Reforming Education in Impoverished Communities: #1. Very Small Class Sizes

What's the biggest step that can be taken to help impoverished communities? Fixing the educational system is likely one of the most important places to start.

On May 25, George Floyd died a tragic and unjust death. His death sparked wide, international criticism of police policies and racism in American. The peaceful protests turned into riots. Defund the Police became the anthem of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and left-wing voices. I think it is fair to say that many black Americans have suffered hard lives due to cultural breakdown in their communities: drug use and crimes, black on black violent crimes, and absent fathers are some examples that many people note. At the same time, I don't think it is unfair to white Americans to say that black Americans have had to deal with racism which still impacts their lives today. The election of President Obama did not do away will all of the hurdles they face. 

Therefore, I think the federal, state, and local governments should make efforts to help remedy the challenges faced by impoverished communities, which often includes black communities. In this series of posts, potential educational reforms will be suggested that may play a beneficial role in helping change suffering communities to thriving communities in the longterm. Today's post will focus on class size.

Class Size in Three Major Cities

I think local school districts should look for ways to reduce class sizes significantly and be open to alternative schools to support this effort: private and parochial schools, charter schools of varying types, microschools, and online schools. When I say reduce the size of classes significantly, I mean significantly. In Chicago, the average size has been between 18 and 25 students per class over the last five years, which is actually not that bad. Fifty-three percent of Baltimore elementary schools had between 21 and 25 students. Detroit Public Schools has almost 27 students per class. But imagine if the average classroom size for students in the impoverished parts of these cities was around ten students. 

Efficacy of Small Class Sizes

Darian Woods, a graduate student at the time of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California Berkeley considered the impact of class size way back in 2015. He considered two studies: Project STAR and research done by Joshua Angrist and Victor Lavy. Considering Project STAR's findings, it was concluded that "we can expect higher student achievement by moving toward smaller classes." Why then have schools not moved toward smaller class sizes. As the article notes, Hanushek, a Stanford economist who argues against reduced class sizes, "is not claiming that smaller classes are ineffective at improving achievement, just that it may not be the right priority." My belief is that for the most impoverished areas, every effort should be taken. Especially as you consider how Darian Woods starts his final paragraph, "The evidence on the relationship between class size and achievement is not conclusive but there is good reason to believe that smaller classes could be beneficial to students in the early years of primary school and especially for minorities and low-achieving students" (emphasis added mine).*  

Cost Per Student in Three Major Cities

Money is already a huge issue for these school systems, right? There is no way this could possibly work. However, let's look at the money. Chicago spends $15,878 per pupil. Baltimore spends $16,184 per pupil. Detroit spends $14,259 per pupil. That means a class with ten students would receive $142,590 in Detroit. According to the salary schedule for instructional personal from 2019-2020, the top teachers in Detroit were paid $74,000 with 15 years of experience and a doctorate. If they paid all of the teachers $74,000, that means there would be $68,590 remaining. 

Alternative Schools: Accountability 

Now, if you do the math, there isn't enough money to pay for everything a typical student currently enjoys (or doesn't enjoy) in a Detroit public school in a ten-person class. The biggest hindrances are administrative costs and building costs. However, if alternative forms of education could be used, such as renting church buildings or allowing people to educate in their homes (microschools) with tax incentives, those costs could be greatly lowered. And, there are several ways to hold these alternative schools accountable, which is usually considered the biggest threat. 

Safety is one of the biggest concerns people have. However, there are daycares all around us with much less oversight and more vulnerable children. One thing many high-end daycares are doing to protect themselves and to ensure parents is by providing a safe video feed so parents can check-in on them at any point. How great would it be if all classrooms, in traditional public schools and alternative schools, were being recorded all of the time? Teachers would likely teach better. But more importantly, the community of parents could ensure that students are safe, that the learning environment is intact, and that a good curriculum is being taught by skilled educators.

Content and instruction and the two most important determinants of a child being successful in his education. If a good teacher teaches bad content, the student will fail. If a bad teacher teaches good content, a student will likely fail. That is why there must be some way of evaluating a child's growth and performance. The Common Core State Standards and the state tests associated with them are necessary evils to ensure teachers are preparing students for future success and fulfillment. The complaint about this test taken at the end of each school year is that too much rides on it. However, imagine if a school district developed a standards-based testing regiment to check on student performance and growth throughout the year, or used one that is already widely used. 

