Targeted Class-Size Reduction Can be Conducive to Educational Equity

Though a movement has solidified behind the notion that when it comes to class size, “smaller is better,” class size is “at the very least, a balancing act between contemporary fiscal realities and children’s developmental needs,” says Douglas D. Ready, Assistant Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. In his paper, “Class-Size Reduction: Policy, Politics, and Implications for Equity” presented at the fourth Equity Forum convened by the Campaign for Educational Equity in April 2008, Ready emphasizes the complex policy considerations that affect class size reduction programs and counsels that class size policy should be considered in relationship to alternative reforms that might be pursued with the available funds and the specific goals that are being pursued.

While cautious about the universality of class reduction policies, Ready suggests that smaller classes may greatly benefit minority and low-income students. As he points out in his paper, in addition to beginning school with fewer academic skills, low-income and minority children are disproportionately enrolled in larger classes in urban school districts. Smaller class sizes targeted specifically to these students can help narrow initial gaps, by having them learn at a faster rate than their peers. Conversely, Ready warns that universal implementation of class size reduction policies may increase the achievement gap by resulting in greater gains among initially high-achieving students – in a “rich get richer” scenario.

As Ready indicates in his paper, the Tennessee STAR and Wisconsin SAGE class-size reduction experiments showed positive effects on student performance, especially for disadvantaged students. The Tennessee STAR experiment showed that the effect of class size for black students depended on the type of schools they attended. The study found that on average low-performing students did not benefit much from smaller classes, but students in low-performing schools did. This held true for both races. Black students in predominately black schools benefited more from class-size reduction than did black students in predominately white schools, and white students in predominately black schools benefited more from class-size reduction than did white students in predominately white schools.

Despite these findings, large scale class-reduction state policies have not been able to replicate the favorable conditions and the positive effects that existed in the controlled experiments in Tennessee and Wisconsin. California and Florida invested $20 billion dollars in class-size reduction policies that resulted in a host of negative consequences that have disproportionately affected low-income students and students of color, including diminished teacher quality and overburdened school facilities. Yet, class-size reduction programs targeted at disadvantaged students would avoid these problems, and they would also be more cost-effective.

According to Ready, “the cost of a national effort to reduce class sizes to 18 students in grades one to three is estimated at $5-6 billion per year.” This number does not include costs associated with the construction of new facilities and capital improvement projects. Yet, economists estimate that reduction efforts targeting disadvantaged schools would cost about one third as much, and as the evidence shows, they will likely reap more benefits. Even, the most outspoken critic of class-size reduction, Eric Hanushek, acknowledges that when targeted at disadvantaged students, these efforts may be warranted.

Smaller class sizes in low-performing schools might also have spillover effects by possibly attracting more successful teachers to these schools. This would mark another positive step toward educational equity, since research has shown that disadvantaged students benefit more from high-quality teaching than do more advantaged students.

Prepared by Marcela Briceno, May 8, 2008