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Is Class Size More Precious than Full-Day
Kindergarten?
by Charles M. Freeland, an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy
Review Foundation ands a corporate attorney in Indianapolis. He holds an M.B.A.
from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Indiana University. He is the
author of "How Collective Bargaining Hurts Public Schools" and other published
work on education reform.
Almost everyone likes Governor Kernan's proposal for full-day kindergarten ‹ as
long as a way to pay for it can be found. The teacher unions like it so much
that they were initially willing to let the state dip into their already
under-funded pension fund to help pay part of the cost, estimated at somewhere
between $80 million and $154 million per year. That is because most of the money
would go to hire additional teachers.
The governor's plan is likely to fail because of concerns about funding. That is
too bad, because there is a way to get full-day kindergarten without spending
nearly so much money, but you will never hear about it from the politicians or
the teachers.
First, you need to know that generous increases in spending for education
combined with lower student enrollments across the state over the last three
decades has led to a steady decline in the ratio of students to teachers in
Indiana public schools. Twenty years ago there were 19.5 students for every
teacher in Indiana public schools. Today, the ratio is down to 16.7 students for
every teacher.
That's right. On average across Indiana, there are only 16.7 students for each
teacher. Reducing class size has, of course, always been a primary and obvious
objective of the teacher unions. They have succeeded in spite of the total
absence of any credible evidence supporting the notion that lower class size
improves learning. Study after study fails to show what the education
establishment would have us believe.
In fact, few years ago the state of Michigan spent the incredible sum of $96
million on an study to prove that lowering class sizes would improve student
achievement. They failed. The independent academics who conducted the study
concluded that there was "no statistically significant difference in
achievement" based on lower class sizes.
Indiana taxpayers funded a similar study in the School City of Hammond in 1999
through 2001. That study also failed to show a connection between class size and
student achievement. That lower class sizes "improve" education is just one of
the myths pervading public education.
If Indiana's current schools operated with the same student-teacher ratio that
they had 20 years ago ‹ that is, 19.5 or less than three additional students per
classroom ‹ the state would be spending almost half a billion dollars less per
year, which is more than enough to pay for full-day kindergarten.
In the school year 2002-03, Indiana's public schools had 1,001,876 students
enrolled. A student-teacher ratio of 19.5 would require 51,378 teachers. In
fact, we employed 59,891 teachers in that year, about 8,500 more than needed for
the 19.5 ratio. At today¹s rate of teacher compensation, the additional 8,500
teachers cost the state's taxpayers about $500 million per year. That is almost
a half billion dollars per year for no demonstrable benefit to the children.
Accordingly, full-day kindergarten can easily be paid for by simply allowing the
student-teacher ratio to increase by a student or two per classroom. The
teachers would scream, of course, but such a small increase would have no
measurable impact on student learning. In any case, no teacher would need to be
let go. The current compliment of teachers could easily cover the increased
number of students brought in by full-day kindergarten.
In sum, it is an unfortunate, even tragic, reality that for Indiana's public
schools, the employment of adults has become more important than the education
of children.
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