Political Quotes

“I hope we are not going to leave any impression here that the growing consensus on the benefit of small classes, particularly in the early grades, is somehow suspect. It is my understanding that consistently across the board students attending smaller classes in the early grades have been found to make more rapid progress than students in larger classes; that these benefits are the greatest for low-achieving minority children and low-income children, because smaller classes enable the teachers to identify and work effectively with students. In many instances they are able to address the problem early on, which prevents its worsening, perhaps to the extent of requiring special education in later years--if you are talking about conserving your resources. I understand that Project STAR studied 7,000 students in 80 schools in Tennessee. Students in small classes performed better than students in large classes in each grade from kindergarten through the third grade. Followup studies show that the gains lasted through at least the eighth grade. The gains were larger for minority students. In Wisconsin, the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education Program is helping to reduce class size in grades K through 3 and in low-income communities. Students in the smaller classes had significantly greater improvements in reading, math and science tests than students in the larger classes.”