Results of the Tennessee STAR Report

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Results of the Tennessee STAR Report

• Mason M. Clark
• Florida Gulf Coast University

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Philosophies Of Education
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Excellence
Philosophies Of Education
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Excellence
Equity
Philosophies Of Education
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Excellence
Equity
Philosophies Of Education
Efficiency?
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As Administrators, we must seek to balance these
philosophies.
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The Tennessee STAR Report The Studys Objective

• Support or refute a link between class size and
  achievement

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The Tennessee STAR Report The Studys Scope

• 12,000,000
• Nearly 12,000 students
• Kindergarten through Third Grade
• Continued tracking of participants to today

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The Tennessee STAR Report The Studys
Methodology

• Experimental Group 1 classes with an average
  size of 15 students
• Experimental Group 2 classes with an average
  size of 24 students AND a teacher aide
• Control Group classes with average size of 24
  students

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The Tennessee STAR Report The Studys Findings

• Significant achievement increase in every
  category of every grade for the small class group
• No significant increase for teacher aide group
• Minority achievement increase up to three times
  the overall average
• Effects continued in the post-study tracking

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Financial Implications

• Decreasing class size by 37.5 increasing
  teaching staff by 37.5
• In a school with 90 teachers (90PSUs)
  (51,186) (37.5 increase)

1,700,000
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Solutions

• Boston Public Schools Rethink pull-out programs
• Burke County Retrain specialists to more
  efficiently utilize present staff
• California Decrease teaching standards

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Conclusions

• We must institute class size reductions. The
  data are too convincing to not do so.
• We cannot afford to institute CSRs with the
  present organizational structure.
• We must change the organizational structure to
  accommodate CSR.

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STAR Data
References
Standard Deviation?
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References Ehrenberg, R. G., Brewer, D. J.,
Gamoran, A., Willms, J. D. (2001). Does class
size matter? Scientific American, 285(5),
78-86.   Finn, J. D. (2002). Small classes in
American schools Research, practice and
politics. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(7),
551-560.   Finn, J. D. and Achilles, C. M.
(1999). Tennessee's class size study
Findings, implications, misconceptions.
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis,
21(2), 97-109.   Hawley Miles, K. (1995).
Freeing resources for improving schools A case
study of teacher allocation in Boston public
schools. Educational Evaluation and Policy
Analysis, 17(4), 476-493.
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