Does size matter? (More Teachers, Same Scores).UNVEILING A PROPOSAL to help public schools hire more teachers several years ago, Bill Clinton said "every parent already knows" that education improves when class size shrinks. As skeptical as they may have been about many other things that Clinton said, most Americans probably agreed, and reducing student-teacher ratios Student-Teacher ratio refers to the number of teachers in a school/university with respect to the number of students who attend the school/university. For example, a student teacher ratio of 10:1 means that there are 10 students for every teacher available. remains a favorite goal of education reformers. But as researchers such as University of Rochester The University of Rochester (UR) is a private, coeducational and nonsectarian research university located in Rochester, New York. The university is one of 62 elected members of the Association of American Universities. economist Eric Hanushek Eric A. Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and an expert on education policy. His main area of interest is the economics of education, focusing on controversial areas of education policy including the class size have been pointing out for years, there is little reason to believe that hiring more teachers leads to better academic performance. A new study covering 84 percent of the country's public high schools provides further grounds for skepticism skepticism (skĕp`tĭsĭzəm) [Gr.,=to reflect], philosophic position holding that the possibility of knowledge is limited either because of the limitations of the mind or because of the inaccessibility of its object. . Analyzing data for 12,916 schools, the Columbus-based educational research service SchoolMatch found no significant association between the number of students per teacher and SAT or ACT scores. "There simply appears to be no positive relationship between small classes and student success on college entrance examinations," said Steven M. Sundre, School-Match's executive vice president. In a time of tight state budgets, this contradiction CONTRADICTION. The incompatibility, contrariety, and evident opposition of two ideas, which are the subject of one and the same proposition. 2. In general, when a party accused of a crime contradicts himself, it is presumed he does so because he is guilty for of conventional wisdom should be welcome news. "Roughly 90 percent of the operating funds of public schools are spent on staff commitments," noted School-Match President William L. Bainbridge. "Nothing has a greater impact upon a school system's budget than low pupil/teacher ratios." |
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