|
Smaller classes make a big difference |
... the reason for choosing this subject was because I find it so hard to believe that everything we touch is so political. The next generation is what is at stake here - not money and not class size.
|
Folks, education has become so political that there doesn't seem to be any room for problem solving or compromise. Everyone claims to have the correct solution, but no one really wants to sit down, wrap their brain around the problem and fix it. That's assuming of course that it needs fixed.
Some people are honest in their viewpoints, whatever their viewpoint is; others are paid to have a viewpoint and some people have hidden agendas. The people who are honest in their viewpoints can usually sit down together, even when their positions are different, and resolve their differences. They can then, together, find a solution.
If, however, they are paid by their institutions or paid with campaign donations, they then must hold firm to their position and cannot compromise.
I bring the above to your attention because I recently read an article by David W. Kirkpatrick in The Times-Gazette. Kirkpatrick is with the U.S. Freedom Foundation and the Buckeye Institute. I mention this for two reasons. One, so you can find other writings of his; and two, so his email alert system will give him this column to read.
I think that his goal was to attack class size in education. His claim is that you cannot stick an arbitrary number on the number of students in a given class. He then arbitrarily uses some studies done years ago to substantiate his position.
His position, I believe, was to say that lowering class size does not improve education, but it does increase costs.
Kirkpatrick used the work of Eric Hanushek. And, Hanushek's work is unusual to say the least. A Princeton University economist, Alan Krueger, took Hanushek's studies and reversed Hanushek's own conclusions. According to Krueger, class size and money do affect learning outcomes.
Supposedly, Hanushek's studies included 300 observations. This seems somewhat blurred because his actual studies of class size may have only been done on a much smaller scale and then blown up to look like 300.
My real point here is that any studies done before the government burdened our schools and children with all the required testing do not apply to today's situation.
Folks, the reason for choosing this subject was because I find it so hard to believe that everything we touch is so political. The next generation is what is at stake here - not money and not class size.
We have allowed the government to take over one of the most vital areas of our society and the results are what one might expect. Ohio government has poured money into several alternative education areas with very predictable results.
I teach at Southern State Community College and we are proud of the fact that when our students transfer to universities they do better, by one quarter to one half of a grade better, than the universities' own students. This is reported to us by the universities themselves.
My thinking has always been that the reason our students do so well is that we always have small class sizes. But if Kirkpatrick is correct, that class size makes no difference, then there must be some other reason why our students do better than their competition.
The students attending SSCC mostly come from the following counties; Adams, Brown, Clermont, Clinton, Fayette, Highland, Pike, Ross, and Warren.
Maybe our students are smarter, or more motivated, or maybe they come from better high schools, or better families, or maybe the faculty is smarter or more caring, or maybe class size really is important to student teacher interaction and learning.
Kirkpatrick says, "If smaller classes are a guarantee of better education, why hasn't it happened?..." He uses as a comparison classes in the 1800s. I would suggest that this is like comparing an 1860s manufacturing plant to one of today's manufacturing plants, or an 1800s military to our military of today, or transportation, or our homes or airplanes. (Whoops, airplanes didn't exist in the mid- 1800s.)
Information! We cannot compare the information that a student must have to compete today with a student during the Civil War time period. For some time now, we have been doubling our total human knowledge approximately every six months.
I don't know if class size makes a difference or not. But I do know that comparing 1860 to 2007 does not seem plausible.
Mr. Kirkpatrick seems to be worried about the cost. But I contend that you cannot compare yesterday's costs to today's costs because there are too many variables.
These variables include, just to mention a few, a larger percent of our population attending school, computers, television, how we access information, how we communicate, the total amount of information available, mandatory testing, learning outcomes demanded by the state, virtual schools, charter schools, and voucher programs. I am sure you are getting my point.
Mr. Kirkpatrick claims that "we haven't improved education in spite of reducing class size." How do we know that we have not improved or have improved for that matter?
How do we know what the total knowledge of a student is? Do we test on every single thing taught in a class? Of course not, we only test on what the government wants us to test.
Maybe I have missed the point and maybe the goal is to rid ourselves of public education.
If Mr. Kirkpatrick is correct and class size does not make a difference, I wonder why the wealthy have private tutors for their children. Why do home-schooled children seem to be better prepared than private or public school children? Why do students who need extra help search for a private tutor?
Too many questions and not enough answers.
--Bill Horne is a professor of economics at Southern State Community College and a columnist for The Times-Gazette.
|
|
