Is there agreement on the perfect class size?

In this year of difficult budget decisions, one of the most emotionally charged topics has been how many students can be taught in one classroom at a time before their education suffers.

There have been murmurs in towns around the region in recent years about increasing class size,but this is the first year in recent memory when the economy has been so tight that boards of education have actually talked about reducing teaching staff and putting more children in each classroom.

Marc Porter Magee is the chief operating officer for ConnCan, a grassroots organization that researches education issues for Connecticut parents.

Class size is not a specific issue that ConnCan focuses on, Magee said. But, he noted, success in schools can be achieved in a large or small group and sometimes trade-offs must be made.

And if those trade-offs have to be made, this is probably going to be the year when they happen.

“I think every school in the state is beginning the process of making harder choices on their budget than they’ve made in decades. The state budget is up for grabs.

“This year there could be a freeze or a cut on state education grants — but school districts won’t know that until June, July or even August, depending on how the budget process unfolds. So the school districts are making contingency plans.�

North Canaan and Salisbury, two of the largest schools in the six-town Region One district, have both been embroiled for weeks in debates about whether class size should be increased to bring their school budgets to a manageable level.

As one might expect, parents in particular are concerned about any changes to the adult-student ratio in the classrooms. Connecticut in general and the Northwest Corner in particular have historically had a reputation as places with excellent public schools. Small class sizes are believed to be part of the excellent education they provide.

Will the changes to class size that are now being discussed do substantial damage to the quality of education here? The Journal called a number of experts in education in the state and the region to find out. The answer, as one might imagine, is that... it depends.

Size matters, but what size?

All education experts agree on one thing: Children get a better education in a small classroom.

However, they also agree that there is no “Magic Number,� no perfect ratio of children to adults. And several said that the ratio matters less than the quality of teachers and students in the room.

“Chemistry plays a role in it,� said Jack Posey, who was the principal at the Lee H. Kellogg School in Falls Village for nine years and was a principal and then assistant superintendent in New Rochelle, N.Y., for two decades before that. A skilled teacher should be able to easily manage a classroom population in the mid-20s, he said. But a class with even a few children who are not learning at the same pace as their peers, or who are very disruptive, can make even a smaller class harder to manage.

Ann Levett, executive director for the school development program at Yale University, agreed.

In a classroom with even one or two children who have special learning challenges, she said, ideally there should be another adult in the room, such as a teaching aid or a paraprofessional. Northwest Corner schools are very fortunate, she said, to have an aide or paraprofessional in most classrooms, especially when there are generally fewer than 20 students in a classroom.

“Fifteen to 18 students to one teacher is a very good adult-student ratio,� she said. “But 15 to 18 students with a teacher and a paraprofessional in the room, that’s wonderful. Even one to two adults with as many as 21 students is still a fairly good ratio.�

Smaller not always better

Jack Mahoney offered a caution before he would comment on this topic. A former English teacher and then principal at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, his work experience is mainly with teenagers, he said. However, he has traveled the country extensively and studies education issues.

While concurring with other experts that there is no perfect class size, he said that, in his experience, a good number of students is around 16 to 18.

“If  you go below 12 students, you sacrifice some cross-pupil stimuli,â€� he noted. “I can recall in one of our towns that we were receiving students at the high school who had been too isolated for too much of the time. But classes can be too big as well, and that is more easily recognized as detrimental.â€�

Douglas Kaufman, an associate professor in the curriculum and instruction department at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, also warned of the dangers of a classroom that is too small, and said that teachers in those situations should “reach beyond the classroom walls to find other classes to interact with.�

The social  and emotional element

It’s not necessarily that students in a more populated classroom won’t learn to count or read as well, Mahoney said.

“There’s an element that people often overlook called the affective element, the emotions. In any classroom, the kids need to feel that they are wanted. That they are secure. That they are valued. And at some point those needs are definitely jeopardized by a larger class size.�

Dr. Kathleen Fitzgibbon, or Dr. Fitz, is the principal of Cornwall Consolidated School and is retiring this year. She said that smaller classes are most important for the youngest children.

“I agree with smaller class sizes, especially for younger children,� she said. “It stands to reason that if you give them more attention and work your hardest with them then, they’ll learn how to be good learners. You won’t have to fix it later,� she said.

Levett also felt that smaller class sizes were most important in the early years.

“Between kindergarten and grade four, the young people are learning fundamental skills, they are learning to read, do basic math and they are also learning to function in a school environment,� she said.

“Even if a child comes from a family of three or four children,� Posey observed, “it’s not the same [as being in a classroom]. You’re developing social skills. They have to learn to get along, help each other, support each other, play together. Play is a very important part of the primary grades. We sometimes think we must structure their time, but play is a very important part of their lives, they’re learning about problem solving.�

For older children, small classes can still be beneficial. But, Dr. Fitz noted, “For middle school kids, it’s important to have a larger group because the social aspect is important to them. If they are not happy socially, they probably won’t do well academically.

“I’ve talked to people who went through Cornwall years ago, when they had maybe seven kids in their class. They said it was not enough for everyone to have a friend. Someone always got left out.�

Schools attract home buyers

In the end, class sizes will change according to a number of factors — including the  number of children who show up at school on the first day of school. Youngsters do sometimes move into towns in summer, unbalancing the carefully laid plans of school adminstrators and boards of education.

It is often the quality of the schools that bring in these additional students. A survey of area real estate agents brought a mixed bag of answers. Some said that class size is very important to families who want to move here full time. Others said that buyers never ask about class size. But all agreed that families who want to move here are almost as interested in the quality of the public schools as they are in the quality of the houses they are visiting.

Levett noted that, for many families moving to this part of the state, even what seems like a large class to Northwest Corner parents might seem small compared to what is considered normal in more urban settings.

“I can understand why they would be concerned,� she said of parental anxiety about class size. “They’ve enjoyed this wonderful arrangement and anything that threatens that can be unnerving. But I think things will be fine. It will take some adjustment, but any change does.