On October 27, the New York City Council Committee on Education held a hearing on a bill to reduce class size. The chairman of the committee is Mark Treyger, a former teacher. The city’s Department of Education opposes the bill, based on the strain on facilities (there is never a problem finding space for a new charter school).
I testified in favor of class size reduction, along with Regent Kathy Cashin (a former teacher, principal, and superintendent), as well as a number of parent advocates and Leonie Haimson, CEO of Class Size Matters.
Here is my statement, tailored to fit a 2-minute time limit.
I should have added this additional point.
Some people have said to me, “When I was in school, we had 40 or 50 kids in a class. Why do kids today need classes any smaller.?”
Answer: In those old days, schools operated on the principle of sink or swim. Those who couldn’t keep up either flunked or dropped out. Now we expect all students to finish high school. That can’t happen if class sizes are so large that children who struggle are overlooked.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dr. Ravitch,
Like probably everyone here I do it for smaller class sizes. But I’m wondering if your testimony also included how to solve the issue of hiring more teachers. And not just more teachers but high-quality teachers. As you probably are aware nearly every single district struggling struggling with having enough staff to support their current students. Smaller class sizes means more teachers are needed? Where will those teachers from from? My guess is you would not support things like Teach for America or similar programs filling the needs – then where would they come from?
To often in education problems are identified without specific solutions. I’d love to hear your solutions to this problem
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Love, love, love this!
“With smaller classes, teachers have the time they need to do their jobs.” Nailed it.
That’s a powerful use of the allotted time!
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I best that Diane Ravitch would be great at the “tell a short story in 8 words or less” game. This testimony is a gem of concise targeting of the most important issues, an application of the Pareto Principle sans pareil. Let’s hope that it was met with the necessary concomitant close attention!
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cx: I bet.
Aie yie yie. My finger is quicker to the Send button than my mind is to proofreading!
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Class size matters a lot, particularly for poor and special need students. I taught very poor ELLs for most of my career. Prior to that I taught French for four years. When I taught French my classes numbered between 25 and 32. These were manageable numbers since the majority of students were middle class. When I taught ESL, my students were mostly from very poor, unstable, violent countries. The typical student had little formal schooling. My district was aware of the challenges, and my classes were capped at twenty in the high school. When I taught ESL in the high school, the assistant principal, who did the schedules, (it was BC-before computers), collapsed two classes together by accident. I had 40 ESL students for almost four months. Students sat on the floor and the heating unit. While I did “manage” the students, I couldn’t teach them well under those conditions. There was very little time or space to help individual students. I was far less effective, and I knew it. After the class was divided, I was able to do a much better job of reaching and teaching these very needy students. Class size matters!
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Contrary to common assumptions, large class sizes are also inefficient. I had 42 students with only 32 desks and a classroom set of 25 books. (The library ran out of enough for students to have their own.) It was a massive time waster for students to seek out spots to sit on the floor, scoot desks together to share books, move to see the whiteboard, get out of the way so I could move around, etc. Needless to say, such large classes made only half of the academic progress of those with only 25-30 kids.
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When I went on strike for smaller classes, I was keenly aware that preventing charter schools from having more classrooms to plunder with collocations was a main reason. Before the strike, I had about 42 students in a class. Now, it’s 30. Oh, the difference!
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Dr. Ravitch and everyone – I am all for smaller class sizes. I don’t think there is anyone who would be FOR larger class sizes. However, here is my question to everyone – where will the teachers come from to lower the class sizes? Will they come from Teach for America (I am sure that would not be something Dr. Ravitch would support). Right now, districts across the nation have massive shortages – so if we lower class sizes, we will need more teachers, which of course cost more money, not to mention where more people will come from.
Too often in education, we will shout about problems, but not come up with specific solutions on how to solve the problem. Yes we are all for lower class sizes – but where will the teachers come from?
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More bonafied teachers would apply if conditions like class size were better.
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That’s a chicken and egg type answer: You’re seeing them more bonafide teachers would apply if they were smaller class sizes but then you need more teachers in order to have smaller class sizes. That doesn’t exactly solve the problem
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Yes, you need more teachers if class sizes are reduced. What’s wrong with that?
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There is nothing wrong with it BUT where will those teachers come from? Last I looked we can’t clone teachers. So again you have identified a problem but don’t have a good solution for the problem.
