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Eye on Education

February 23, 2009

Class Size is “An Interesting Number”

by Aaron Pallas, at 12:37 am

Jenny Medina, in her Sunday New York Times article on class size, quotes Mayor Mike Bloomberg as calling class size “an interesting number.” “It’s the teacher looking a child in the eye, and teachers can look lots of children in the eye,” he said. “If you have to have smaller class size or better teachers, go with the better teachers every time.”

skoolboy thinks this is idiotic. “It’s the teacher looking a child in the eye”? What does that even mean? How much time has Mayor Mike spent looking children in the eye in real classrooms? Is looking children in the eye the key to good teaching? Somehow, I thought it was more complicated than that.

No, Mayor Mike will go with “better teachers” over smaller classes every time—as if it’s all that easy to identify these better teachers. Then there’s the thorny problem that who is identified as a “better teacher” may depend on a teacher’s access to adequate resources—and a smaller class with fewer disruptive students may be such a resource.

skoolboy has written a fair amount about class size, here, here, here, and here. A quick summary: we should reduce class sizes because it’s the right thing to provide teachers and students with adequate and equitable settings for teaching and learning. But there also is persuasive evidence that class size reduction in the early grades can improve student achievement. There has never been a rigorous test of the effect of a well-designed class size reduction initiative on student outcomes in New York City, so all of the claims of New York City officials that reducing class size won’t make a difference are pure speculation.

A special skoolboy shout-out to Chris Cerf, deputy chancellor, for a particularly disingenuous claim. Cerf blamed the increase in class sizes in New York City this year on principals. The district had nothing to do with it, apparently. Nah—principals just determined that their money was better spent elsewhere and that the focus on class size was wrong-headed, he said.

One of the truisms about class size reduction is that, if the student population stays constant, the only way to reduce class size is to increase the number of classes, which requires more classroom space. A school that has no slack space will find it extremely difficult to reduce class size. New York City publishes an annual report on enrollment, capacity and utilization which assesses whether school buildings and the organizations within them are operating below, at or above their capacity—the difference between an organization’s actual enrollment, and the number of students that the organization’s space has the capacity to serve. (Some buildings house multiple schools or programs, each of which has an enrollment and a capacity.)

How many organizations in New York City elementary, middle and high schools are operating at or above their rated capacity? skoolboy’s tally from the 2007-08 enrollment, capacity and utilization report is 751. That’s 751 schools or programs for which the New York City Department of Education has not provided sufficient space to serve the number of students enrolled. It takes some chutzpah on the part of Chris Cerf to claim that principals have “chosen” not to reduce class size when the DOE has deprived so many of them of the space that would have enabled them to do so.

751. Now there’s an interesting number.

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  • http://www.classsizematters.org leonie haimson

    Indeed, in a recent survey of over more than one third of of NYC principals, 86% said they were unable to provide a quality education because of excessive class size, with the number one impediment lack of space.

    Yet after this survey came out, as well as our report on A Better Capital Plan, urging the administration to expand its school construction plans given the need for an estimated 160,000 new seats, instead they cut the number of seats from the current plan by 60%.

    For the principal survey, see http://www.classsizematters.org/principal_survey_report_final_4.08.pdf

    For our capital plan report, see http://www.classsizematters.org/abettercapitalplan.html

  • http://curious2.typepad.com Ken

    Hey Leonie,

    Do you think there might be a selection bias in your recent survey, i.e. the principals that completed the survey were the ones that are not happy with the space situation? Or did you control for this in some way?

    Ken

  • http://www.classsizematters.org leonie haimson

    We got an excellent response rate that was geographically representative and also evenly distributed from schools of different grade levels. The survey was co-sponsored by the City Council and the CSA. There was no evidence of any selection bias whatsoever. What the principals reported were heartbreaking and shocking. I urge you to read it.

    The response of the administration was that principals just like to complain.

  • http://curious2.typepad.com Ken

    Thanks Leonie.

    I reviewed the report. I found the quotes, in particular, to be very interesting.

