As American students embark on a new school year, they are confronted with significant learning setbacks. Unfortunately, elected officials have failed to tackle this crisis and provide necessary support for students to catch up. Instead, many have resorted to a policy that serves their political interests but neglects the needs of students: mandating smaller class sizes.
The demand for smaller classes is often championed by teachers’ unions, as it frequently requires districts to hire more unionized teachers. Additionally, it helps prevent layoffs in schools experiencing declining enrollment. While smaller classes would justify the substantial investment in staff and facilities if they yielded the promised results, evidence and experience demonstrate that they do not.
While students may be more engaged in smaller classes, the academic gains, if any, are marginal. These gains are mostly observed in younger grades and in seminar-style settings with very few students, making it impossible to replicate the same outcomes on a larger scale. Research has found that compared to investing in technology, tutoring, and early-childhood programs, reducing class sizes is the least cost-effective method of improving student learning. A comprehensive review of 148 reports from 41 countries in 2018 concluded that smaller classes had only a minimal impact on reading proficiency and no effect on math, despite the significant resources allocated to them.
Despite the lack of substantial evidence in favor of smaller classes, most states now have regulations on class sizes, ranging from prescribed teacher-student ratios to stricter limitations on the number of students allowed in a classroom, with penalties for non-compliance. Even New York City, the largest public-school district in the country, is being compelled to enact some of the most extensive measures. According to new state legislation, the city must reduce the maximum class sizes from 25 to 20 in kindergarten and from 32 to 20 in grades one through three starting next year. For grades four through eight, class sizes will be capped at 23, and high school classes will be reduced from 34 to 25. This mandate will necessitate the hiring of 17,700 new teachers by 2028 and an annual expenditure of up to $1.9 billion on additional salaries. Furthermore, the law will require an estimated $35 billion to expand or refurbish over 1,500 district schools in the city.
The universal enforcement of class-size caps is unlikely to benefit the most disadvantaged students and may even harm them. Larger class sizes are more prevalent in schools with higher enrollment, which often serve wealthier neighborhoods. Under the new mandate, only 38% of schools with the highest poverty rates will experience a reduction in class sizes, compared to nearly 70% of medium- to low-poverty schools. Consequently, funding that should be directed towards the neediest students will instead go towards relatively affluent areas. Additionally, as wealthier schools create new positions to meet class-size requirements, low-income schools risk losing their best teachers to these more favorable positions.
Class-size regulations are an inefficient allocation of limited resources in schools. Instead of imposing inflexible mandates, states should empower school leaders to use funds for more effective programs such as intensive tutoring and summer instruction, which have proven to be more successful in aiding academic recovery. Allocating resources towards hiring new personnel would be better utilized by rewarding talented teachers and providing them with increased incentives to work in underserved areas and with struggling students. Additionally, it would be beneficial if Democratic leaders showed greater support for high-quality public charter schools, which consistently outperform traditional public schools with significantly less funding. The fact that charter schools often have larger class sizes further highlights the flaws of these mandates. The increasing enrollment in charter schools, juxtaposed with the decline in traditional public schools, demonstrates that parents are actively seeking alternatives. Despite this, the New York City teachers’ union recently attempted to block one of the city’s most successful public charter-school networks from occupying an underused public-school building due to their exemption from the new class-size law. This attack on children was rightfully unsuccessful, but few elected officials stood up to the union and supported the charter school and its students and teachers.
The learning-loss crisis demands greater attention from our leaders and the implementation of more effective policies to address it. Prioritizing class sizes may seem like a well-intentioned solution that appeases teachers’ unions, but it ultimately fails to support the students who require the most help.
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