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This is why we fight for higher salaries, defined benefits, and better working conditions. It’s what unions are for.
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Before deform we had an adequate teaching force. Deform has been denigrating teachers for more than twenty years. Red states and some cash strapped cities have been cutting school budgets to the bone. There is also the ever increasing privatization drain on many school systems that make working conditions more difficult. Teachers have been a national punching bag for far too long. It is no surprise that young people are less interested in teaching as a career.
The Biden budget includes money to encourage the study of education. He has lots of great proposals in his budget, if they survive cuts.https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/bidens-vision-for-how-to-strengthen-the-teacher-workforce/
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We would lose a lot fewer teachers if class sizes and teacher loads weren’t so ridiculous. Burn out is her real. If we weren’t losing teachers after less than five years, It would help.
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Again – that’s a chicken and egg response to the question. Let’s lower class size so that we can hire more teachers but we need to hire more teachers to lower class size.
What’s interesting is that no one here has expressed the role that the pandemic has played in impacting teachers staying in their positions, or not wanting to teach. That is real as well.
Again, I’ve yet to hear A solution to this situation.
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Smaller class sizes mean better working conditions. The two causes of teachers leaving the classroom are inadequate pay and working conditions. Smaller classes address one of those two issues. Why do you seem to throw up your hands and say if you can’t solve both, don’t solve either? What’s your solution? The status quo? Resignation?
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Dr. Ravitch – I offered a solution to LCT with one possible idea. I am not throwing up my hands and saying do nothing. What I AM saying is that too OFTEN in education in particular there are those that complain about this or that, but at the same time they are unwilling to come up with or consider creative solutions to solve the problem. I simply ASKED what I think is a legitimate question – how does one lower class sizes when that means you need more teachers, and you already have teacher shortages in so many districts.
Many hear have pointed out the horrific working conditions that have driven those to leave the profession – I admit some of that is true. Yet, no one (except for me) has focused on the role the pandemic has played in impacting teaching, and the real fear of illness from COVID-19 driving older teacher to retire early, or those fearful of illness to not even pursuing teaching (or bus driving) as a career.
Dr. Ravitch – here is my challenge to your and your readers – whenever they want to post something that needs to be changed (smaller class sizes, more money for teacher salaries, etc), they need to at least propose ONE potential solution. And not something like “let’s lower defense spending and put it into education” – which while perhaps noble is a but unlikely. Let’s focus on reasonable solutions and not just stating problems.
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Nor have you offered any.
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actually I did offer one – I responded to LCT with the idea of using paid internships for student teachers who could be teacher of record for a half of a teacher load – two paid interns could take one position. It’s not going to be able to address teacher shortage jn every situation but it can help in some schools.
BTW – I didn’t raise the problem. You did. And as I have repeatedly said even in your testimony you didn’t offer a solution – how is that beneficial to NY City schools if they already have a shortage (which I suspect they do)
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Jls, what is your solution? I have yet to hear you offer one.
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LCT – I didn’t say that I had a great solution to the problem, however I think it’s quite frustrating for those that state problems but aren’t willing to state any solution…
That said, I do have one possible solution would be creating paid student teaching internships that would allow two paid interns to teach half time positions (to complete one position). These type of programs have the potential to lessen the class size in a handful of schools, but I know that not every paid intern could be ready to complete this position. I also think that teacher residency programs have the potential to assist with lowering class sizes. Now, this would mean that an uncertified teacher may be allowed to teach – which perhaps some of you here may not be in favor of. Let’s be clear, this would not be a Teach for America model..
So, that’s all I’ve got for now. BUT just saying “increase salaries, or lower class sizes so more teachers want to teach” are what I call 10 word answers. They sound great in a debate, but there’s often little behind the response. We don’t need 10 word answers to solve education challenges.
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Increasing pay and reducing class size are not sound bytes; they are what we fight for when engage in collective bargaining and we go on strike. And when we fight, we win. When we lose hope, we lose — everything. Put up yer dukes!
A while ago, I looked up the definition of liberal in my old Oxford Dictionary. The definition was something like this: (n.) someone who believes in the possibility of improvement of the human condition.
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I disagree with you. They are sound bites when no concrete solutions are offered. How does saying reduce class size when there is already a teacher shortage help anyone at all? It doesn’t.
