Original_To:  BITNET%"mbu-l@ttuvm1.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1992 01:15:00 EDT
From:         "Composition Digest (Robert Royar,
              Moderator)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Subject:      (Fwd: *C&CD*) Research data on class size (8)

Date:         Tue, 06 Oct 1992 06:24:10 EDT
From:         IN%"RobertRoyar@Delphi.com" Robert Royar (C&CD Moderator)
Message-id:   <1992Oct06.062410.1.Grendel.Lair@Cratylus>
Subject:      Research data on class size (8)
Reply-to:     IN%"R0MILL01@ULKYVX.LOUISVILLE.EDU"  C&CD
Organization: Cratylus Educational Software

>Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 21:56:10 CDT
>From: Jim Raymond <JRAYMOND@ENGLISH.AS.UA.EDU>
>Message-id: <01GPLULGYVO08WW5MM@ulkyvx.bitnet>
>Subject: RE: class size (*MBU*)

>It's very hard to find research data (other than common sense)
>supporting small class size in writing courses, but the NCTE

I recall reading an short report on an in-depth US Dept. of Ed. study
conducted in Tennessee which concluded that a small (15:1?) teacher ratio
was the largest determiner of success and improvement for third graders in
an (urban?) public school. Test scores improved from among the lowest in the
nation to among the highest (I believe within one year).  This became part
of the Reagan education reform program, but because it costs so much to have
enough teachers to maintain such a ratio, it's not a prominent
feature--certainly not up there with incarceration of truant parents, metal
detector installation in the hallway, and further prisonification of the
public school system.

There's also been some research (or I'd suspect it's published) on the
effects of the drastic changes in Kentucky's public education system after
its Supreme Court ruled the ed system there unconstitutional.  Some of the
changes include portfolio and portfolio assessment programs mandated (for
all levels?), ungraded classes in K-3, regional teacher resource centers,
and team-taught classes at multiple grade levels (in which the total
student population and student-to-teacher ratio may excede 30:1 but where
clustering, peer group work, &c. may make the effective ratio much more
favorable).  I've heard some positive results from teachers,
administrators, and parents from there.

I know these examples are not from college, but most people's concept of
what classes are, their size, teacher pay, &c.  derive from their
experiences in public school.  Long Island public school teachers on
average make 90% more than their college faculty of the same experience
level.  My township (population ~350,000) pays over $700,000.00 a year for
school superintendent salaries in its multiple districts.  Two of the
supers have only masters degrees, and one has just his bachelors, (but he's
only paid $100,000.00 a year).  The highest super salary was over
$125,000.00.  Ours is not the highest paid township on the Island; however,
it is the one for which I have some salary figures.

 -- Robert Royar (RobertRoyar@Delphi.com) New York Institute of Technology
    "Do not search for the truth. Simply cease to cherish opinion"
                                           - Sengstan, Third Zen Patriarch

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