Class Size Matters
We, the undersigned parents of Torey J. Sabatini Elementary school, hereby ask you to reduce the class size of the current second grade for the 2014-2015 school year and the remaining years ofthis class at TJS. TJS has the largest second grade classes of any of the three Madison elementary schools. With so many children in a room, many individual needs cannot be met on adaily basis, and inevitably some children fall through the cracks or are swept aside.
This is our number one priority for the following reasons.
1) Next year, our children will be the first third grade class to take the PARCC exams, and preparation will be more efficient in a smaller class. Additionally, our children will also be the firstthird grade class to be taught through the Singapore Math curriculum next year, which will come with its own set of challenges and adjustments as the teachers and children getassimilated to the new teaching method and materials. Such large groups will certainly suffer on the whole and as individuals as this agenda plays out, and again the students, ourchildren, will be the ones to bear the lasting effects of being overcrowded.
The National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education analyzed the achievement levels of students in 2,561 schools. After controlling for student background,the researchers concluded "average achievement scores are higher in schools with smaller class sizes":http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/2000303.pdf
Alan Krueger of Princeton University analyzed the results for the control group of students who were in the "larger" classes of the Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project, alarge-scale, randomized experiment conducted in Tennessee and found the smaller the class, the better the outcome:http://dataspace.princeton.edu/jspui/bitstream/88435/dsp01w66343627/1/451.pdf
Peter Blatchford, Paul Bassett and Penelope Brown of the University of London studied the deployment and impact of support staff in primary and secondary schools in England andWales and found reductions in class size increased the probability that students would be on-task and positively engaged in learning:http://www.classsizeresearch.org.uk/aera%2008%20paper.pdf
In a recent article in the Washington Post, anew review of the major research that has been conducted on class sizeby Northwestern University Associate ProfessorDiane Whitmore Schanzenbachmakes clear that class size matters, and it matters a lot:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/24/class-size-matters-a-lot-research-shows/
3) There is evidence that class sizes can be reduced without increasing school budgets. Christopher Tienken and Charles Achilles studied how a middle-school in New Jersey adjustedpersonnel assignments, and eliminated pull-out programs and remedial practices to reduce class sizes at little to no additional expense:http://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/Journals/AASA_Journal_of_Scholarship_and_Practice/Spring2006_FINAL.pdf
For these reasons and others summarized by non-profit organizations such as Class Size Matters (http://www.classsizematters.org), we want the Madison Public Schools Board ofEducation to reduce the second grade class size at Torey J. Elementary school for the 2014-2015 school year and the remaining years of this class at TJS.
Thank you for your consideration and attention.
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