SMALLER CLASSES DON'T REFLECT BETTER
EDUCATION
The London Free Press
Fri 09 Sep
2005
Page: A10
Section: Opinion Pages
Byline: BY RORY LEISHMAN,
LONDON FREELANCE WRITER
Source:

The parents of children returning to the public and
Catholic schools of Ontario can look forward to a year without any more
teachers' strikes or work-to-rule campaigns, thanks to a generous round of
contract settlements reached with the province's teachers' unions in June.

But will the children in these generally mediocre schools get a better
education? That's doubtful.

Of course, the McGuinty Liberals beg to differ. They insist that the quality
of education provided to students in Ontario's publicly funded schools is bound
to improve as a result of the government's pledge to reduce class sizes to 20
pupils from junior kindergarten to Grade 3, at a cost to taxpayers of more than
$450 million over three years.

However, while the claim that smaller classes will result in better education
has often been made, it has never been proven.

In fact, the weight of the evidence is against it.

In a commentary published by the C. D. Howe Institute, entitled School Class Size: Smaller Isn't
Better, Yvan Guillemette summarizes studies that he and others have
conducted on the relation between class size and student achievement in Canada
and the United States. He concludes: "There is no solid base of empirical
evidence to show that smaller classes improve student achievement beyond
kindergarten and Grade 1, when pupils are being socialized into the classroom
environment. Even in those very first school years, the gains in achievement
observed are relatively small and do not carry through to later years."

Mark Holmes, one of Canada's leading educational authorities, came to the
same conclusion in a book published in 1994, entitled Canada's Educational
Crisis: Problems, Causes and Solutions.

Holmes wrote: "Small class size is (understandably) an important issue for
many teachers and parents, but it is essentially irrelevant to meaningful
educational reform. It probably makes sense to increase rather than decrease
class size in more areas (a notable exception being the primary Grades 1 and
2)."

On the basis of his research as a professor in the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education and his experiences as a former teacher, principal and
school-board superintendent, Holmes argued that if most educators in Ontario had
fewer, albeit larger, classes, they could spend more time on classroom
preparation and do a better job of teaching.

Instead, the government plans to hire thousands of new teachers -- many of
them, no doubt, with less experience than those now in the system -- and expect
each of these teachers to conduct the same number of classes as now, albeit with
fewer students.

As a result, this reform is more likely to debase than to improve the quality
of education in the public schools.

The question arises: Why do politicians and teachers' unions invariably
champion reduced class sizes?

Guillemette explains: "It is certainly convenient for some teachers to parade
as student advocates and claim improvements in student achievement to demand
class size limits, while the real reasons for such demands have more to do with
improving their own working conditions . . . although class size is an
attractive policy target for politicians because it is easily understood by the
electorate, easily measured, and reductions in it easily trumpeted as major
achievements, no solid evidence exists to show that smaller classes improve
student achievement in the later primary and secondary grades."

Instead of appeasing teachers' unions with smaller classes, Guillemette
suggests the prov-ince should fund more professional development opportunities
and better incentives for teachers. He also suggests the government encourage
"more competition" among schools and "expanded school choice."

Nancy Wagner, president of the Organization for Quality Education, concurs.
She maintains it's no coincidence that Alberta, the province that offers more
school choice than any other, nearly always leads the provinces in comparative
tests of student achievement.

"If Ontario and the Maritimes want better school systems," Wagner concludes,
"then clearly they should look to Alberta."

What, though, is the policy of the McGuinty Liberals? They stifle competition
for Ontario's publicly funded schools, by opposing even the most modest tax
breaks for parents who prefer to pay to obtain a superior education for their
children either at home or in an independent school.

Edition: Final
Note: Rory Leishman is a freelance
writer based in London.
Length: 690 words