Hanushek: Small classes not a plus

Eric Hanushek, professor of economics and public policy, has found that educators and others have misread the results of Project STAR, an experimental program in Tennessee, and other studies.

"The effects of class size have been studied more intensively than any other aspect of schools," Hanushek said in testimony before a Congressional subcommittee during February in Washington, D.C.

"Time and again, the results simply do not support the types of policies that have been recently proposed or undertaken around the country," he said. "Broadly reducing class size is extraordinarily expensive and, based on years of research and experience, very ineffective."

In Hanushek's evaluation of all available econometric studies of student performance, he found that the relationship between class size and student achievement shows as many positive as negative results.

Much of the current enthusiasm by President Clinton and others surrounding the issue of class size is supported by results from Project STAR's random-assignment program in the mid-1980s, Hanushek said. Then, students were sent to either small classes (13 to 17 students) or large classes (21 to 25 students with or without aides). They were kept in these small or large classes from kindergarten through third grade, and their achievement was measured at the end of each year.

At the end of kindergarten, students in small classes scored better than those in large classes. They maintained this differential for the next three years.

"If smaller classes were valuable in each grade, the achievement gap would have widened," Hanushek said. "It did not. In fact, the gap remained essentially unchanged through the sixth grade, even though the experimental students from the small classes returned to larger classes for the fourth through sixth grades. The inescapable conclusion is that the smaller classes at best matter in kindergarten."

Hanushek, who was deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1983 to 1985, is a recognized authority on class size and how it affects the academic performance of students. His recent comments were made before the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

In his testimony, Hanushek recommended that a productive use of state and federal funds would be to conduct a series of extensive trials on the benefits of lowered class size instead of funding smaller classes, which has the support of Clinton and some U.S. governors and mayors.

The executive summary, charts and Hanushek's full report, "The Evidence on Class Size," is available on the web at http://petty.econ.rochester.edu under "download papers."