Does (Class) Size Matter?

Not long ago, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg insisted, "Class size doesn't matter."


Even before he made that comment, almost nobody here in New York was taking him seriously when it came to educational policy.  However, as fatuous as that comment seems, it is actually a step toward the truth about educational policy.


For decades, educators and others have repeated the mantra of "smaller classes are better."  I don't doubt that it's true, and there have been any number of studies that lead to such a conclusion.  Still, saying "smaller classes are better" gets at only part of the truth.


For one thing, depending on which study you believe, reductions in class size begin to make a difference only when the number falls below twenty or fifteen.  Whatever the "tipping point" may be, experts agree there isn't much appreciable difference between, say, a classroom with 40 students in it and one with 35.  I can say that the larger class is more work for the instructor, especially if she teaches, as I do, subjects like writing. But I don't think that 35 students will benefit more from whatever I do with them than 40 students would.


On the other hand, I can see a difference, at least in terms of what students learn, between a class of 20 and another of 15.  I've had maybe three or four classes of less than twenty in the nearly two decades I've taught, and in those classes I know I spent more "quality time", if you will, with the students.  Also, I wasn't quite so frazzled when I was reading their papers, so the comments I made on them were probably more useful, and possibly interesting, for the students. 


Still, reducing class sizes does not, by itself, eliminate or even change the difficulties students and their instructors face.  California discovered that the hard way when it mandated smaller class sizes and hired more teachers.   Test scores didn't improve appreciably, and schools that were plagued with violence and other problems didn't change much.  


Part of the reason, of course, is that California's reduced classes still had twenty students each.  Particularly at the elementary level, that's a high number.  Then there were the other problems kids faced, mostly outside of school, which we've heard about:  dysfunctional families, crime and such.


Now, if you want to say that reduced class sizes are better for students, you have to ask "In what ways?"  Gauging student achievement only on test scores-which is what California did, and school districts in most jurisdictions have been doing--is at best flawed and at worst provides only a "snapshot" when learning consists of so many different factors.  To me, evaluating students on a test given once defeats the ostensible purpose of having smaller classes.