Support slips for class-size caps, poll says - Florida

The Miami Herald ^ | 11-1-02 | BY STEVE HARRISON

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Support for a constitutional limit on the size of public school classes has declined to less than 50 percent in a statewide poll released Thursday, raising questions about whether Amendment 9 can limp to the finish line five days before the election.

A Mason-Dixon poll of 800 voters conducted Monday and Tuesday shows 48 percent support the class-size cap, with 40 percent against and 12 percent undecided.

A Miami Herald-St. Petersburg Times poll of 800 likely voters Oct. 23-25 showed 62 percent for and 31 percent against the cap.

Amendment 9 has become a focus of the governor's race, with Gov. Jeb Bush saying it would be too costly. Democratic candidate Bill McBride has endorsed it.

Bush's opposition to the amendment was first seen as a liability, when the cap enjoyed support between 70 and 80 percent early this fall. But questions over the cap's cost have shifted the debate from education to economics.

Democratic legislative leaders released a plan Thursday to pay for Amendment 9, to counter Republican suggestions that sales tax exemptions on groceries and prescription drugs might be lifted.

While the governor's race has grabbed public attention for a month, the debate over Amendment 9 has only recently taken center stage. The public's support of constitutional amendments can swing wildly when voters begin to pay attention, said University of South Florida political science professor Susan MacManus.

''I really think this might fail,'' MacManus said. ``People forget that Florida is an anti-tax state.''

A sign that Bush's anti-Amendment 9 strategy is working: Ten days ago, 52 percent of Republicans surveyed by Mason-Dixon supported the cap. That had declined to 34 percent in Thursday's poll.

The Coalition to Protect Florida, a group trying to kill the amendment, has struggled to raise money, but Bush's opposition has softened support for the measure. Amendment 9 would cap by 2010 the number of students assigned to public school teachers in kindergarten through third grade at 18; at 22 in grades four through eight; and at 25 in high school.

''We are very pleased,'' said Cory Tilley, spokesman for the Coalition to Protect Florida. ``The conventional wisdom on constitutional amendments is that if it's 50 percent or below, it's in trouble.''

If Amendment 9 passes, the state would have to build nearly 30,000 new classrooms and hire nearly 32,000 new teachers. It's been estimated that would cost between $6.7 billion and $9.6 billion in construction through 2010, and $1.45 billion and $2.2 billion in salaries annually.

Incoming Senate Democratic leader Ron Klein of Boca Raton proposed Thursday using Bush's plan to bond the expected increase in revenue from the telecommunications tax -- $235 million annually -- to produce $2.8 billion for construction. Bush has touted the plan as a way to build 12,000 new classrooms.

Other major aspects of Klein's plan include bonding $200 million in lottery funds for $2.4 billion in construction, though he wouldn't raid the Bright Futures scholarship program. Additional construction dollars would come from existing statewide construction funds.

Klein added that $500 million annually would come from McBride's 50-cent tax increase on cigarettes to help pay operating expenses.

Damien Filer, spokesman for Florida's Coalition to Reduce Class Size, is still confident that Amendment 9 will win, noting that the Mason-Dixon poll has consistently reported lower support for the amendment than other statewide polls.

J. Bradford Coker, managing director for Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, said the downward trend is more important than the exact percentage of voters.

''The fact that its support has dropped 10 points in 10 days is alarming,'' Coker said. ``This can still pass. It has 48 percent for it.''

[ODDITHER]

If class size was the answer, then Utah would have the worst test scores in the nation, and Washington DC would have the best.

If dollars per student were the answer then Utah would have the one of the worst test scores in the nation and Washington DC would have the best.

If PC correctness was the answer then Utah would have the worst test scores in the Nation.

Why then does Utah enjoy one of the highest in the Nation? It couldn't be two parent families who care about their children's education and insist that the children learn would it?

As the moral relativists and proponents of environment, abortion, homosexualtity first crowd make fun and scorn people in Utah, Utah continues to love and support their children and are enjoying the fruits of their labors.

[FLAUSA]

As part of my class work for a quantitative research class, I did a statistical analysis on state SAT test scores as the dependant variable and various independent variables, including class size and spending per pupil.

Class size is actually significantly correlated with SAT score. The smaller the class size the lower the SAT scores!

Spending per pupil is negatively correlated with SAT scores. The lower the spending per pupil the higher the SAT scores!

By the way this was part of the Doctor of Education program and you can imagine the consternation of my professor at the results of my analysis.

The other interesting item was that nearness to the Canadian border was negatively correlated with SAT scores. The closer a state is to the Canadian border the higher the SAT test scores.

Therefore, we should send all students to northern Utah, put them all in one class, and spend no money on them!