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Well, let’s just give up, then, Jls. Let the students suffer because we didn’t even try. Awesome.
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Hold up. I never said give up or not try. I said come with creative solutions. It’s very easy to tell someone what’s wrong. It’s much harder to tell the person how it can be fixed
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jlsteach– I remember decades ago obtaining additional skills and changing my line of work because, I read in the NYT, the state we were moving to had a huge glut of teachers applying [baby-boom grads like ourselves]. Frankly my 1st 2 yrs’ teaching involved such long hrs & so many extra duties that I was already obtaining entry-level experience in office work, summers.
Imagine how differently I would have responded had I read that a new govt program was pumping big $ into public ed for increased teacher salaries and smaller classes. In fact, if such a thing had happened while I was an undergrad still dithering between the two fields (but realizing belatedly I’d only equipped myself for priv-sch teaching), I would have no doubt pursued certificate & master’s.
Another example: my older cuz, engrg student, suddenly appeared in my freshman geology classes due to exciting devpts in seismics. That’s really how the job market works for younger people. You make and change plans according to where opportunity seems to be knocking.
As for older people, if things were to change in a significantly positive way for pubsch teaching, there will be career-changers returning and prematurely-retired as well. And the many states which already have alternate paths for career-changers will get more takers, and they might actually last for more than a couple of years.
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Interesting examples…but it still doesn’t solve the issue of how one lowers class sizes without getting more teachers.
As for more money into education – Maryland’s Blueprint for Education is doing just that. Let’s recall however that education is a state responsibility. There have been plenty of federal programs putting money into education. But states (or districts) make decisions on spending
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The teacher shortage is a creation of lagging salaries and growing bipartisan disrespect for teachers. So much education money has gone into tech and non-teaching services that teaching is dried out. Cure the salaries and working conditions and you get a new generation of good instructors. It will take longer to develop this than a few years, but we must.
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Roy – In terms of salaries, it depends on states. Yes, I do agree that teaching needs more respect. And in other countries they do get more respect and higher salaries. But as Peter Parker in Spiderman said, “With great power, comes great responsibilities” – I’d alter that – with higher respect, it means higher standards. Which could mean that some people who really want to be teachers aren’t able to be because of different reasons (perhaps they don’t pass certain tests, etc). So, then what…
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Js: I think you have it backward. Start attracting teachers by respecting their ability to create creative approaches to solving the difficult problems associated with teaching and learning. Give them proper training and space to develop as professionals. Insist that they be highly educated and articulate. respect will follow.
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Okay Roy – “give them proper training” – that seems to cost $$ right – where will this money come from? Insist they be highly educated – what does that really mean? A bachelors, a master’s, a doctorate? Respecting their ability to creative approaches. Do you think that all teachers are like that? I’ve recently been in schools where the teachers have little or no creativity in their teaching.
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Js: a solution that is rather inexpensive is to grant teachers a measure of academic independence. When I started teaching, the best teachers were complete masters of their classrooms. Firm and kind, they demanded a lot of respect from students because “their name was over the door.” It did not cost anyone.
Micro management of teaching has led to massive teacher exodous. and there is no promise land .
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Roy – I am guessing not all of the teachers were firm and kind and demanded the respect because of who they were. I’d also say this – with great power comes great responsibility. Sure some teachers with academic freedom will thrive. But not all of them will. Some will set students back with deficit mindsets. If you don’t think that’s true well I’ve seen it in classrooms this past week.
There aren’t enough of the teachers you described to fill every single classroom in this country. So your simple solution doesn’t solve the problem
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Js: Of course you have seen teachers without creativity or motivation. When has there ever been a system that was flawless? What we are talking about is cautious improvement. Reform has attempted to blow up everything. That did not really work out.
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Your idea of letting teachers teach whatever they wanted to or how they wanted to didn’t sound like “cautious improvement” to me. I’ll agree with this point – as teachers demonstrate their ability to do well by students (though observations, not test scores) they should be given more freedom in their pedagogy. But such freedom should be earned.
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Jls: When I came to my present school, my principal told me that he always hired teachers who were smarter than he and let them teach. I took this very seriously. Though I was not a well-trained mathematics teacher, I studied, mostly informally, what I needed to do. We were a small school, but I started a Calculus program that we had never had. I became adequate despite my own and the system’s shortcomings.
