Joyce Keeler is worried about the future—specifically, the financial future of her local schools. "All across our state, districts are being hit by budget cuts," says the president of the Livermore Education Association in Livermore, Calif. "We were fortunate that our community was able to restore some programs for controlling class sizes through a grassroots fund-raising campaign, but that's only a temporary solution. There's really no way to know how things will be in 2004."
Keeler's fears are hardly unique. Along with California, 43 states are facing budget deficits in 2004, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., that specializes in analyzing the effects of federal budget policies. "Given the magnitude of the deficits," the center said in a January 2003 press release, "states are highly likely to cut basic services such as health care and education" to make ends meet.
Keeler and others worry that, much like the mythical Sisyphus who spent eternity rolling a boulder up a mountain only to see it tumble backward each time, the gains teachers and administrators have made in reducing class sizes may also collapse. With more and more states facing painful budget cuts, they argue, class-size reduction programs may be in more jeopardy than ever before.
Benefiting Students, Parents, and Teachers
In response to evidence obtained from such studies as Wisconsin's Student Achievement Guarantee in Education program (SAGE) and Tennessee's Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio project (known as Project STAR), many states and districts have made significant efforts over the past 10 years to reduce the number of students in their elementary classrooms. "Thirty-two states currently have class-size legislation initiatives," says Charles Achilles, professor of education administration at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti.
Achilles and other researchers point out that reducing class sizes benefits students and teachers in several ways. Smaller classes allow greater individualized instruction so teachers can spend more time helping students who may be struggling. Moreover, they say, reduced-size classes often mean fewer discipline problems because misbehavior tends to be more easily spotted in a small class than a large one with 30 or more students. "Study after study supports all of these conclusions," Achilles says.
Class size can even affect the air quality of a classroom. "Carbon dioxide is an anathema to student learning because CO<SUBSCRPT>2</SUBSCRPT> gets oppressive," he notes. "The data say that the larger the class, the [higher] the CO<SUBSCRPT>2</SUBSCRPT> level." That drags down energy levels and the ability to learn, he says.
But helping students learn is not the only benefit, officials add. Reduced-size classes and the supportive environment that they produce have some administrators convinced that they can directly affect students' scores on standardized exams as well. "Our test scores have definitely risen because of reduced class sizes," says Susan Wilson, director of elementary education in the Burke County School District in Burke, N.C., a rural county where more than 50 percent of students qualify for free and reduced-price meals.
Wilson has no doubt that smaller classes accounted for the increase in students' scores. "All four of our middle schools have achieved the designation of being schools of distinction, meaning that overall they are either at or above grade level," she says. "We've made significant progress every year, and we attribute that to reduced class size."
Getting What You Pay For
With so many positives, one might wonder why an initiative offering so much promise could be in jeopardy. The reasoning is actually quite simple: Reduced-size classes cost more and for a variety of reasons.
"It's expensive," admits John Zahorik, professor of curriculum instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and one of the principal researchers and authors of the state's SAGE program. "Policymakers want to increase student achievement, but they're also wary of the costs involved [because] you need to hire more teachers."
But hiring more teachers is not the only expense, sources say. In fact, many schools find that the biggest challenge in reducing class sizes is not hiring more instructors so much as finding additional room for their classes. "The biggest problem with small classes is space, not personnel," Achilles says.
Teachers echo his sentiments. "Space was the big issue for us when we went with smaller classes," says Vicki Johnson, a 3rd grade teacher with Maryland Avenue Elementary School in Milwaukee, Wisc. Like many schools moving toward smaller classes, Maryland Avenue faced a difficult challenge in trying to find enough space for its students. The school's solution was to maximize available space by rearranging classrooms and common meeting areas, installing portable dividers, and even putting bookcases down the middle of some classrooms to help create separate areas.
Johnson, who began sharing her classroom with another teacher as part of the reduced-size initiative, said that the results were not without their challenges. "The unfortunate way SAGE has been implemented is that while I have 14 students, I share my classroom with another teacher who has 15. There are no other options because we don't have the space." Noise, in particular, poses some difficulties. "You have to contend with the sound," she says. "We say that as the divider goes up, the noise level goes up, because people forget that there's another class on the other side." Although not ideal, the solution is worth the trouble, according to Johnson. "It is still better than having 30 kids to yourself," she says.
As challenging as managing two classes in the same room might be, officials say schools often have few alternatives. "When we went to smaller classes, we had to use some spaces that weren't the best," says David Burleson, superintendent for Burke County Schools. "We had areas in several of our elementary schools near the library that were used for storytelling. They had to be turned into teaching space. So did our conference rooms and supply areas."
Despite the difficulties, however, Burleson shares Wilson's conviction that the benefits make the sacrifices worthwhile. "If you want to really make a difference in the lives of your children, the best place to put your money is in reduced class size," says Burleson.
A Worrisome Future
But finding that money for smaller classes may not be so easy. Education is expected to be at the forefront of the 2004 presidential election, and battle lines are already being drawn, according to officials.
"Class-size policy has been highly politicized," says Alex Molnar, director of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory at Arizona State University. Politicians often pit so-called "market-based" reforms against class-size reduction, he says, even though "the public overwhelmingly favors smaller classes."
Complicating the issue further is the fact that, according to Molnar, the statistics frequently cited in debates about class size can be misleading because class size is often confused with student-teacher ratio. "It is important to remember that student-teacher ratio and class size are not the same thing." Special education classes, for example, drive down student-teacher ratios but do not reduce the class size for most students. "Class size is how many students the primary teacher has in front of him or her every day," Molnar says.
When making decisions about budget allocations and class size, administrators and legislators must understand the difficulties involved in managing large classes while striving to meet individual learning needs, teachers say.
"People need to know what it's like to be in charge of a classroom," Keeler says. Like other officials, she worries that persistent funding problems may jeopardize student achievement and cause the mythical boulder to come rolling back down once again. "The impact of the loss of these programs would be unfortunate for many students," she says. "And that's important, because, ultimately, these kids that we're teaching are going to be the backbone of our society someday—and they're going to be the taxpayers and resources for the schools then."
