Resources

Fact Sheets

A question and answer on the proposed charter amendment

A fact sheet on the benefits of small classes

Reports

For the first time, the DOE has released detailed average class sizes for each grade K-9, school, district and borough in the city. (High schools are not included.) The counts are as of October 31, 2006, and are available in Excel and PDF versions.

The Teachers Network, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity and the Alliance for Quality Education put together a multidisciplinary curriculum for grades K-12 to help New York City teachers inform their students about the CFE lawsuit.

Daily News reporter Erin Einhorn examines NYC’s class size madness in a special report –May 14, 2006

An audit by State Comptroller Alan Hevesi found the city misspent state funding for class size reduction.

NYC resists cutting class size
In an article in Gotham Gazette, coalition member Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, shows how the city has flouted the law and failed to lower class sizes. April 24, 2006

For legal briefs and decisions, please see our Timeline.

Research

Here are some links to research on the benefits of smaller classes:

New! Study showing smaller classes get better results than remedial pull-out programs in a New Jersey middle school.
"Making Class Size Work in the Middle Grades," Christopher H. Tienken and Charles M. Achilles, AASA Journal of Scholarship & Practice, Spring, 2006, pp. 26-36.

New! “Small Classes in the Early Grades, Academic Achievement, and Graduating From High School,"
Jeremy D. Finn et. al., Journal of Educational Psychology, 2005.
Press release

One of the best summaries for parents is the SERVE publication,
"How Class Size Makes a Difference,” 2002.

STAR studies in Tennessee: results from the best-designed large scale experiment in the history of education

SAGE studies in Wisconsin

Good summary of SAGE results: American Youth Policy Forum 

What Research Says About Small Classes and Their Effects, by Bruce Biddle and David Berliner

What smaller classes have achieved in California (California Educator, article 1, article 2)

AEU Fact Sheet Number 1, Class Sizes Do Matter

Education World School Issues Center on Class Size

Australian summary of research: NSW Public Education Inquiry 2002 on Manageable Class Sizes

Ivor Pritchard, "Reducing Class Size: What Do We Know?" US Department of Education, 1999

Best cost-benefit analysis and critique of class size contrarians:
Alan B. Krueger and Diane M. Whitmore,"Would Smaller Classes Help Close the Black-White Achievement Gap?” in:
Bridging the Achievement Gap, Brookings Institution Press 2002, also available at; 
http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/451.pdf

David Grissmer, et.al. Improving Student Achievement: What State NAEP Test Scores Tell Us. RAND, 2000. 

Leonie Haimson, Smaller is Better: First-hand Reports of Early Grade Class Size Reduction in NYC Public Schools, Educational Priorities Panel, April 2000

Middle and upper grades:

What smaller classes in grades 4-5 have achieved in Elk Grove CA

Teachers of the Year talk about the benefits of smaller classes in the middle and upper grades

Science Central,  "Big Kids, Small Classes?"

D. McLaughlin and Gili Drori, School-Level Correlates of Academic Achievement, U.S. Department of Education, 2000.

Harold Wenglinsky, When Money Matters, Educational Testing Service, 1997.

In UK, recent study shows students in smaller high school classes more likely to stay through graduation and to earn higher wages. Christian Dustmann et al., "Class Size, Education and Wages", Economic Journal, February 2003.
See also press release and news article