Class Size Matters in Grades K-3 When It Comes to Long-Term Academic Success and Reducing Achievement Gap

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Researchers who have studied the issue of the impact of class size on the performance of children now have incontrovertible evidence that even a few early years of study in a small class of 13-17 peers will enhance a student's academic achievement all the way through high school.

Nationally recognized education researcher Jeremy Finn says that of the dozens of strategies proposed over the years and throughout the country, small class size is one that reliably and consistently optimizes student learning in virtually all educational settings.

"If we really want to see no child left behind," Finn says, referring to the title of George Bush's blueprint for educational reform, "then small class size should be the foundation for educational policy for early childhood.

"This recommendation," he adds, "is based on an accumulation of evidence that shows overwhelming support for small-class-size policies, including documented increases in student achievement and equity in education."

Finn, a professor in the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education, is the editor of "How Small Classes Help Students Do Their Best" (U.S. Department of Education, 2000). The book is a collection of major, previously published class-size studies in California, North Carolina, Wisconsin and other states conducted by noted educational researchers and economists.

Among them is Project STAR (Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio), the landmark four-year longitudinal experiment by the Tennessee Department of Education on the effect of class size on educational achievement. Finn was a member of the team that conducted Project STAR and says a recent follow-up of the study data proves that the benefits of small classes extend all the way through high school.

Project STAR was undertaken in 1985. Its first report, published in 1990, is considered a watershed event in research on conditions that promote student achievement. Its original findings were that, regardless of the location of schools or the aptitude of students, children who spent their K-3 years in small classes consistently outperformed their peers in larger classrooms on all tests of academic performance.

The benefits of small classes were two to three times greater for minority students than for white students, significantly reducing the Black-white achievement gap.

A later follow-up study by Finn and his associates found that students who had spent their first four years in small classes continued to outperform their peers in larger classes all the way through eighth grade.

In new research reported in Finn's book, Project STAR reports that children in small classes in grades K-3 continued to benefit from that experience through the 11th and 12th grades.

A higher percentage of the small-class students completed high school on schedule (76 percent vs. 63.7 percent of students in larger classes and 70 percent in larger classes assisted by a teacher's aide). More of them received an honors diploma (45.1 percent vs. 28.9 percent and 30.5 percent, respectively). They also were less likely to drop out of high school (15.1 percent vs. 24.1 percent and 20.9 percent) and more likely to have taken the ACT or SAT exams.

Finn and his colleagues continue to analyze the data to examine the schooling and employment of study participants after completing high school.

The original study began with more than 7,000 students from 79 urban, suburban, rural and inner-city schools. Each student was assigned randomly to either a small class (13 to 17 students per teacher), a regular-size class (22 to 25 students per teacher) or a regular-size class with the teacher assisted by a full-time aide. By the end of the fourth year of the study, nearly 12,000 participants were involved.

Classroom teachers also were randomly assigned to the classes they would teach. The interventions were initiated as the students entered school in kindergarten and continued through third grade. At the end of four years, students in small classes significantly outperformed those in regular-size classes on all tests of academic performance. The greatest gains were made by minority students or students attending inner-city schools.

Other research reported in the book indicates that the STAR results are not unique to Tennessee. Similar results have been obtained in urban, suburban and rural school districts. The book includes reports of similar results in Wisconsin's Project SAGE, a small-class initiative directed to high-poverty schools; in Burke County, North Carolina schools serving a low-income community; across the state of California, and elsewhere.

"Some research," says Finn, "also has identified the personal and professional characteristics and teaching practices of high- and low-quality teachers to ascertain which of them maximize the benefits of small classes."

Finn is a widely published educational scholar who has held research fellowships at the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). He has taught at Stanford University and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and his most recent work is "The Enduring Effects of Small Classes," a report published in the prestigious journal, Teachers College Record.