    Three questions, if and when you have time:

    1. How do you know that the principals that responded weren’t more likely to have complaints? That seems like a likely and significant bias on an investigation like this one.

    2. Could you refer us to the online survey that the principals took? I understand from the report that the survey is ongoing. I am curious to see how the survey is presented.

    3. Has this report been peer reviewed? Do you intend to have it peer reviewed?

    One idea: do some in-depth analysis to relate the complaints of the principals to the reality in their schools. I think most people (not just principals!) like to complain.

    One complaint: the executive summary seems unfounded by the results. You write: “A new survey… finds that the DOE data on school capacity is inaccurate.” A more precise summary would state something like “A new survey finds that principals that respond to survey questions about school capacity feel that DOE reports on the subject are inaccurate.”

    To be clear, I am not suggesting that your results are necessarily wrong or exaggerated. Also, for what it’s worth, I don’t have a strong opinion on this issue (yet!).

  • Anonymous

    Very good probing questions Ken! For example, I know principals who had no complaints and didn’t complete the survey. Also, keep in mind principals need to be flexible with funding. If they get money to reduce class size from the state and do not have enough space, they can be creative and hire an extra teacher to assist. They don’t want to say, eh no thanks we don’t have enough space so take the money back, so what if the classes went from 23 to 24, if everything else is working well. We have to keep everything in perspective.

  • Matthew Levey

    Aaron,

    My read on Kruger and Hanushek’s debate on the import of the STAR study was that CSR makes the most sense in the early grades for children at risk. Did I miss something?

    As you know I am found of quoting Jennifer Rice King’s introduction to the EPI summary of this debate, wherein she notes that these two alleged foes in fact agree on the key elements of CSR. She writes:

    It is perhaps best expressed by Dr. Hanushek when he states,

    Surely class size reductions are beneficial in specific circumstances — for specific groups of students, subject matters, and teachers….Second, class size reductions necessarily involve hiring more teachers, and teacher quality is much more important than class size in affecting student outcomes. Third, class size reduction is very expensive, and little or no consideration is given to alternative and more productive uses of those resources.

    Similarly, in his paper, Dr. Krueger states,

    The effect sizes found in the STAR experiment and much of the literature are greater for minority and disadvantaged students than for other students. Although the critical effect size differs across groups with different average earnings, economic considerations suggest that
    resources would be optimally allocated if they were targeted toward those who benefit the most from smaller classes.

  • http://www.classsizematters.org leonie haimson

    Matthew: Perhaps you should make that point to the parents of students in our private schools — or in our suburban public schools, whose classes are far smaller than the classes of disadvantaged students in NYC public schools. In fact, class size averages in the rest of the state are 20-22, where there are far fewer minority and at risk students.

  • Anonymous

    Leoni
    Fair student funding enabled our disadvantaged students more funds than they’ve ever had before and though we may not have space for an art room, a science room or for pull out intervention students we do have flexibility and we are able to provide our students with art from a cart, science from a cart, intervention and afterschool programs in various places (and no one complains). Of course its clear that in New York we need new school construction and there schools that should definitely be prioritized but there are many angles from which to view this issue….and it seems like you are just sticking to one agenda. Its not easy to make decisions that suit everyone or every school especially in a system as big as New York.

  • http://www.classsizematters.org leonie haimson

    Anonymous: thanks for the compliment. I intend to “stick” to this one agenda, until NYC students are provided with the smaller classes that the State’s highest court said was their constitutional right, and that are necessary for a truly equitable chance to learn.

  • Anonymous

    Leonie: I know well from a personal perspective about not having an equitable chance to learn and I work every day to make sure that is not the case for hundreds of disadvantaged children. I thought you might like to hear that there have been great strides made already to even the playing field in this city and its not always about space issues.

  • http://www.classsizematters.org leonie haimson

    Sorry if I haven’t noticed any “great strides” lately in affording NYC children with their equitable chance to learn, with an increase of more than 10,000 in the number of children in grades K-3 in classes of 25 or more this fall – and the number of students in grades 1-3 in classes of over 28 jumping by 33%.