DISCLAIMER: Please note that correlation does not equal causation. Just because two things are correlated does not mean that one thing causes a change in the other thing.

[ODDITHER]

Interesting stuff. I have often said, that you could take 100 kids, one teacher and alot of books and send them into the woods with nothing but an outdoor toilet. You would have better prepared and educated students than one-to-one ratio in today's public schools.

[sharktrager]

You nailed it. Comprehensive, long-term studies have clearly shown absolutely no corrolation between class size, funding or any of the other popular measures of school operation that are in use to day.

The best states in terms of student achievement have been generally been ranked in the bottom 20-30 states in terms of funding and school size.

These states also have other things in common that have nothing to do with the state government.

[Tax-chick]

Smaller class sizes mean more teachers' union members, higher facilities costs, more non-teaching maintenance employees ... wonder where the money to promote this idiocy is coming from?

That statistical analysis above should be trumpeted from the housetops, until it drowns out every political candidate talking about education!

[bandleader]

It's not the"SIZE"of classes,It's The "Quality"of teaching!!I never attended a class that wasn't at least 35-40 students!!!I got an excellent education(class of 1968).

[Straight Vermonter]

Eric Hanushek's "The Evidence on Class Size" is available in PDF format. To view this document, you must use Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0. Click here to download this free software. Below is a summary of the report. This summary is also available in PDF format, complete with charts and graphs.   The Evidence on Class Size Eric A. Hanushek University of Rochester Executive Summary A wave of enthusiasm for reducing class size is sweeping across the country. This move appears misguided. The primary conclusion of this paper is: Existing evidence indicates that achievement for the typical student will be unaffected by instituting the types of class size reductions that have been recently proposed or undertaken. The most noticeable feature of policies to reduce overall class sizes will be a dramatic increase in the costs of schooling, an increase unaccompanied by achievement gains. This conclusion is frequently greeted with surprise, but it should not be. Class sizes have been reduced over a long period of time with no evidence of overall achievement gains. Moreover, the effects of class size have been studied more intensively than any other aspect of schools, and this extensive research simply does not offer support for the types of policies to reduce class size that have been proposed. Broadly reducing class sizes is extraordinarily expensive and, based on years of research and experience, very ineffective. There are powerful reasons for us as a Nation to expand and improve investment in human capital. The strength and vitality of our economy depends importantly on having a skilled workforce that can compete in the international economy. Acknowledging the need for investment does not, however, lead to unqualified support for any policies labeled “investment in our youth” or “school improvement.” Recent policy discussions have been laced with programs that fundamentally involve haphazard and ineffective spending on schools and that offer little hope for gains in achievement. The current set of class size proposals falls into this category. People supporting broad class size reductions generally point to a few studies or a few experiences that suggest improved performance with smaller classes and then rely on policies to carry the day. A thorough review of the scientific evidence provides no support for broad programs of class size reduction. 1. We have extensive experience with class size reduction and it has NOT worked. Between 1950 and 1995, pupil-teacher ratios fell by 35 percent. While we do not have information about student achievement for this entire period, the information that we have from 1970 for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicates that our 17-year-olds were performing roughly the same in 1996 as in 1970. There are some differences by subject area, but the overall picture is one of stagnant performance. The aggregate trends cannot be explained away by a worsening of students over time. While some family factors have worsened – increased child poverty and fewer two parent families, others have improved – more educated parents and smaller families. Nor does appeal to the mandated increases in budgets for special education explain the ineffectiveness of past reductions in class size and increases in spending. Eventhough special education is more expensive than regular education and even though it is an increasingly important issue, it simply is not large enough to rationalize past resource growth. 2. International experience suggests NO relationship between pupil-teacher ratios and student performance. Dramatic differences in pupil-teacher ratios and in class sizes across countries are unrelated to measures of mathematics and science achievement. While there are many differences across countries that are difficult to adjust for in any analysis, there are also large differences in pupil-teacher ratios. These differences hold the possibility of understanding the effects of class size on performance, but – quite surprisingly – the international differences suggest a slight positive relationship between pupil-teacher ratios and student achievement. 3. Extensive econometric investigation show NO relationship between class size and student performance. Extensive statistical investigation of the relationship between class size and student performance shows as many positive as negative estimates. With close to 300 separate estimates of the effect of class size, there is no reason to expect performance improvements from lowering class sizes. Moreover, because of the controversial nature of these conclusions, they have been carefully scrutinized – and the policy conclusions remain unaffected. These studies are important because they provide detailed views of differences across classrooms – views that separate the influence of schools from that of family, peers, and other factors. As a group, they cover the influence of class size on a variety of student outcomes, on performance at different grades, and on achievement in different kinds of schools and different areas of the country. In sum, they provide broad and solid evidence. 