I tell this narrative not to toot my own horn but to point out that the gesture of trust and professional respect paid dividends. Perfection was never reached. Problems arose and continue to arise. But the result was far above what ed reform has done for us.
Sometimes you just have to trust the people you hire.
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Roy your story resonated with me for a few reasons, but also showed the flaws of taking one or two situations and applying them to a larger context (school, district, state, or federal).
In August 2004, I had what I thought was an informational interview with the principal of a brand new STEM school in DC that was opening in a couple of weeks. After a 20 min chat, the principal says to me he just learned he has an opening for Geometry and Algebra 2. And if I wanted it, I could have it. Now, this was in DCPS at a time when the school system had a poor reputation. And this person didn’t know me from anyone. But as you noted, he trusted me to be a good leader. And to this day it was one of the best moves that I could make.
The school at the time was relatively small – it only had 9th and 10th graders starting so there wasn’t a need for a large faculty.
yes, if this was the norm, it would be an amazing situation. But you and I both know that this isn’t the norm. That there are teachers that are simply placed at schools (involuntary transfers – which are often the poorer teachers). That when there is a last minute opening and the options are less than stellar, well, you take the best of the worst.
So Roy, while your story is wonderful and is ideal – let’s maybe agree it’s not realistic for the way schools are currently set up in this country.
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Thank you for fighting for small class sizes.
This is such a complicated issue (to be fair, I probably say that about all education issues but it turns out it is very complicated to teach every child who lives in a city and not just have privately operated but publicly funded charters get disproportionate resources to cherry pick the easiest to teach students, which ed reformers seem to believe is the simple solution to all issues.)
While I absolutely want small class size for all students, I would prioritize it in some schools and not in others. In NYC, class size is capped, so the biggest high schools shouldn’t have classes that are larger than 32 or 34. And while that’s not perfect, it does work reasonably well in schools like specialized high schools, where most students come in well-prepared and motivated to learn.
I’d rather have an “average” class size of 25 where schools with high percentages of struggling students have class sizes of 15 and high schools with high percentages of highly motivated students have class sizes of 32. I feel outraged when I hear that some cities have class sizes of 40 — that is not NYC, at least it is not supposed to be NYC.
If you cap class sizes at already popular schools that function well with higher class sizes, it just limits the students who can attend. But if you create new schools with guaranteed low class sizes, that will be a draw to make those schools popular.
And I do think that there is a space problem. It isn’t just charters getting space – it is more complicated. For popular crowded elementary schools, having a second teacher in the same class who can address the needs of students who require more attention would also be an improvement. And possibly more popular than cutting the number of seats by 25% and telling parents in the catchment that they have to send their kids elsewhere.
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Smaller class sizes does make a difference.
In those DAZE when I was a classroom teacher, in one school I had 7 different classes to teach. In one class of 9th graders, there weren’t enough desks for all the students. The overflow sat on the ledge in front of the windows. I would worry about kids falling though the windows. Everyone showed up, too. The students didn’t ‘cut” my classes.
In another state, I had 35 kindergarteners in both the morning and afternoon classes.
The other classes I taught ween’t much better and I have taught in 5 different school systems.
Smaller class sizes does make a difference.
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In 1970, when I became chief negotiator for the 5000 Columbus teachers, we wanted to see what we could negotiate to help improve reading (as this was a high priority for our members). I pulled together a large-group meeting of reading teachers and teachers of grade levels K-6. We talked about various approaches and problems. The single most popular idea with almost all the teachers was to lower class sizes in the “lower” grade levels. We were able to do that within a few years, at the bargaining table. Reading scores did improve. So did almost everything else. I’ve long since moved on and can’t speak for the situation in Columbus today–and of course the disastrous state & national testing processes have intervened. But YES, class size makes a huge difference.
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This post doesn’t include information about what the current class sizes are in NYC public schools.
Kindergarten class size limit is currently 25. For older elementary school grades it is 32.
Middle school class size limit is 33, but in Title I schools (high poverty), the current class size limits in middle school is 30.
High School class size limit is 34.
I definitely support smaller class sizes for all.
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There is another element, especially in ela classes. The total number of students teachers see every day creates tremendous problems. You can spend an enourmous tim corktin student essaies.
