Size matters in middle school classes
March 2, 2021 | By John Kerrigan As a former 40+-year teacher, I was very disappointed to read that Harwood school board members voted to reduce by one-half the number of core teachers in the Harwood Union Middle School.
An article in the Feb. 25 Valley Reporter (HUMS Class Sizes To Increase Next Year) quotes Warren School board representative Rosemarie White saying that small class sizes were actually a detriment to students’ learning. “Our administrators continue to tell us that small class sizes are not good for our children, emotionally, or academically. We’ve been doing a disservice to our students by listening to the fear projected by these well-meaning parents, instead of the people we pay to educate our children,” White said.
It appears Ms. White has based this decision solely on information she received from the Harwood administration. Is she including our classroom teachers in “the people we pay to educate our children?”
The Harwood board did not give credence to veteran math teacher Becky Allen. Based on my experience, middle school-age students are extremely vulnerable. As Ms. Allen states, “They can slip through the cracks if we are not careful.”
I don’t think when Ms. White refers to the “Harwood administration” she is referring to all of the administrators in the district. Most administrators started out as classroom teachers. I have witnessed our superintendent speaking publicly supporting larger class sizes of 25 or more. Has she reached this conclusion after extensive research? Where’s the facts, ma’am? Let’s hear from the other administrators as well as current middle school teachers. Can they speak freely without fear of retribution?
Have Harwood board members done their homework on this issue? What is the student/teacher ratio in our neighboring schools? How would increasing the student/teacher ratio affect current and future enrollment numbers? We are currently losing many good families to other districts. If this trend continues, we won’t have enough students to even have a Middle School.
As a former science teacher, I taught my students to gather much information about a subject and apply what they have learned to a new situation. Only after careful and thorough analysis based on scientific facts, they were able to draw their own conclusion.
The Harwood board has not done their homework regarding this matter, but I have!
A randomized study conducted by researcher Helen Pate Bain and her colleagues in Tennessee in the mid-1980s, called Project STAR, provided the strongest evidence to date that children learn more when they are in a smaller class.
Their research results were clear: students in the smaller classes performed significantly better on math and reading tests, with a gain of four percentile points or more. The benefits of smaller classes were even larger in schools with low-income students.
More recent research indicates that the benefits of being taught in smaller classes persist long after students have moved on to the next grade. They become more likely to complete high school and go to college and less likely to end up becoming parents in their teens, to name some of the most compelling examples.
The Center for Public Education has said that for a teacher to be as effective as possible in teaching their students, they should have no more than 18 students per class, with the sweet spot falling somewhere in the range of 13–17 students per teacher.
I estimate that I have taught well over 10,000 students in class sizes ranging from 9 to 35 from 1974 to 2015. My experience puts me in agreement with researcher Helen Bain and with the Center for Public Education.
The Center clearly states that: “The size of your child’s classroom plays a tremendous role in what, exactly, your child is able to take away from their middle school years. Smaller student-to-teacher ratios allow for more attention from instructors, opportunities for more hands-on instruction, a stronger sense of community, more opportunities to contribute in class, all of which can go far in helping your child reach their true potential.”
Perhaps board members should seek out the experiences of their teachers before making this radical decision. If they don’t want to hear directly from the professionals on the front line, let me suggest they conduct their own experiment.
Let’s have the administrators and board members who want to increase class size to 25 or more teach a lesson to 25 or more students for one hour. Repeat this 4 or 5 more times during the course of one day.
Only then, they may reconsider such harsh action.
Come on, Harwood board. You have not given this your best shot. Our families, teachers, students, and the Harwood community deserve better.
John Kerrigan is a former Harwood Union High School science teacher.