Return to: Homepage, Publications, or Newsletters

Table of Contents

• Class-Size Effects in the Primary Grades: Research in Tennessee
• Full-Day Kindergarten Proposed in Massachusetts
• Multiyear Programs

---

Class-Size Effects in the Primary Grades:
Research in Tennessee

In 1984 the Tennessee state legislature passed the Comprehensive Education Reform Act (CERA). Components of this piece of legislation included sections which addressed the teaching of basic skills and computer skills to students, the provision of merit pay and career ladders for teachers, and the establishment of Centers of Excellence in higher education, which began to focus on improving the teaching of basic skills in K-12 education.

Tennessee State University Study

One of the initial activities of the Center for Excellence founded at Tennessee State University was a study of the effects of a pupil/teacher ratio of 15:1 on students in grades 1-3. This project, begun in August 1984, focused on four kinds of student outcomes: achievement in reading and mathematics, behavior, attendance, and self-concept. The researchers also collected information on such teacher variables as attitudes and use of time. Seven first-grade classes, serving a total of 105 students, were created in an experimental school in Nashville. One control group consisted of 90 first-graders enrolled in a school serving a population similar to that of the experimental school. A second, blind control group of 105 students was chosen from among first-graders enrolled in 35 other elementary schools in metropolitan Nashville. Each subject in the blind control group was matched to a subject in the experimental group according to five preselected criteria.

To assess quantitative differences, researchers utilized the California Achievement Test; a comparison of pre- and post-test scores in reading and mathematics "showed statistically significant gains favoring students in the experimental groups." Even though pupil achievement was a major focus of the study, teachers provided valuable qualitative information as well. For instance, they agreed that:

• "smaller classes were quieter, with fewer student interruptions;

• students in smaller classes showed more appreciation for one another and more desire to participate in classroom activities;

• potential disciplinary problems could be identified and resolved more quickly;

• more learning activities took place, and students participated more often in them;

• teachers had more time to monitor students' on-task behavior during the instructional process, and they were able to provide quicker and more thorough feedback to students, to reteach concepts as needed, and to provide in-depth instruction;

• greater individualization of instruction in the smaller classes significantly reduced the need for reteaching; and

• greater interaction among students helped them understand one another and increased their desire to assist one another."

Student/Teach Achievement Ratio (STAR) Project

The study by Tennessee State University was instrumental in the Tennessee legislature's decision to investigate the issue of class-size on pupils in grades K-3 statewide. In 1985 the state's general assembly funded a major study and invited all Tennessee school systems to participate in the Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) Project. Seventy-nine schools in 42 systems were selected to be part of a four-year longitudinal study. Student achievement and development were analyzed in three types of classrooms: (1) small, one teacher with a range of 13 to 17 students; (2) regular, one teacher with a range of 22 to 25 students, and (3) regular-with-aide, one teacher with a range of 22 to 25 students and a full-time teacher aide. Participating schools agreed to not group students by ability and to assign teachers and students at random to one of the three kinds of classrooms. The 79 schools were classified according to four locations: inner-city, rural, suburban, and urban. Beginning with kindergartners in 198586 and ending with these children as third-graders in 1988-89, more than 6,000 students were involved each year.

Project STAR included a "within-school" design. Each of the 79 schools was required to have at least 57 students at the appropriate grade level and thus contain at least one of each type of class (small, regular, regular/aide). This design "reduced major sources of possible variation in student achievement attributable to school effects (i.e., community demographics, principal leadership, instructional materials, etc.)."

To measure student achievement, the study used the appropriate parts of the Stanford Achievement Test (K-A STAR's Basic Skills Criterion Test (grades 1-2), and Tennessee's Basic Skills Criterion Test (grade 3). Student development was measured by the Self-Concept and Motivation Inventory (SCAMIN).

Overall findings of Project STAR indicated a "significant (statistically and educationally) achievement advantage (specifically in reading and mathematics) for students in small classes. The most pronounced effect occurred in the first grade.... Students in small classes consistently outperformed students in regular and regular-with-aide classes on all sub-scores of both achievement measures at every grade level (K-3), and in all four school-type locations."

Lasting Benefits Study (LBS)

To determine if the achievement gains realized as a result of small-class participation in Project STAR were maintained by students in later grades, the Tennessee Department of Education contracted with the Center of Excellence for Research in Basic Skills, at Tennessee State University, to conduct a longitudinal follow-up study. All Project STAR students had returned to regular-size classes beginning with the fourth grade. The Lasting Benefits Study (LBS) tracked the gains made by these students in the primary grades and assessed their lasting benefits on students' performance, as measured by state achievement tests in later grades.