  • Matthew Levey

    Leonie,

    I think the factors that go into why a parent would select private school or to live in the suburbs are more complex than Kruger and Hanusheck were seeking to assess in their debate on the implications of STAR.

    The point I was trying to make, and I am sorry of that was not clear, is that I understand STAR supports several focused implications for CSR:

    (a) CSR has to be significant in size to have impact,
    (b) CSR is is most effective in the youngest grades, with limited demonstrated effect after 3rd grade,
    (c) in the STAR study, CSR had a greater impact on disadvantaged kids.

    Your role as an advocate is well understood and appreciated by many. As Doug Harris has pointed out, parents generally intuitively support CSR because it makes sense to them. But that does not mean there is credible science to back up these claims.

  • Aaron Pallas

    Matthew:

    I address many of your concerns in my class size posts on the old eduwonkette site, including http://eduwonkette2.blogspot.com/2008/01/skoolboys-rejoinder.html. Eric Hanushek’s claim that teacher quality is more important than class size in affecting student outcomes is true in the narrow sense that the effect on students’ test scores of having a teacher who consistently raises students’ test scores vs. a teacher who consistently does not is larger than the effect of reducing class size by a moderate amount. But I think that test scores are just one of the outcomes of schooling that are worth worrying about, and I agree with eduwonkette that class size reduction may be particularly important for noncognitive outcomes. Moreover, the way Hanushek defines teacher quality is conditional on class size. It’s true that the best evidence for reducing class size is from the STAR study, which argues for smaller classes in the early elementary grades, particularly for poor and minority children. Class size reduction can be implemented in ways that are unlikely to enhance student outcomes, which is why I call for a well-designed class size reduction initiative that relies on the talents of qualified teachers.

  • http://www.classsizematters.org leonie haimson

    Not only is there “credible science” to back up these claims, the Institute for Education Sciences, the research arm of the US Dept. of Education, has concluded that class size reduction is one of only four education reforms that “rigorous evidence” has proven to raise student achievement .

    None of the initiatives that Bloomberg and Klein have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on were included on that list. Perhaps people who are interested in “credible” science and proven reforms might shift their attention to those policies instead.

  • Aaron Pallas

    Anonymous 11:21:

    When you refer to “our students,” are you referring to a single school that your children attend, or in which you work, or are you referring to students in New York City schools in general? The effects of the Fair Student Funding initiative on the distribution of resources in New York City are still unknown, and I’ve certainly heard teachers and administrators complain about space shortages.

  • Anonymous

    Aaron: The effects may be still unknown to you but schools who for years that were getting inadequately funded and now get hundreds of thousands of dollars more due to the weighted system know – believe me. As Ken said above, yes people complain and yes there certainly are space shortages but all I am saying is keep it in perspective.

  • Matthew

    Leonie,

    The Federal Department of Education paper you reference cites data from the same Tennessee STAR study in claiming the impact of CSR. Specifically they rely on a paper by Mosteller titled “Sustained Inquiry in Education: Lessons from Skill Grouping and Class Size” which looks at the STAR data.

    So it’s not a new source of data, but rather a study of the same data by a different person. Mosteller concludes that there is evidence for a lasting effect from K-3 CSR, but “more randomized, controlled field trials such as this are needed.”

    The DoE paper goes on, in the paragraph immediately following the reference you cite, to point out that the challenges with implementation of this initiative on a large scale, in California, were significant. The US DoE hypothesizes that the failure of California’s effort to have an impact on achievement, as measured in test scores, may have been due to the large numbers of unqualified or recently hired teachers that had to be hired in response to the demand. Is this not a relevant concern for New York City?

    Were the CFE money to have been allocated to CSR efforts in our most disadvantaged neighborhoods and schools, its supporters could have claimed the initiative was backed by some evidence. But as I recall CFE had to fight like heck to insist the money be targeted in this way, and not spread out across the whole city according to political dictate to the point where it was so diluted as to have no impact at all. Which is seemingly what critics claim has happened.

  • Matthew

    Aaron,

    Thanks for the reference back to your posts which I re-read last night.

