Study correlates class size with African-American test scores

University Economics professor Alan Krueger and Diane Whitmore GS have just completed a study that has Hillary Clinton calling.

The study, released this month, reports that smaller class sizes can significantly improve the academic performance of African-American students. It has become the backbone of Clinton's and fellow Democratic Senator Parry Murray's current legislative agendas.

The study was based on a class-size experiment in Tennessee called Project STAR, which tracked the progress of 11,600 students placed in small classes of 13 to 17 pupils from kindergarten to third grade. The students returned to regular-sized classes of 22 to 25 people in fourth grade.

Krueger and Whitmore, who analyzed data accumulated since 1985, found that while smaller classes benefited all students, they helped African-American students the most.

Clinton and Murray promoted the study at a Mar. 6 press conference because it supports the amendments that each is proposing as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a key piece of federal education legislation.

Though Murray's amendment — which would have committed $2.4 billion to help school districts hire 100,000 new public school teachers — was defeated in committee on March 8, four of Clinton's five amendments have been approved.

The study demonstrated that third grade African-American students in small classes outperformed their peers in larger classes on standardized tests by 10.2 percentile points, compared to 3.1 percentile points for white students, according to the study.

By the eighth grade, the gap had narrowed to 4.6 percentile points for African-American students and 1.6 points for white students — but the small classes seemed to have a positive, lasting effect on the students.

"Students who start school with more disadvantages are the types of students who benefit," said Krueger, who served as chief economist for the U.S. Department of Labor from 1994-95.

The study also demonstrated that African-American students who were placed in classes with fewer people for their first three years of school were more likely to take the SAT or ACT college entrance exams — an indication of anticipated matriculation. According to Krueger, 41.3 percent of African-American students in small classes took a college entrance exam, compared to 31.8 percent of African-American students in larger classes. White students who were placed in classes with fewer people also are more likely to take college exams, but to a lesser extent — 46.4 of white students in small classes took the exams, compared to 44.7 percent in regular-size classes.

Krueger believes that small class sizes could increase students' aspirations to go to college, and therefore could increase the number of minority students at top colleges.

Though the academic performance gap between African American and white students has narrowed since the 1970s, it is still "outrageously large," Whitmore said. In fact, the gap has widened in the last five years. The study suggests that this might be because classroom sizes have stopped decreasing.

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"What we are saying is that it makes sense to target smaller classes to more disadvantaged students," Krueger said.

Whitmore and Krueger also examined other ways to improve academic achievement besides limiting the number of students in classes. Krueger said that school voucher programs, for example, improve the academic performance of minority students.

Krueger and Whitmore also found that students who learn in small classes are less likely to become teen parents and less likely to commit crimes.

Many aspects of this study will require further research, Whitmore said. "There's so much to follow up on with these kids."

Though the study has been cited by Democratic law-makers, reducing class size has bipartisan appeal, said Whitmore. "[President] Bush wants to reduce the gap between black and white . . . rich and poor," she said. Reducing class size is one way to do this, she said. "It raises the mean for everybody. Bush would love this."