals out there who do the work they love and love the work they do, and put up with the salary.
But just think what would happen if teachers got paid like other similar professionals? THEN, by God, you could DEMAND quality. And you would be able to attract a lot more people to the profession. But the government doesn’t seem to think educating our children requires quality teachers. At least it sure looks that way. Then again, the current government doesn’t give a damn about the world we are leaving for future generations. Why should they care how we are preparing the citizens who will have to live in it?
I realize that this is over-simplifying the issue, but the fact remains: a good teacher will find it harder to work with 40 than 20 in the classroom, but will probably work even harder if there are 40 because he/she has no choice. Hence, the kids who do not perform as well are more likely to be the victims of poor teaching practices and methodology than the sheer number of kids in the classroom.
Sorry for going on. I’m just a teacher, like I said. I worry about how many kids are in classrooms. And a whole lot more about education.
2. Cristina said:
November 29, 2006 @ 1:57 am
I agree that poverty, teacher quality, and parental involvement are all important factors in helping to improve schools, but I think that class size reduction should be a priority as well.
And I’m not convinced that higher class sizes don’t negatively impact school performance. Just because the top schools had more kids in their classrooms doesn’t mean that more kids per class = higher performance or that less kids per class = lower performance. Other variable factors that may affect school performance data (such as student poverty level as ONE example) would have to be controlled in a research study in order to determine whether there is truly a causal link between class size and school performance.
Without knowing anything on this topic, my guess is that, when controlling for other factors, class size would be positively correlated with improved student performance.
3. Cristina said:
November 29, 2006 @ 1:59 am
That is to say:
Without knowing anything on this topic, my guess is that, when controlling for other factors, SMALLER class sizes would be positively correlated with improved student performance.
4. prescott said:
November 29, 2006 @ 8:08 am
Cristina, you’re right, the above story certainly isn’t definitive by any means, just thought it was an interesting item to chew on.
5. Excareergal said:
November 29, 2006 @ 7:52 pm
Prescott,
That is a lot more money than I make in education with a Ph.D. and 20 years experience. I think those salaries are not the norm! I make 40K less and have no pension. I also pay for half of my health insurance.
OT- I do not think that smaller class size is always the issue- but there is point that it does inpact efficiency. I think you need at least 16 to make groups, but more than 28 seems to start causig difficulties. I vaguely rememeber a metastudy that had the optimal amount around 25 or so. I think it depends on the age/grade/special needs/ etc.
6. prescott said:
November 29, 2006 @ 8:16 pm
Well, it’s the norm in the Chicagoland area. My point not being that there aren’t low paid teachers, but that you can’t make sweeping generalities that “all teachers are underpaid” because that is inaccurate.
7. Ortizzle said:
November 29, 2006 @ 11:51 pm
True, you can’t make the sweeping generality that “all teachers are underpaid.” Apparently a privileged few in Chicago are not. By the same token, you can’t make sweeping generality that the majority of teachers are making 100K a year. I make well under half that and have no where near the benefits. I think the *great majority of teachers,* compared to other professionals, are in my league.
The only reason I brought it up was because you specifically pointed out that “teacher quality,” amongst other things, was more of an issue than classroom size. And I would agree.
8. Kristy said:
December 8, 2006 @ 12:19 pm
I would guess, based on my experience in our school system, that the most impoverished schools tend to be in areas with low residential populations. For example, I taught in a school that had fewer than 400 students, so class sizes were small, but it was in a blighted industrial area. It was a historically black high school, but as the nearby factories closed, the area became a virtual ghost town, with only the poorest left. These students were isolated and lacked any kind of resources or experiences. they were less than five miles from the downtown area, but many of them had never even been to a sit-down restaurant.