The LBS used the Tennessee Comprehensive Achievement Program (TCAP) to measure academic achievement. The instrument was chosen because Tennessee requires all its schools to administer the TCAP at grades 2 though 8 and at grade 10. The TCAP, including both norm-referenced and criterion-referenced testing components, thus proved to be a consistent measure across schools.

The fourth-grade LBS results indicated that students who had been in Project STAR small classes continued to outperform those students who had been in regular and regular-with-aide classes on all achievement measures and across all school locations. Results of the analyses of students' fifth- and sixth-grade years showed that small-class students consistently did better than their peers who had been in the other two kinds of classes.

During their seventh-grade year (1992-93), "students previously in a small-size Project STAR class demonstrated that they had statistically significant advantages over students who were in other class types on every set of measurements.... Students from the small classes retained an academic advantage over students from regular and regular-with-aide classes. The positive effects from involvement in a small-size class still remain pervasive four-full years after students returned to regular-size classes.... The statistically significant advantages for LBS seventh grade students, who had been in Project STAR small classes, form a strong pattern of consistency. Small-class students outperformed regular and regular-with aide class students on every academic measure."

Such findings have led Donald Orlich to refer to Project STAR as "the most significant educational research done in the U.S. during the past 25 years" (PHI DELTA KAPPAN, 1991). Jeremy Finn, a nationally recognized educational statistician with the National Center for Educational Statistics, and his colleagues have written that the research provides "unambiguous evidence of a significant class-size effect" and that "few classroom-level interventions have been identified that have a consistent impact of this sort."

More information about the Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio Project and about the Lasting Benefits Study may be obtained by contacting Jayne Zaharias, Center of Excellence for Research in Basic Skills, Tennessee State University, 330 Tenth Avenue North, Suite J, Nashville, Tennessee 37203, (615) 963-7238.

---

References

Finn, Jeremy D., et al. (1990). Three Years in a Small Class. TEACHING & TEACHER EDUCATION, 6 (2):127-136.

Nye, Barbara A., et al. (1994). THE LASTING BENEFITS STUDY A CONTINUING ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECT OF SMALL CLASS SIZE IN KINDERGARTEN THROUGH THIRD GRADE ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT TEST SCORES IN SUBSEQUENT GRADE LEVELS: SEVENTH GRADE (1992-93) TECHNICAL REPORT Nashville: Center of Excellence for Research in Basic Skills, Tennessee State University.

Nye, Barbara A., et al. (1994). POLICY AND PRACTICE BRIEF (No. 0004). Nashville: Center of Excellence for Research in Basic Skills, Tennessee State University.

Nye, Barbara A., et al. (1992). Smaller Classes Really Are Better. THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL, 179 (5):31-33.

Pate-Bain, Helen, et al. (1992). Class Size Does Make A Difference. PHI DELTA KAPPAN, 74 (3):253-256.

Pate-Bain, Helen and C. M. Achilles (1986). Interesting Developments on Class Size. PHI DELTA KAPPAN, 67 (9): 662-665.

Word, Elizabeth, et al. (1990). PROJECT STAR- FINAL EXECUTIVE SUMMARY REPORT, KNDERGARTEN THROUGH THIRD GRADE (1985-1989). Nashville: Tennessee state Department of Education.

---

Full-Day Kindergarten Proposed in Massachusetts

The Special Commission on Early Childhood for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has issued its report to the state's legislature. Titled Children First, the report is "the product of an exhaustive study of the diverse systems which purport to care for our children. The direct long term benefits of a coordinated system will accrue to all econon-dc and social classes. High quality programs reduce the need for welfare, remedial education and criminal justice systems." Children First recommends the coordination of a statewide early childhood care and education system to benefit children in Massachusetts, and submits a plan that provides access to affordable, quality, developmentally appropriate programs for each child.

The report offers four basic recommendations:

1. "Support families with young children to ensure that all children enter school ready to learn.

• Support the role of families in their children's care and education by linking together family outreach, education, and support programs for 3 and 4 year old children and linking them with programs for younger and older children.

• Help the public understand highquality care and education programs by developing a public awareness campaign.

• Improve communication and responsiveness between families and early care and education providers and policymakers by conducting a series of family forums.

2. Increase affordability and accessibility of early childhood programs for families.

• Expand opportunities for 3 and 4 year olds by supporting the cost of early care and education through a sliding fee scale to be used by private programs, public school and Head Start programs.

• Increase the feasibility of offering full-school-day kindergarten by supporting a grant program.

• Strengthen the system of early care and education resource and referTal.

• Integrate information on early childhood programs and services for system management and for fan-dhes by developing a single data management system for early childhood programs.

3. Promote a consistent level of high quality programs for young children in a variety of early care and education settings.

• Promote professional development of the early childhood practitioner by coordinating professional development projects.