    While I certainly don’t mean to turn Rik Hanushek into an oracle, or claim that test scores are the only outcome worth managing, I think the point he, you, Mosteller and others who have looked at the issue with rigor make is that to be effective CSR has to be focused, that the STAR study is not without its limits, and that implementation can be a challenge.

    The reality, as Doug Harris has written, is that we do face finite resources and we do have to make trade offs. So a theoretical exercise of CSR where every kid in New York is in a room with 12 classmates runs aground in a world where we have spent trillions in Iraq and hundreds of billions more to shore up our financial institutions (or the mere tens of billions we spent in New York to raise teachers salaries across the board earlier in this decade).

    I fear many who favor CSR because it intuitively makes sense would lose interest in the initiative were focused on the most high-needs schools and districts. And as I posted a moment ago, that’s my impression of the fight that the Campaign for Fiscal Equity had to wage in the last few years. As much as I know many kids in my children’s’ school district are needy, I know the needs are even greater in other areas.

    But I sense I’m preaching to the choir, and until the New York Times (no disrespect to Elizabeth and Philissa) picks up the gauntlet you so willingly laid down last year and waves it vigorously at the administration (which will now conveniently plead poverty!), we’re stuck debating how many angels fit on the head of this pin.

    ps – to the point on use of test scores as indicia of impact, I assume you’re familiar with Labaree? I think a post on the role of parental expectations in establishing the “testing” agenda would be a welcome break from this discussion.

  • Aaron Pallas

    Matthew:

    Not sure what you mean by the role of parental expectations in establishing the “testing” agenda, but there’s not much that David Labaree has written that I have not read. His book “How to Succeed in School without Really Learning” is a core text in a course I teach each fall.

  • Matthew Levey

    Aaron,

    I refer to Labaree’s paper “Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle over Educational Goals” in American Educational Research Journal, 34:1, Spring 1997, pp. 39-81. I think it’s the core of the book that you cited.

    I read that Labaree posits — and I use that term advisedly as I don’t see that he has quantitative studies to back his idea – that many middle class families approach education focused on the accumulation of credentials. That they view education less as a public good to improve the whole of society, or prepare their kids to take on effective roles in the workplace, but a private good that advances the claims of their child to a given SES above those of other children.

    How is this achieved? Often through distinctive performance on exams, be they the G&T exams, the 4th grade ELA and Math exams that many parents view as the keys to selective middle schools, AP exams and SATs/ACTs. Which lead to admission into selective programs, that feed into selective high schools and so on.

    My observations as a NYC public school parent don’t discredit this theory – despite what anti-testing advocates would claim, high stakes exams seem to be endorsed by a good portion of the parents in my district, who often demand to know that our schools are doing everything to prepare their children (our children?) for these red-letter days.

    Speaking recently to two parents at my school – she’s a doctor, he’s a banker, nice rational folks – I proposed that maybe the 4th grade ELA and Math tests weren’t really the “be all and end all” they were alleged to represent. Maybe the school could do with a few more weeks of instruction and a few fewer weeks of test prep. Maybe our kids would all end up in the “right” middle school based on their needs and abilities as determined from a range of data points (interview, course work, recommendations, school visits?) The look in response suggested I would have done better to proposed socialized medicine and nationalized banks – less controversial these days! And these two kind and caring parents are not the only ones from whom I’ve gotten such a response. “when to you begin preparing the kids for the exam” was the first question a father in one of my kid’s class asked at this Fall’s back to School night.” Or as Labaree notes in his paper “Do we need to know this? Is it on the test?”

    All of which leads me to the idea that Joel Klein may not be at the root of all testing evil. Maybe middle class parents – the ones who are likely over-represented on these blogs, in advocacy organizations and so on – are equally part of the problem? They (we?) want tests, ’cause we presume our kids will do better than average on them, and therefore gain access to resources that will allow them to get (or stay) ahead.

    But Labaree himself admits he’s a reformed Marxist. So maybe all his theories are just that. Either way, given your perspective I think it would be an interesting topic for a post and (as I said above) a welcome diversion from waterboarding the STAR study in an effort to get it to confess the “right” answer on class size reduction.

