Checking the recent news coverage of how smaller budgets are affecting class size, I came across an article from North Carolina that nicely avoids bringing up the test score issue at all. It quotes a high school student:
“It’s easier to learn in my opinion,” said Aubrey Gibson. “I just feel like teachers can relate more to the students.” Gibson said she fears that connection between teachers and students will be lost if class sizes increase into the high 20s. (wxii12.com/news/20293343/detail.html)
A recent AP piece also frames the issue pretty well by not allowing the issue of achievement to eclipse all else. It begins:
Like a seesaw on the school playground, falling state budgets are pushing class sizes higher.
The recession is forcing districts to lay off teachers even as the economic stimulus pumps billions of dollars into schools. As a result, classrooms across the country will be more crowded when school starts in the fall.
Patti Hathorn, a fifth-grade teacher in rural Pinson, Ala., is expecting 29 or 30 students, making it the biggest class she’s taught. Many of her students at Kermit Johnson Elementary are learning English or are in special education.
“You may have a child that needs you, that needs that adult figure, to spend the extra five minutes with them. If you have five or six extra kids, that five minutes is gone,” Hathorn said.
(HARD TIMES: School budgets dip, class sizes grow, LIBBY QUAID (AP) – Jul 26, 2009)
The quagmire of trying to justify class size reduction (beyond third grade, at least) by test scores is buried nicely near the end of the article where it belongs.
Quaid references a report by the American Assocation of School Administrators from March that finds the percentage of districts planning to increase class size went up from 13% to 44% this year. Follow this link to the report, or the pdf: Looking Back, Looking Forward: How the Economic Downturn Continues to Impact School Districts.
In lean times or fat the issue is the same: Smaller classes are an issue of (e)quality of life not quantity of test scores. I spell out this argument in my book, see also garrettdelavan.com. I’ll try to elaborate on the “(e)” in a future post. For now I’ll just say that while we ought to equalize outcomes across class and race, that shouldn’t simply mean to assimilate more people and affirm that those getting the higher scores should be the standard or the norm around which all else revolves. We need to spend our energies on equalizing the outcomes that matter. Test scores are not that.
A focus on test scores leads us away from acknowledging the most important aspect of public, K-12 class size: It currently amounts to child neglect.
Garrett Delavan
