Educators from a rural school describe the alternative program their school developed to help students who were seriously isolated, anxious, and disengaged--some of whom were falling through the cracks. These students are placed in smaller ELA, math, and science classes (usually with two teachers) so they receive more attention. They also enjoy…

Identifying an appropriate class size is an important decision public schools face as they weigh balancing their budget with the impact class size may have on student achievement. This study examined perceptions of South Dakota kindergarten through third-grade teachers, elementary principals, and superintendents concerning optimal class size and…

Understanding the effects of class size reduction (CSR) has been an enduring issue in education. For the past 3 decades, Project STAR has stimulated research and policy discussions regarding the effects of CSR on a variety of outcomes. Schanzenbach (2007) reviewed STAR studies and concluded that small classes improved student academic outcomes.…

Schools across the United States are facing budgetary pressures on a scale not seen in generations. Times of fiscal exigency force policymakers and education practitioners to pay more attention to the return on various categories of public investment in education. The sizes of the classes in which students are educated are often a focus of these…

Most states nationwide have had policies for several decades that limit the number of students assigned to public K-12 classrooms. Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states, led by Tennessee and Texas, spearheaded this effort in the 1980s, and SREB's own "Legislative Briefings" have marked the growth of class-size policies across…

A consistent body of research shows that large classes have been perceived by teachers as an obstacle to deliver quality teaching. This large-scale study sought to investigate further those differential effects by asking 1,119 teachers from 321 K-12 schools in New South Wales (Australia) their perceptions of ideal class size for a variety of…

This brief summarizes findings on class size from over 25 years of work on the Tennessee Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) randomized, longitudinal experiment, and other Class-Size Reduction (CSR) studies throughout the United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Sweden, Great Britain, and elsewhere. The brief concludes with recommendations. The…

This article addresses three questions: Does reduced class size cause higher academic achievement in reading, mathematics, listening, and word recognition skills? If it does, how large are these effects? Does the magnitude of such effects vary significantly across schools? The authors analyze data from Tennessee's Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio…

Superficially, the Brooklyn Generation School, in the Flatbush area, looks a lot like the other six small public high schools that share space in this tall building, the former South Shore High School. What's noticeably different about it, though, is the strength of the relationships among staff members. Teachers can be seen running across the…

Class size is one of the small number of variables in American K-12 education that are both thought to influence student learning and are subject to legislative action. Legislative mandates on maximum class size have been very popular at the state level. In recent decades, at least 24 states have mandated or incentivized class-size reduction…

Many studies have shown the benefits of smaller class sizes--including random experiments like the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio Project conducted in 79 elementary schools in Tennessee, which assigned children to either small or regular-size classes, as well as large-scale analyses of small and large classrooms that have occurred naturally.…

There is still little consensus on whether and how teaching is affected by small and large classes, especially in the case of students in the later primary years. This study investigated effects of class size on teaching of pupils aged 7-11 years. We used a multimethod approach, integrating qualitative information from teachers' end-of-year…

Preschool for All (PFA) is a part-day (2.5 hours for up to five days a week) early childhood education program for 3- and 4-year-olds in Illinois. The program is voluntary to families and is designed to be a high-quality preschool option for all children--especially those at risk of academic failure. PFA was implemented in 2006 and is free to…

Although the number of urban Catholic schools has declined in recent years, Nativity model middle schools, first developed by the Jesuits over 35 years ago, have appeared throughout the nation to address the need for effective alternative education for urban children placed at risk. The present study compares the effectiveness of two types of…

ClassWide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) is an evidence-based instructional strategy effective with students with and without disabilities. The evidence for efficacy is strong with respect to students in elementary schools learning basic academic skills in classrooms with large teacher-pupil ratios, and relatively less strong for students in secondary…