  • Smith

    I wonder how common your experience is. It’s always been my impression that middle-class parents don’t like the test prep or the high-stakes nature of the exams themselves. In fact it seems like the alternative you suggest – a more subjective process – is more open to being gamed by pushy middle-class types. Unfortunately, the middle-school admissions process forces us to buy into a process which seems to be designed to put Joel Klein’s interests ahead of our children’s. We could pressure our principals not to overdo the test prep, but then our kids would be at a disadvantage

  • Smith

    [Oops, hit the wrong button (what's up with the spacing here?)]
    …our kids would be at a disadvantage in getting into the school of their choice. So, what do we do? We end up sending them for extra prep or helping them prep at home – at least during 4th grade. The scores go up and Klein takes credit.

  • Matthew

    Smith,

    I have to be clear that I cannot speak for all parents, and that my sample size is small. Admittedly no one wants a system that allows for gaming.

    My point is that test prep is like the Nuclear Arms race. Or the Prisoner’s Dilemma. You ultimately can’t win, but you can spend a lot of money trying. For what – to take your kid from a 3.3 to a 3.5? You look at the broad averages in many of these schools and 85-100% of the kids are at or above proficient.

    Of course in the alternate situation, where the child is not judged proficient, what you’d like to see is a focus on educating that child, not teaching them how to game the system. By way of example in one of my children’s classes we’ve realized the test is asking them about metric measures of mass and length; apparently it was never taught in class, so now we’re running a crash course on kilograms. Which is no substitute for actually learning about metric weights, eh?

    So is test prep our destiny or can we foster a healthy, rational discussion in the community and consider alternative pathways?

  • http://www.cecd2.net Michael D. Markowitz, P.E.

    (As submitted to the Times re “Smaller is Better,” by Jennifer Medina, NYTimes, 02/22/09)

    To the Editor:

    The debate over the benefits of smaller class sizes has already been had. The kids won.

    Or so said the State Court of Appeals in 2003 and reaffirmed in 2006 at the end of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit initiated in 1993 before any of the current crop of students matriculated, and which ended amidst now-hollow hooplah after those on whose behalf the lawsuit was initiated had themselves graduated high school — assuming they were amongst the roughly 50% who indeed graduated in four years; but only 30% for black males, amongst the lowest of the largest school districts in the nation.

    I would invite those who continue to dispute the benefits of smaller class sizes to debate the benefits of flaunting any other law or court decision designed to benefit and protect our children, let alone provide them with the underpinning of success: their now fully established legal right to a “sound basic education,” as State Supreme Court Justice Leland DeGrasse declared in 2001 after nearly a decade of experts had weighed in concerning the city schools’ “systemic failure.”

    In light of the ensuing eight years and three more rounds of appeals and court decisions, the debate should now be on how to make amends to the multiple generations of children that we have collectively failed. Now that’s a debate that deserves to be had. In a crowded classroom in NYC. Or in Albany.

    Michael D. Markowitz, P.E.
    Parent of two kids in a NYC public school
    Member of Community Education Council, District 2

  • http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/nyregion/27middle.html?_r=1 Michael D. Markowitz, P.E.

    Re Matthew above (2/24, 10:46p):

    Funny, I googled “Test My Kid More Often” and got nada.
    Then I googled “Middle Class Parent Testing” and got a pop-up ad for DNA paternity testing.
    So I googled “UPPER Class Parent Testing” and after a click-thru, pulled up a still-pertinent NYTimes article. (See link.)

    “In interviews and at public meetings, dozens of parents from the middle class and upper middle class have complained of an increasing focus on standardized test preparation and remedial work, of a decreasing focus on science education and the arts, of large class sizes and of the absence of a powerful mechanism for parental influence.” — by Susan Saulny, NYTimes, Dec 27, 2005

    Just where are all these parents begging Klein to test their kids more often?

    How many times a day do you have to weigh yourself, and on how many scales and balances, to get a sufficient handle on…. the random variation between the tests?

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