Daniel Dromm: A Leader to Reduce Class Size in NYC Public Schools
A top priority for Daniel Dromm in the New York City Council is to reduce class size. Daniel Dromm has the background, experience and record to be a leader for education reform. As a teacher with twenty-plus years in the classroom, he knows first-hand that class size is the most significant factor in a successful classroom. Compelling evidence demonstrates that reducing class size has a positive effect on student achievement overall and an especially significant impact on the education of inner-city children. Dromm has been a long-time advocate for reducing class size to help raise student achievement, especially in at-risk schools. Smaller classes improve classroom atmosphere, students receive more individualized attention and teachers have flexibility to use different instructional approaches and assignments.
As your city council representative, he will write legislation to reduce class size by increasing funding for additional teachers and more school construction throughout the city.
From Class Size Matters:
Reducing class size, particularly in the early grades, is one of the few educational strategies shown to increase learning and narrow the achievement gap between ethnic and racial groups.
•The Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the US Department of Education, concludes that class size reduction is one of only four, evidence-based reforms that have been proven to increase student achievement through rigorous, randomized experiments -- the "gold standard" of research.
•Studies from Tennessee, Wisconsin, and elsewhere demonstrate that students who are assigned to smaller classes in grades K-3rd do better in every way that can be measured: they score higher on tests, receive better grades, and exhibit improved attendance.
•Those students whose performance improves the most are those who need the most help: children from poor and minority backgrounds, who experience twice the gains as the average student. Alan Krueger of Princeton has estimated that reducing class size in the early grades shrinks the achievement gap by about 38%.
•Class size reduction is likely to have large public health benefits – with greater medical savings expected than increased spending on antibiotics, hospital buildings, or even vaccines-- with nearly two more years of life projected for students who were placed in smaller classes in the early grades.
•Smaller classes are also a very cost-effective strategy to lower the number of students who repeat grades. In Nashville schools, only 16.7% of students who were in smaller classes in the early grades were held back through 10th grade, compared to 43.5% of those who had been in regular-size classes.
•The benefits of class size reduction in the early grades last throughout a student's educational career. In 4th, 6th, and 8th grade, students who attended smaller classes in the early grades were significantly ahead of their regular-class peers in all subjects. By 8th grade, they were still almost a full year ahead of their peers.
•In high school, students who had been in smaller classes had significantly lower drop-out rates, higher grades, and received better results on their college entrance exams. After four years in a small class in the early grades, the graduation rate for free-lunch students more than doubled, and their likelihood of graduating equaled those who were not poor. For those who had attended a smaller class in grades K-3, the difference between black and white students taking college entrance exams was cut in half.
•National surveys of educators believe that class size reduction is the most effective method to improve the quality of teaching. In a 2008 survey, 76% of first year teachers said that reducing class size would be "a very effective" way of improving teacher quality, and 21% responding that it would be an “effective” method -- for a total of 97% -- far outstripping every other reform cited.
•In another national survey, 88% of teachers, and 85% of superintendents and principals agreed with this statement: "If the public schools finally got more money and smaller classes, they could do a better job." Again, their support for this improvement strategy far outstripped any other.
•A definitive study commissioned by the US Department of Education analyzed at the achievement levels of students in 2,561 schools across the nation, as measured by their performance on the national NAEP exams. The sample included at least 50 schools in each state, including large and small, urban and rural, affluent and poor areas. After controlling for student background, the only objective factor found to be correlated with higher student success as measured by test scores was class size –not school size, not teacher qualifications, nor any other variable that the could be identified. The gains from smaller classes in the upper grades surpassed the gains from smaller classes in the lower grades.
•A recent longitudinal analysis found that smaller classes in the 8th grade are associated with significantly higher levels of student engagement, with the expected economic benefits from reducing class size in urban schools nearly twice the estimated costs.
•A detailed observational study shows that when secondary students are place in smaller classes, much greater time is spent “on task” and focused on learning, with special benefits for low-achievers and far lower rates of negative behavior.
Photo Credit: nytimes.com
Labels: CommunityOrganizing, Education
posted by ProgressNYC @ 1:17 PM 
