摘要：In July of 1996, the California legislature passed Senate Bill 1777 in an effort to improve student achievement by reducing student-teacher ratios in grades K-3 at a cost of over one billion dollars each year (Stecher & Bohrnstedt, 2002). Rarely has a school reform been met with such widespread support. Current implementation of Class Size Reduction (CSR) in California, however, has lacked essential elements, such as planning, and funding for necessary classroom infrastructure and enough properly trained teachers. These elements, we contend, are critical to realize the potential impact of class size reduction to student achievement. California needs to fully fund and support its initial investment in class size reduction and then plan for an expansion of the program. The establishment of CSR was based on educational research demonstrating the effectiveness of the program. Biddle and Berliner (2002) summarize the results of several studies done that indicate, especially for students in the lower grades, significant gains for students in classes smaller than twenty. Tennessee’s Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project and Wisconsin’s Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) program are examples of effective CSR. The STAR project compared student achievement between students placed in regular classes, regular classes with an instructional aide and reduced class sizes over a four year period. The study showed significant differences for students in small reading and math classes (Biddle & Berliner, 2002). The gains for low-income students were more pronounced when compared to low-income students in larger classes. The study continued to track the students in the reduced sized classes through twelfth grade and indicated that the gains were sustained through twelfth grade and showed up in college entrance exams (Biddle & Berliner, 2002). The results of Wisconsin’s SAGE program demonstrated similar results.
