Headline from a recent Education Week article:
Class-Size Reduction of Limited Value on Achievement Gap, Study Finds
North Carolina gets a shout-out in the article.
In North Carolina, a pilot program was approved last year that will cut class sizes in middle schools to 17 students as part of a program to strengthen those grades, reduce high school dropout rates, and increase college attendance. The competitive-grant program, which is estimated to cost close to $1 million per middle school, is expected to start with three schools in the 2009-10 school year.
The state recently completed a pilot program that reduced class sizes in a handful of at-risk elementary schools. After four years, an evaluation concluded that the class size reduction did not significantly improve student achievement.
