In five pages class sizes or the ratio between students and teachers are examined in terms of quality student achievement with California considered in terms of the issues that resulted fromo its class size reduction. Five sources are cited in the bibliography.
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students (US Dept of Education, 1999). Ferguson, the investigator found significant relationships between and among class size, teacher quality and student achievement (US Dept of Education, 1999). Using the student-teacher
ratio as the measure of class size, Ferguson found that in grades 1 through 7 that student achievement dropped for every student over an 18 to 1 ration, eighteen
students per teacher (US Dept of Education, 1999). Wenglinsky published research findings in 1997 that focused on the relationship between student achievement and class size (US Dept
of Education, 1999). Wenglinsky used data that were obtained from three different national databases (US Dept of Education, 1999). This researcher found: Lower student-teacher ratios at the fourth grade
were correlated with higher achievement in mathematics (US Dept of Education, 1999). Lower student-teacher ratios at the eighth grade improved the social environment in the school and that led to
higher achievement (US Dept of Education, 1999). Another large study was completed in Tennessee (US Dept of Education, 1999). It was a project called Project STAR (Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio) and
was a 4-year longitudinal study of kindergarten, first-, second-, and third-grade classrooms in Tennessee (US Dept of Education, 1999). The STAR project compared the achievement of students who were in
classes of between 13 and 17 students to classes where there were 22 to 26 students (US Dept of Education, 1999). Analyses revealed: * Students in smaller classes substantially outperformed
students in larger class students on both standardized (Stanford Achievement Tests) and curriculum-based tests (Basic Skills First). These results held true for both white and minority students in smaller classes,
and for smaller class students from inner city, urban, suburban, and rural schools (US Dept of Education, 1999). * Improvement in achievement for minority students was double the improvement