ATA President Responds to C D Howe Institute Commentary “School Class Size: Smaller Isn’t Better”

Sometimes academics say the strangest things: Elephants and lions should be set loose on the prairies; Alberta enjoys the best weather in Canada; and, most recently, class size reduction has no appreciable impact on student achievement.

Yvan Guillemette of the C D Howe Institute claims in a commentary that when it comes to class size that “smaller isn’t better.” However, the analysis underlying this conclusion is highly selective, superficial and misleading.

To begin with, Guillemette chooses to define student achievement as referring only to “student performance on standardized tests of reading, writing, mathematics and science.” The analysis that follows relies, then, on comparing standardized test results between the different provinces, looking to see if differences are correlated to differences in average class sizes. The problem with this approach is that there are many factors that contribute to differences in test results between the provinces, including classroom composition, the alignment of the provincial curricula with the tests, students’ experience with standardized testing, and underlying socio-economic conditions. The standardized tests cited used in the analysis were never intended to measure the effect of class size and to use them for this purpose is inappropriate at best.

More fundamentally, there is more to student learning than students’ collective performance on a three-hour-once-a-year-fill-in-the-bubble test. This type of test assesses only a small portion of the learning outcomes that students are expected to achieve and fails entirely to measure students’ creative, social, attitudinal and emotional growth. Studies, such as Edmonton Public Schools’ Small Class Size Study, which have taken a broader view of education, have documented the positive impact of reducing class sizes on student learning. In fact, there is a wealth of sound research literature supporting class size reduction, literature that Guillemette has chosen to ignore.

Of course reducing average class sizes is not a “magic bullet” solution. However, reducing class sizes generally, and eliminating overly large class sizes in particular, enhances student learning and teacher effectiveness. The benefits of ongoing professional development and continuing improvement of curriculum and learning resources are best realized when teachers have the time and ability to pay attention to the needs of individual students. Small classes help teachers to do their best work with students.

None of this is news to anyone who has ever spent time in a school and it is unfortunate that the C D Howe Institute is so contemptuous of the wisdom of students, parents and teachers who know through hard experience that class size makes a real difference. Interestingly, even the private schools that are so often lauded by right-wing think-tanks like the C D Howe Institute as the preferred model for education typically emphasize their ability to offer small class sizes and individualized attention.

As a teacher with years of experience teaching science in junior high classrooms, I support Alberta’s investment in reducing class sizes. If the Alberta government’s policy on class size is to be criticized at all, it should be criticized because it has not ensured the elimination of large classes, particularly in urban junior and senior high schools.

And I’ll believe the C D Howe Institute’s take on class size that balmy day in March when I am watering the flowers and watching the elephants pass by.