Common sense suggests that public school children will do better in smaller classes than in larger classes. Smaller class sizes provide the opportunity for personal attention and additional instructional help when necessary. Yet, whether smaller class sizes boost academic achievement has been examined in numerous studies with mixed results. This article examines how class size affects academic performance, where smaller class sizes can have the greatest impact, and how some critics question the benefits and cost-effectiveness of class size reduction.
Advantages of Reducing Class Size
Several studies have shown that reducing class size increases overall student achievement, especially for younger, disadvantaged children. The following are some of the benefits of fewer students in a classroom:
- Students receive more individualized attention and interact more with the teacher.
- Teachers have more flexibility to use different instructional approaches.
- Fewer students are less distracting to each other than a large group of children.
- Teachers have more time to teach because there are fewer discipline problems.
- Students are more likely to participate in class and become more involved.
- Teachers have more time to cover additional material and use more supplementary texts and enrichment activities.
As a practical matter, it is not possible for most public schools to hire enough teachers so that all classes in grades kindergarten through 12th grade have no more than, for example, 18 students. Given finite resources to hire new teachers, judgments have to be made about where the additional teachers should be placed.
This TEDxTalk presents a student's perspective on small class sizes.
