Brian Stecher and George Bohrnstedt, CSR Research Consortium
February 4, 2002
You have probably read in the media that, due to recent budget cuts, a number of California school districts are abandoning the legislatively mandated (in 1996) class size reduction (CSR) program in grades K-3. This report from the CSR Research Consortium, prepared by Brian Stecher of RAND and George Bohrnstedt of American Institutes of Research, carries an ongoing evaluation of this ambitious and expensive effort through the 2000-2001 school year. By then, the analysts found, the program was almost fully implemented (which means class sizes in the early grades were brought down to about 20) although a cost to other activities of schools and school systems. This report takes an interesting look at the distribution of qualified teachers between high-income and low-income schools-which had sharply worsened in the early years of the program-and finds that this problem has been eased but not eliminated. (California still has many teachers without full certification in its public schools.) The most troubling findings concern student achievement. Though California has seen some test-score gains in recent years, "the statewide pattern of score increases in the elementary grades does not match the statewide pattern of exposure to CSR, so no strong relationship can be inferred between achievement and CSR." Strikes me as a mighty pricey way to produce no clear gains! Should we be surprised that cash-strapped districts (many of which had cut maintenance, music, art and libraries to fund the CSR initiative) are backing away? You can download a summary of this report from the website of the CSR Research Consortium at http://www.classize.org/.