Advantages of Small Class Sizes

1. Improves the Teacher's Relationship With the Students
   Students are humans. As humans, we crave for genuine and affectionate relationships. We cannot thrive in environments where we don't feel cared for and appreciated. When a teacher has fewer students, he can ensure that he can give each student verbal affirmation and correction that their hearts' desire. A student will feel more empowered to be an active learner when he knows that his teacher hears and knows him. 
2. Students Will Engage the Curriculum Better
   As a teacher, I can testify to the difference between my whole classroom instruction with a large number of students and my tutoring sessions with eight to twelve students. Because I'm able to spend more time looking at each child's work, the children give a better effort in completing the work and with a stronger desire to get it correct. As noted above, many children just want to hear affirmation. Telling her that you liked that she worked hard to figure it out despite the setbacks goes a long way. When students know you see them, they will engage the lesson more fully. 
3. Students Will Participate Better, Even if They Don't Want To
   When a teacher stands in front of 25-30 students, even the best teachers will only really see five to seven of them at a time. That means that at any given point, three-fourths of the class is sort of out of mind. And which students do you think demand the majority of the teacher's attention: those that love to participate and those acting out for attention. The perfectly behaved but quiet student could sit in her desk all day and her teacher may never notice her. We, teachers, use strategies like Cold Call to improve student engagement and participation, but even then, it can take a while to get through 30 students. But if a class was reduced to ten students, every child would have multiple opportunities to participate, to be seen and heard, throughout the day. This is also incredibly important because many students learn best when they hear someone on their level speak about something. They then have the opportunity to consider what the other child said. Learning from a peer's comments, whether they agree or object, is an often neglected aspect of education and critical thinking development. 
4. When Students Can't Hide, Their Challenges Are More Evident
   It isn't always the case, but many times the most well-behaved students are those who are terrified that someone will realize that they are really struggling. Sometimes these struggles can be corrected. He may simply not understand an important vocabulary word that is preventing him from understanding everything you are teaching. However, many times the challenge is much deeper and has been present for many years. A student may have a learning disability that has prevented him from mastering scaffolding content for years. He has no idea how to complete the work required of him and feels like he is dumb. The more time a teacher has to work with a child, the more equipped the teacher is going to be in identifying real challenges that are really significant to the child's view of himself. 
5. Smaller Groups Are Usually Better Behaved
   Now, nothing should be taken as a blanket statement. Some children, very often for reasons that are not their fault, simply lack the ability to function in an educational environment where they are currently at. These children need to be loved, cared for, and taught self-control and coping strategies to get them where they need to be. Most children are just children who desire attention. When they are young, they want the teacher's attention. As they get older, they want their peer's attention. When there are fewer students, it is easier to give every student the attention they need and behavior is usually improved. 
6. Coursework Can Be More Hands-On and Better Tailored to the Students
   Doing a hands-on lab in the fourth-grade science class with thirty students can be a little wild, and it is almost impossible to ensure that each student is gaining the common experience and knowledge that will be necessary for them to understand the content they are expected to learn. Fewer students mean fewer groups. That means the teacher has more time for each group, and thus, more time for each student. Furthermore, when a class has few students, it will likely have fewer needs. Therefore, lessons and hands-on activities can be better selected and created to fit the more specific needs of the class. 
7. Improved Grading and Feedback
   One of the biggest challenges teachers face is giving students beneficial feedback on assignments and assessments. Too often the best summary of a child's effort is a red, blue, or green "x" on the wrong answers, a fraction of correct over the number of questions, and maybe a percentage and letter grade. Unless the child is very motivated or has a parent who gives support at home, there is almost no consideration of how to improve the mistakes or errors that were made. But if a teacher only has ten students to address concerns with, she might be able to talk to all of her students about that day's writing assignment during independent practice time. 

Summary

Reducing class sizes isn't the solution to educational failures in impoverished communities, especially minority communities in our large cities. However, it may be, and I think it is, one step that should be taken to start giving students an equitable opportunity to achieve their full potential. 

* The National Education Association (NEA) also supports lower class sizes and "supports a class size of 15 students in the earliest grades of regular school programs and even smaller classes in programs for students with exceptional needs." The National Council of Teachers of English supports small class sizes and note, "Although more research is needed to understand the full effect of class size, existing research shows that younger students, at-risk students, and special-needs students receive greater benefit from small classes than other populations." 

Written by Michael Naaktgeboren.