• Compensate early childhood practitioners with adequate wages and benefits to support themselves and their families.

• Ensure that a basic level of quality program standards is followed by developing unified state standards applying to all early childhood programs.

4. Develop a mechanism to expand early childhood care and education programs at the local and state levels.

• Integrate early care and education programs at the community level through a process of community planning.

• Integrate early care and education at the state level by moving toward the unification of disparate programs in different state agencies."

Children First incorporates the primary grades into its overview of the state of early childhood care and education in Massachusetts, by including the recommendation about kindergarten (2B). The report is explicit in defining "full-day" kindergarten as "full school day" and acknowledges that families with children in kindergarten still have a need for care for the full-working day, a need only partially addressed by the recommendations.

In the 1994 fiscal year, Massachusetts spent $177 million on both half-day and full-day kindergarten programs (approximately 27% of kindergarten children attended public full-day classes). The state's share was 35% of the total cost, $62 million. The state department of education estimates that the state and local cost of implementing full-school-day kindergarten programs statewide would be an additional $61 million (which does not include potential school building costs).

Because of the economics involved and the implications for redefining social policy, Children First recommends that the decision to establish full-school-day kindergarten be made at the local level (Recommendation 4A). In determining whether or not such a program is feasible, each community would need to consider:

• "The needs of children in the community: how are kindergarten children currently being served in the community, i.e., numbers of children in half-day and full-day public school and private kindergarten programs?

• The cost of the program and funding for a plan to serve kindergarten-aged children that has community and school committee support. The decision to offer full-school-day kindergarten will have implications for private providers of full-day kindergarten, families, and local taxpayers. (Private providers have met the needs of children and families for several years and their contributions, including wrap-around services, need to be taken into consideration.)

• Building community support for the plan: how can the community build a broad base of public support for full-school-day kindergarten?"

The report suggests that an ongoing, optional grant program could provide quality enhancement monies for both public and private full-school-day kindergartens, and thus facilitate the development of such programs, as well as increase the quality in existing classrooms. Programs would be able to lengthen the school day, provide a teaching assistant, lower class size, purchase additional developmentally appropriate materials, and/or offer inservice training. Such grants, with a maximum of $18,000 per classroom, would cost $24.4 million and provide an additional 1,350 full-day classes. Communities that included the provision of full-school-day kindergarten in their community plans (Recommendation 4A) would have priority for the grants.

---

Children First- A Plan for an Early Care and Education System for Massachusetts/Report of the Special Commission on Early Childhood (December 1995) is available from the Massachusetts Department of Education, 350 Main Street, Malden, Massachusetts 02148. Refer to Publication #17798-32-6M-12/95-DOE.

---

Multiyear Programs

The opportunity for teachers to better individualize curriculum and instruction is one of the benefits of multiyear programs. Such programs are often refer-red to as "looping." A class that loops stays together for at least two years and sometimes for a longer period of time. In addition to facilitating curriculum and instruction, looping can improve student learning by reducing the apprehension about the new school year and by providing students with more time to build relationships with their teacher(s) and their peers.

Writing in "Multiyear Education: Reaping the Benefits of 'Looping,"' Kathy Checkley cites children's development as self-directed learners, and the increased comfort levels of parents and children, as means through which looping can help build a sense of community among students, teachers, and families. Such a learning environment, emphasizing co-operation and collaboration, can parallel the family environment and provide "life skills, skills all of us have to employ every day," according to Lilian Katz. Katz, professor of early childhood education at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, suggests that a looping schedule can create a sense of family and thus provide students with a sense of stability.

"We're always talking about individualizing instruction," says Sue Bredekamp, director of professional development for the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). "But you can't individualize instruction until you know the individuals." Multiyear programs allow for the building of those personal relationships that are the foundation for young children's learning, and looping provides time for teachers to know their students.

Multiyear programs may exist because declining student enrollment has necessitated that schools loop and use multi-age approaches in order to fill classrooms. Sometimes multiyear programs are created as teachers voluntarily change grade levels, or they may come into existence as schools develop strategies to deal with frustrations in staffing and scheduling. Even though looping does exist, for a variety of reasons, Checkley states that "there is not sufficient data to support what many educators contend: that multiyear programs have a profound impact socially and instructionally." She cites a caution expressed by Lilian Katz: 'We need some good research. We need a good close study of how this I looping) might be effective.... What practices enable teachers to optimize the benefits of such programs?"

---

Kathy Checkley's article, "Multiyear Education: Reaping the Benefits of 'Looping,'" appeared in the November 1995 issue of ASCD's Education Update (Volume 37, Number 8). The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) may be contacted at 1250 N. Pitt Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314-1453, (703) 549-9110.

---

             

This page last updated: December 13, 2007