Of course, smaller class sizes can help, but think of teaching 6 classes of 20 each. 120 kids is too many writing assignments for a proper amount of feedback, even for resourceful teachers with different methods of feedback.
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When I take home 200 essays to grade, it’s very different than taking home 100 essays to grade. Yes.
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Taking home 200 essays to grade is a different ballgame than taking home 100 essays to grade.
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Sorry, I thought my first reply didn’t pass the internet.
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When I started teaching in 1975, contractual maximum for middle school was 45. My numbers didn’t get quite that high, but teaching 39 eighth graders to speak, listen, read, and write in Spanish was daunting.
My union has succeeded in reducing class size down to 25 in middle schools. We did so slowly and actually took smaller raises or forewent other cost items in recognition that there’s a cost to smaller class size. Teachers felt smaller classes were worth that trade-off.
What this indicates is that smaller class size allows teachers to be more proficient and successful at their work. This must be why the reformsters refuse to consider this one reform. It would allow for greater success in our public schools.
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Clearly correct!
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A lot of interesting and great comments here. One I’d like to respond to says, in effect, we’d like to lower class sizes but we wouldn’t have enough teachers. Unless I’m wrong (and maybe someone mentioned this) there are a lot of folks who have left the classroom for other jobs, retired early, etc. IF we could break the testing stranglehold, pay decently, and begin reducing class, I think lots of folks would come back to the classroom. I don’t know if it would be enough, but it would be a lot.
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Insightful!
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…and eliminate the micromanagement!
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Jack – perhaps some of those that left would come back – but would it be enough to lower class sizes across the nation? I doubt it. Second – you again used faulty logic – saying a way that we could get them to come back is to lower class sizes (which again we need the teachers to do that).
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You gotta start somewhere. Your logic is paralyzing.
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Dr Ravitch – I’m not against starting somewhere – I even proposed an idea that would be small in impact but could help reduce class sizes. That said I wouldn’t go about claiming that it was THE solution to lowering class sizes.
I’ve never stated once that class sizes shouldn’t be reduced. I agree with the premise. What I don’t agree with is someone making that claim and then not considering an actual solution to the problem
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Leonie Haimson and Diane Ravitch, you have this teacher’s undying gratitude.
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One of the things I find most aggravating about this issue is the studies. Articles attempting to summarize them [like this one, Brookings 2011 https://www.brookings.edu/research/class-size-what-research-says-and-what-it-means-for-state-policy/ ] are written since edumeretricians took over the field. Brookings throws up its hands at hundreds of studies done since the 1950’s, settling only on those that meet today’s economist’s strict standards. There’s one they like [TN “STAR,” late ‘80’s], that shows large reductions in class size [7-10], particularly if started early in elementary, have a significant long-term impact on student achievement and perhaps non-cognitive outcomes as well. They compare it to a handful of others, with positive/ mixed/ negative results– and each has factors so different from the model TN study that they’re not really comparable (IMHO). Naturally, Brookings’ conclusion is ‘we don’t really know’… >:-(
And then there’s… do we really need studies? Who questions that kids don’t do learn more in a class of 20 students than a class of 30? Parents don’t. How about you, when you’re seeking advice from your doc? Which do you get more out of, 15 mins or a half-hour? How about grocery lines? Do you choose the longest one because there’s “mixed data on results”?
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Ginny, when you read education studies, pay attention to the authors and their affiliations. Grover Whitehurst was in charge of education research for the George W. Bush administration. He advised Romney in 2012. Google his interview with DeVos. He’s a strong supporter of school choice. Chingos has written extensively about the same subject. Advocates of choice dont like CSR.
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Thanks for these pointers, Diane, & will do.
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Always, my answer to studies on class size is Harkness Tables. Good enough for the wealthy, good enough for the poors.
https://www.exeter.edu/excellence/how-youll-learn
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Good one! Came across this:
“In a 2006 interview with NPR before his death in 2007, Kurt Vonnegut was asked: “If you were to build or envision a country that you could consider yourself to be a proud citizen of, what would be three of its basic attributes”? Vonnegut responded: “Schools with classes of 12 or smaller.”
“Likewise, the Harkness method of teaching is typically designed for 12, with a maximum of 14 possible student seats.”
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