California plunges into the unknown in expanding class sizes
Even before the negotiations concerning tax extensions collapsed, California’s class sizes were ballooning. Now we are exacerbating class size increases, but there is no research to predict or understand future implications. Class size studies have focused on ranges from 30 to 15. Results are contested, but no study has examined California’s “natural experiment” of moving many classes in K-4 from 20 to 1 to 35-40 to 1 in a few years.
Moreover, almost all research is on grades K-8, but high school classes in social studies, for example, are climbing into the 35-40 range in several districts. We are flying blind into an uncertain future. The only cap on class size in California seems to be the square-foot size of the classroom.
The latest round of class size reductions came in the 1990s, spurred in part by a well designed random control experiment in Tennessee. But the Tennessee classes were reduced from 25-27 to 15. The greatest impact in Tennessee seemed to be in K-2 grades for disadvantaged children. In 1996, California Gov. Pete Wilson sponsored a bill to reduce class sizes to 20 to 1 in grades K-3. This reduction has been eviscerated by the recent state budget cuts, and most districts will probably exceed 30 students in K-4 in the future.
Research on class size impact in secondary grades is very scant across the United States. The secondary grades in California often have class sizes in the 30-40 range, but we know little about how the impact varies depending on secondary subjects. For example, now Grade 9 English classes are rising from 20 to 37 in the Chaffey High School District. California reduced English class size in grade 9 to 20 pupils, but no definitive evaluation was ever conducted.
Not only are class sizes being increased, but the support personnel for teachers (coaches, aides, curriculum specialists) are also gone. I talked recently with a staff development expert in math who took his promising approach to other states because of California’s huge classes and inadequate infrastructure to support teacher development. I was a part of the team that evaluated the 20 to 1 classes in California from 1996 to 2002. One thing was clear: parents preferred smaller classes even if they had some concerns about teacher quality. What will gigantic classes do to parental support for California schools? What types of teachers succeed in very large classes?
California research organizations need to study the impact of such large classes immediately. They will find little guidance from the most current research base, which uses a 30 to 1 ratio as its ceiling – a class size California will only be able to dream about. Perhaps there are strategies to reallocate limited district and school funds that will reduce class sizes, but research is not clear on how to do this in such a constrained fiscal environment.
Michael Kirst, Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University, is President of the California State Board of Education, a position he held from 1977 to 1981 as well. Before joining the Stanford faculty in 1969, he held several positions with the federal government, including Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Manpower, Employment and Poverty, and Director of Program Planning for Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Office of Education. Kirst received his Ph.D. in political economy and government from Harvard. His latest books are From High School to College with Andrea Venezia (2004) and Political Dynamics of American Education (2009).
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Kirst is seemingly on the correct track here given the rapid increase in class sizes, but simply researching the impact of the increase may be a waste of time.
Given the apparent inevitability of class size increases (even under the most optimistic budget projections), we’d be better off if researchers and practitioners explored ways in which instruction may be delivered to make the best of the difficult situation rather than assuming that the dominant “30-in-a-cell-and-a-bell/yak-in-a-box” instructional modes will or should remain static and researching the result.
Schools may, for example, opt to use online instruction, large scale lectures, and the like to deliver some aspects of instructional support in a dramatically lower-cost fashion, while investing limited funds for low student-teacher ratios on particular subjects or concepts where such investments are required (e.g., teaching the finer points of writing) .
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Eric Premack has a valid point, but I think both types of inquiry are warranted. The statewide variation in classes is a worthy topic , and will be the dominant mode of teaching for a number of years. But we should also be exploring new instructional modes as well. After all these years we still no little about how to scale up technology for 6.2 million school children in California.We both agree the teaching situation is changing dramatically, and not much is happening to understand it.
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Kirst is absolutely on the right track. Some years ago I learned that critics of class size reduction were citing studies which showed no effect — but they were based on reductions from numbers already well below those experienced by California students. Let me note that my 11th grade son has had classes of 34 or more ever since fourth grade (except for some relief in 9th grade — and my district has since abandoned 9th grade CSR). Most of his high school classes — including honors and A.P. — have 40 students. 35-40 to 1 is not something coming in a few years; it has already been here in Irvine. Teachers have such heavy loads that essays come back either with few remarks or after many weeks. I am pondering EP’s suggestion of using alternative methodolgies, and have yet to think of satisfactory large scale uses in K-12 of large lectures, on-line learning etc. that would maintain educational quality. Clearly there are some subjects — such as writing, and not just the finer points — where small numbers are even more crucial than in others. But it seems to me large numbers create problems in each academic subject and many electives.
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When my wife was teaching in Korea, class sizes of 40- or 50-to-one were common. The fact is that such large classes are nothing new; you’ll just have to research practices outside of the United States, which arguably you should have been doing anyway. Some preliminary guesses as to what you’ll find, and possible consequences, are (a) dramatically lower costs, (b) not much effect on math learning, (c) not much effect on the learning of science, other than the evisceration of laboratory learning, (d) not much learning at all of how to write, and so goodbye to the development of critical thinking and your ability to certify that the students have developed it, (e) an even higher dropout rate from higher education once those non-writers enter and are found wanting, (f) a higher student-loan default rate and political pressure to respond by cutting places in higher education, and (g) eventually, a worse-educated citizenry. Even the limited deterioration in math and science is predicated upon teachers having the disciplinary approach and training to handle such large classes, which many teachers don’t. California is in deep trouble.
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Kirst is right. One of the opportunities, and I would say in this case a duty, of researchers is to be aware of the natural experiments taking place around us. It is not necessary to make a prior judgment about whether the increases are harmful or not. There are two types of research that might help. The first is to track achievement data from classrooms and grades where there has been a substantial increase in class size. Such a project would require substantial data collection, probably directly from school districts since (unless someone else knows how) the state’s data archive is not up to the task. There would also be a substantial lag before data were available.
However, there is a quicker, albeit somewhat less precise, method. Ask teachers. Let teachers describe how, if at all, their instruction has changed and their perceptions of results. By the end of the year, teachers will have grade book results, and by the end of the summer they will have state test results. Online surveys are easy to put up and qualitative data can also be gathered this way, including photographs and video.
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Can technology be leveraged to allow us to have our cake and eat it too? Can technology help our students to acquire information while teacher’s time is used more for small group development of critical thinking skills? A class of 40 students where each student spends half the time acquiring differentiated information by computer or online and half the time with the teacher could result in an effective class size of 20 and a richer experience.
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I feel classes sizes should stay small in the younger years. The older high school children should not be much of a problem. Schools should focus on preparing kids to get to high school where the size should not be as big of a problem. I feel the biggest thing that would be more of a hinderance is the parents of these children. If parents were responsible to raise their kids to be good listners and to train them, then the schools should not have a problem instilling education to these children. It really comes down to parents being proactive and giving their children the skills to be successful and expecting proper behavior. In classes today the teacher is having to get kids to behave when really they should teach kids to learn. Too bad the economy is making it a dual parent needing jobs just to make it anymore.
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