Size Matters?

I guess it depends on who you ask. According to an article in today’s Washington Post, while reducing class size has often been hyped as a means to close the achievement gap, new findings show that it may not matter as much as we’ve been made to think.

Spryos Konstantopoulos, a researcher at Northwestern University, recently reexamined the data from a large, landmark study of class size in Tennessee known as Project STAR. Performed in 1985, the study was directly responsible for raising national hopes that reducing the number of children in inner-city classrooms to 17 or fewer would lead to significant increases in achievement.

Turns out, it didn’t. Looking closely at data on thousands of students from kindergarten through third grade, Konstantopoulos found that reducing class size really only benefited the average to high achievers in the classroom, while low achievers were still left behind. And since low-income students in urban neighborhoods typically have lower achievement than students from richer families, the study actually contradicts the idea that reducing class size closes the achievement gap.

"While decreasing class size may increase achievement on average for all types of students, it does not appear to reduce the achievement gap within a class," Konstantopoulos said.

Looks like all that spam I receive is wrong: Size really doesn’t matter.