As an educational reform goal, class size reduction (CSR) aims to increase the number of individualized student-teacher interactions intended to improve student learning.
Studies following the work of Project STAR and SAGE found that, even when reintroduced to larger class-sizes later in their educational career, the positive foundation for learning caused students to later in life to be more likely to take advanced classes, graduate from high school, attend college, and major in a STEM field.
Its benefits are particularly pronounced for lower-income students and children of color, who experience two to three times the gains from smaller classes, leading CSR to be one of only a few education reforms proven to reduce the achievement gap.
In 2002, Margaret Spellings, secretary of education under President George W. Bush, pointed out the need for a standardized definition of what is meant by class size.
[7] Aware of both the preliminary results of a CSR program in Indiana called Project Prime Time and the potential large scale costs of additional classrooms and teachers, in 1985, under then Governor Lamar Alexander, Tennessee began a three-phase project to determine the effects of reduced class sizes on short and long term pupil performance in the earliest grades.
Observations confirmed that children originally enrolled in smaller classes continued to outperform their peers when they returned to regular-sized classrooms.
Under the third phase, Project Challenge, the 17 economically poorest school districts were adequately funded to provide smaller class sizes for their K–3 students.
In 2002 the state of Wisconsin began its own investigations into “the wisdom of class size reduction," [13] by initiating Project SAGE (Student Achievement Guarantee in Education).
In schools constrained by space this often involved tag-team teaching rather than increased individualized instruction (lowering of PTR but not class size).
The California K–3 CSR Program was established in 1996 to improve education, especially in reading and mathematics, by reducing class sizes in kindergarten through grade three.
[16] Because nearly all elementary schools in the state reduced class size at once, especially in grades K-2, it was difficult for researchers to find a control group with which to compare outcomes.
[16] One serious drawback of this program is that it was much tougher for schools in lower-income communities to benefit as they were already struggling to retain high-quality teachers and maintain a sufficient quantity of classrooms.
[23] The Coleman Report, published in 1966, concluded that family background matters significantly more to a student's academic achievement than any resources a school can offer.
In fact, class size reduction is one of only a handful of K12 reforms cited by the Institute of Education Sciences (2003) as proven to increase student achievement through rigorous evidence.
However, some researchers worry whether teachers will take full advantage of these opportunities, arguing that they tend to use the same strategies (primarily lecturing) with both large and small groups.
A book reviewing evidence and perspectives on class size from around the world concludes that "Project STAR produced gains without any changes in the curriculum or any focused teacher training.
[55] Given the current uncertainty of national financial markets, some commentators have encouraged policymakers to consider whether implementing or broadening class-size-reduction policies is feasible in a time of major budget cuts.
[1] An analysis of the Tennessee STAR study demonstrated that the economic benefits from higher achievement alone would be expected to yield twice the cost of reducing class size.
[11] A meta-analysis of CSR literature revealed that the benefits of smaller class size outweighed the cost in all but three of the 112 peer-reviewed studies.
[29] However, one prominent study[59] looking at the program's effect on long-term average wage earnings of students who participated in STAR by linking the data from the experiment to IRS tax records 26 years later disagrees.
One valid finding, though, was that students who had teachers with greater education training and work experience were more likely to achieve higher earnings later in life.