Individualization 'More Intention Than Reality'

Former New Jersey state education commissioner Saul Cooperman argued for larger classes and larger teacher salaries in the Nov. 2 issue of Education Week. Here is an excerpt:

"For every study showing that class size makes a difference, another study says it does not. Recently, the University of London's Institute of Education traced 21,000 British children over three years of schooling. The researchers concluded that, for the most part, class size seemed to matter little to the students' progress in English, math, and science.

Undaunted by such findings, the smaller-is-better advocates feel that children will receive more attention as the pupil-to-teacher ratio is reduced, and therefore will learn more. And if class size is 20 instead of 30, teachers feel there will be a greater opportunity to individualize their lesson, fewer children who might be discipline problems, and less time needed to grade papers.

But the question remains: Are smaller classes good public policy? Most teachers teach 20 children exactly the same way they would teach 30; there is no real change in most teachers' approach to how they teach, despite fluctuations in class size. Individualization is more intention than reality.

And there couldn't be a more costly approach than small class size in the eternal attempts to improve student learning. For example, for a school of 1,000 students with a class size of 30, we would need 33 teachers. For the same 1,000 students, if the class size were 20, we would need 50 teachers. If the average salary for our teachers were $50,000, the payroll for the 33 teachers would be $1.65 million. For 50 teachers, the payroll increases to $2.5 million, an increase of $850,000."