Size doesn't matter ?

[dogtowner]

thats what a new Harvard study says

class size that is and doesn't matter in terms of student achievement. kind of surprising at least to me but the other non-beneficial metrics do make sense. and the things that DO work really make sense. I've been emphasizing that high expectations forever. in talking to my niece whi teaches at one, Montessori schools practice most of this (but they do emphasize the class size) which explains their relative success.

with any luck this will stir the pudding some on the political side regarding education. more of the same old same old is going to be as fruitless as its always been. no sense in doubling down on failure.

Two Harvard researchers looked at the factors that actually improve student achievement and those that don’t. In a new paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Will Dobbie and Roland Freyer analyzed 35 charter schools, which generally have greater flexibility in terms of school structure and strategy. They found that traditionally emphasized factors such as class size made little difference, compared with some new criteria:

We find that traditionally collected input measures — class size, per pupil expenditure, the fraction of teachers with no certification, and the fraction of teachers with an advanced degree — are not correlated with school effectiveness. In stark contrast, we show that an index of five policies suggested by over forty years of qualitative research — frequent teacher feedback, the use of data to guide instruction, high-dosage tutoring, increased instructional time, and high expectations — explains approximately 50 percent of the variation in school effectiveness.​

“Data-driven instruction” may be the least familiar policy of the bunch. Dobbie and Fryer explain: “We attempt to understand how schools use data through the frequency of interim assessments, whether teachers meet with a school leader to discuss student data, how often teachers receive reports on student results, and how often data from interim assessments are used to adjust tutoring groups, assign remediation, modify instruction, or create individualized student goals.”

 

[cashmcall]

thats what a new Harvard study says

class size that is and doesn't matter in terms of student achievement. kind of surprising at least to me but the other non-beneficial metrics do make sense. and the things that DO work really make sense. I've been emphasizing that high expectations forever. in talking to my niece whi teaches at one, Montessori schools practice most of this (but they do emphasize the class size) which explains their relative success.

with any luck this will stir the pudding some on the political side regarding education. more of the same old same old is going to be as fruitless as its always been. no sense in doubling down on failure.

I agree..my wife of 38 years says she loves me because little things make her happy...lol

 

[dogtowner]

I agree..my wife of 38 years says she loves me because little things make her happy...lol

dude... too much information...