Skip to main content
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact

Search form

American Institutes for Research

  • Our Work
    • Education
    • Health
    • International
    • Workforce
    • ALL TOPICS >
  • Our Services
    • Research and Evaluation
    • Technical Assistance
  • Our Experts
  • News & Events

You are here

  • Home
15 Jan 2014
Report

Right-sizing the Classroom: Making the Most of Great Teachers

Michael Hansen

This CALDER Center paper examines the value of strategically assigning disproportionately larger classes to the strongest teachers in order to optimize student learning in the face of differential teacher effectiveness. The rationale is straightforward: Larger classes for the best teachers benefit the pupils who are reassigned to them; they also help the less effective teachers improve their instruction by enabling them to concentrate on fewer students. But just how much of a difference could manipulating class sizes in this way make for overall student learning and access to effective teaching? This study performs a simulation based on North Carolina data to estimate plausible student outcomes under this approach.

In the North Carolina data, there is a very slight tendency to place more students in the classes of effective teachers; but still only about 25 percent of students are taught by the top 25 percent of teachers. Intensively reallocating eighth-grade students—so that the most effective teachers have up to twelve more pupils than the average classroom—may produce gains equivalent to adding roughly two-and-a-half extra weeks of school. Even adding a handful of students to the most effective eighth-grade teachers (up to six more than the school’s average) produces gains in math and science akin to extending the school year by nearly two weeks or, equivalently, to removing the lowest five percent of teachers from the classroom. The potential impacts on learning are more modest in fifth grade, where the large majority of teachers are in self-contained classrooms.

Results show that this strategy shows an overall improvement in student access to effective teaching, yet gaps in access for economically disadvantaged students persist. For instance, disadvantaged eighth-grade students are about 8 percent less likely than non-disadvantaged peers to be assigned to a teacher in the top 25 percent of performance. This gap in access changes little in spite of the policy putting more students in front of effective teachers— because the pool of available teachers in high-poverty schools does not change under this strategy. Thus, this policy alone shows little promise in reducing achievement gaps.

PDF icon Right-Sizing the Classroom: Making the Most of Great Teachers

Related Centers

Center

National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER)

The National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) is a joint project of AIR and scholars at Duke University, Northwestern University, Stanford University, the University of Missouri, the University of Texas at Dallas, and the University of Washington.

Related Work

20 Nov 2012
Commentary

CALDER Conversations: Test-Based Measures of Teacher Effectiveness

The use of student test-based measures of teacher effectiveness in personnel decisions, such as tenure, is controversial. It is a major bone of contention in the recent Chicago teacher strike. The conversation here focuses on the uses, value and limitations of these measures, often called value-added measures.

Topic: 
Education, Longitudinal Education Studies, Teacher Preparation and Performance
18 Jul 2011
News Release

CALDER Relocates to American Institutes for Research

Demonstrating its ongoing commitment to education research and evaluation, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) today announced that the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) has relocated to AIR, effective July 18, 2011.

Further Reading

  • Don’t Stress about the Class Sizes. Focus on the Teachers
  • Eighth-Grade Algebra: Findings From the Eighth-Grade Round of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K)
  • Research Brief: Broadening Access to Algebra I: The Impact on Eighth Graders Taking an Online Course
  • Online Algebra Course Leads to Higher Achievement
  • Research Brief Outlines Findings Examining the Impact on Students Who Took Online Algebra I
Share

Topic

Longitudinal Education Studies
Teacher Preparation and Performance

RESEARCH. EVALUATION. APPLICATION. IMPACT.

About Us

About AIR
Board of Directors
Leadership
Experts
Clients
Contracting with AIR
Contact Us

Our Work

Education
Health
International
Workforce

Client Services

Research and Evaluation
Technical Assistance

News & Events

Careers at AIR


Search form


 

Connecting

FacebookTwitterLinkedinYouTubeInstagram

American Institutes for Research

1400 Crystal Drive, 10th Floor
Arlington, VA 22202-3289
Call: (202) 403-5000
Fax: (202) 403-5000

Copyright © 2020 American Institutes for Research®.  All rights reserved.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap