The latest edition of Education Next, released yesterday, includes several articles that challenge two common education beliefs: that teachers are underpaid and that smaller classes boost student achievement. The conclusions are complicated, though. It seems that great teachers are underpaid but most teachers are not underpaid, relative to what they could earn in other occupations. As for class size reduction, while it's logical to assume that a teacher could be more effective with fewer students, shrinking classes across the board often forces schools and districts to hire scores of ineffective teachers to fill the extra slots, which hurts students more than having a few extra classmates. This edition of Education Nextalso contains interesting articles on schools in New York City, including one by Sol Stern (whose bookBreaking Free is reviewed in today's Gadfly) showing the detrimental effect of district and union staffing policies on such highly regarded schools as Stuyvesant High. Another piece examines the tremendous cost of keeping large urban high schools safe.
Education Next, Summer 2003