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Small Isn’t Always Beautiful
March 21st, 2007

Contrary to popular wisdom simply, cutting class size will not necessarily improve education, Raymond Domanico writes in today’s Daily News. “While research shows that – all things being equal – smaller classes are good for student achievement,” Domanico says, reducing class size would require the Department of Education to hire more teachers, not necessarily an easy task in “a labor pool that is already stretched thin.” And so he says, “If New York City were to reduce class size across the board, many parents would see their children placed with less-qualified teachers.”

Instead Domanico, the senior education adviser to the Industrial Areas Foundation of Metro NY, advises advocates to try to get more resources for the city’s lowest performing schools and then let those schools “decide if class-size reduction is the best way to use the money.”

By Gail Robinson on March 21, 2007, 7:30 am
In category: Education, Gotham City | 6 Comments »

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6 Responses to “Small Isn’t Always Beautiful”

  1. Daniel Millstone Says:
    March 21st, 2007 at 10:16 am

    So far as I know, there is no data whatsoever to support Mr. Domanico’s statements. Smaller class size is a strategy which has been proven to improve students’ success in school.

    New York City has the resources to hire and train an effective group of teachers if it will spend the money needed to do so.

    I’m told, but have not personally reviewed data on this, that it reduces teacher attrition. If so, one impact of smaller classes would be to create a more experienced group of teachers. Experienced teachers, I’m told, also are associated with better student outcomes. (Of course, Mr. Bloomberg & Mr. Klein seem to be crafting a system designed to drive more experienced teachers elsewhere, because, I guess, they cost more than beginners.)

  2. Larry Littlefield Says:
    March 21st, 2007 at 10:48 am

    “a labor pool that is already stretched thin.” “If New York City were to reduce class size across the board, many parents would see their children placed with less-qualified teachers.”

    If there is one thing I don’t want to hear, it is this argument from those who have never objected to a state funding formula that has redistributed educational resources out of NYC.

    The labor pool is stretched thin because the city pays too little, and too much of that is in retirement not when teachers are on the job, and the rest of the metro area pays too much — with our money. And the response is larger class sizes as well?

  3. Patrick Sullivan Says:
    March 21st, 2007 at 11:00 am

    The calls for smaller classes (merely sizes like the rest of the state) are so vocal and so persistent from parents and teachers that the Mayor and Chancellor have no choice but to call for help. Their friends who own the tabloids and who decide what opinion pieces get printed are only too happy to oblige. Exactly who is Raymond Domanico and why is his voice heard when elected parent representatives are ignored? The Citywide Council on High Schools passed a resolution opposing the Mayor’s restructuring. One reason: “the proposal focuses on overall structure rather than proven initiatives that directly impact the classroom, such as smaller class size”. The Stuyvesant High School PTA passed a similar resolution with the same class size language. I bet more people have heard of Stuyvesant High School than Mr. Domanico’s Industrial Areas Foundation.

    The excuse that Klein can’t find enough teachers is old and wearing thin. If teachers have to choose between 34 kids in a class in NYC and 20 in another district, it’s not so hard to see why we have a retention problem.

  4. Marge Kolb Says:
    March 21st, 2007 at 4:23 pm

    So today’s Daily News runs a guest editorial opining that class size reduction would hurt the poor, claiming that there are not enough
    teachers. Of course, this is Chancellor Klein’s favorite excuse as well….

    My reply is, why can’t class size reduction be phased in starting first with schools in need of improvement, moving on to all Title I schools, and then all other schools? Furthermore, it’s entirely possible to reduce class sizes in classes other than science and math (which are teacher shortage areas) in middle school and high school.
    Simply take two 30-student classes for Math and Science and then split them into three 20-student classes for English, Social Studies, Foreign Language etc. I bet teachers who have left the public school
    system due to the overwhelming number of students they were assigned could be lured back and hopefully, turn-over among new teachers would be reduced as well. (I believe middle school English teachers have 80 or more students, and those kids get 8-10 periods of English per week; Social Studies teachers probably have as many as 150 students!)

  5. Gotham Gazette - The Wonkster » Blog Archive » Cutting Class Siize Says:
    March 26th, 2007 at 11:29 am

    [...] In the < a xhref=”http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/03/21/small-isnt-always-beautiful/trackback/”>continuing debate over whether the state should require its school districts, including New York City’s, to reduce class size, Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters weighs in in today’s Daily News with a resounding yes. “We will never improve our stagnant middle school scores or lower our huge dropout rates without reducing class size. And as research shows, poor and minority students benefit the most from class-size reduction, as they need the greatest instructional support,” she writes. [...]

  6. James Ishikawa Says:
    March 30th, 2007 at 3:06 pm

    It seems reasonable to place more students into an experienced teacher’s classroom. Since the most senior teacher earns $87K (versus $42K for rookie teachers), a reasonable student distribution could range from 16 students for rookies, to 32 students for high paid senior pros. The class dollars spent per student would range from $42K/18 = $2.3K for rookies, and $87K/32 = $2.7K for pros. This distribution would
    provide students with either the experienced teacher or a class size advantage. Perhaps ‘easier’ schools will always attract teacher’s with seniority, but a student distribution plan would reduce the clear cut advantage of hiring these pros.

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