4. Project STAR in Tennessee does NOT support overall reductions in class size except perhaps at kindergarten. Much of the current enthusiasm for reductions in class size is supported by references to the results of a random-assignment experimental program in the State of Tennessee in the mid1980s. The common reference to this program, Project STAR, is an assertion that the positive results there justify a variety of overall reductions in class size. The study is conceptually simple, even if some questions about its actual implementation remain. Students in the STAR experiment were randomly assigned to small classes (13-17 students) or large classes (21-25 students with or without aides). They were kept in these small or large classes from kindergarten through third grade, and their achievement was measured at the end of each year. If smaller classes were valuable in each grade, the achievement gap would widen. It does not. In fact, the gap remains essentially unchanged through the sixth grade, even though the experimental students from the small classes return to larger classes for the fourth through sixth grades. The inescapable conclusion is that the smaller classes at best matter in kindergarten. The STAR data suggest that perhaps achievement would improve if kindergarten classes were moved to sizes considerably below today’s average. The data do not suggest that improvements will result from class size reductions at later grades. Nor do they suggest that more modest reductions, say to 18 or 20 students per class, will yield achievement gains. The STAR evidence pertains to a one-third reduction in class sizes, a reduction approximately equal to the overall decline in pupil-teacher between 1950 and today. 5. The quality of the teacher is much more important than class size. Considerable evidence shows that by far the largest differences in the impact of schools on student achievement relate to differences in the quality of teachers. Thus, whether or not large-scale reductions in class sizes help or hurt will depend mostly on whether or not any new teachers are better or worse than the existing teachers. Unfortunately, the current organization of schools and incentives to hire and retain teachers do little to ensure that the teacher force will improve. Simply grafting on different certification requirements are also unlikely to work. If we are to have a real impact on teaching, we must evaluate actual teaching performance and use such evaluations in school decisions. We cannot rely on requirements for entry, but must switch to using actual performance in the classroom. 6. While silver bullets do not exist, far superior approaches are available. The states and federal government are in a unique position to initiate programs that promise true improvement in our schools. They are not programs that mandate or push local schools to adopt particular approaches – such as lowering overall class sizes or altering the certification of teachers. Instead they are programs that develop information about improved incentives in schools. The largest impediment to any constructive change in schools is that nobody in today’s schools has much of an incentive to improve student performance. Careers simply are not made on the basis of student outcomes. The flow of resources is not related positively to performance – indeed it is more likely to be perversely related to performance. The unfortunate fact is, however, that we have little experience with alternative incentive structures. A very productive use of state and federal funds would be to conduct a series of planned interventions that could be used to evaluate improvements. Minimally, instead of funding lowered class sizes everywhere, the states and federal government could team together to mandate more extensive random-assignment trials and evaluation of the benefits of lowered class sizes, à la Tennessee. More usefully, they could work to develop a series of experiments that investigates the construction and implementation of alternative incentive schemes – from merit pay to private contracting to wider choice of schools. Much of our knowledge about treatment therapies in medicine is directly related to prior experimentation. The last period of social experimentation by the federal government during the 1960s and 1970s produced many useful policy insights. A new program of trials with altered performance incentives could place an indelible positive stamp on the Nation’s future by committing to learning about how schools can be improved. Today we do not know enough to develop an effective program of improvement. Nor will continuation of past research programs help, because they must rely upon the existing structure of schools with the existing incentives (or lack of incentives). Eric Hanushek is a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Rochester. HOME | MAIL | BOOKS | FORDHAM

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation 1627 K Street, NW, Suite 600 Washington, DC 20006 (202) 223-5452; (202) 223-9226 (fax) Questions? Comments? Email us: backtalk@edexcellence.net To order publications see: http://www.edexcellence.net/fordham/foreports.html The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is affiliated with the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. The Foundation is neither connected with nor sponsored by Fordham University.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

That statistical analysis above should be trumpeted from the housetops, until it drowns out every political candidate talking about education!

We've been trying. The press is finally telling the voters the truth, maybe too late. It's a DNC-NEA-FEA-NAACP-PFAW scam...and Bill McBride's #1 issue...until the Oct. 22 debate where Tim Russert actually stressed the cost, and McBride couldn't defend this turkey.

Jeb's the only one who's been telling the voters the truth...and for that, the press attacked him most of this election year.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Official Price Tag on Class Size Initiative - Florida Tax Watch (BAD IDEA, McBride!)
Money also matters [How CA's landmark law to reduce class size was a disaster for poor students].
Coalition to Protect Florida, Vote NO on amendment 9!

[FLAUSA]

Thanks for the article. Very informative. I could work for a guy like this, but unfortunately he's in New York and I like the south.

As an aside, if smaller class size is so good, why do brand name universities have very large class sizes?