How large are your classes? How do you think the number of students in a class affects how well teachers can teach and students can learn? According to this article, class sizes are rising across the nation because of budget cuts — in Detroit, high school classes may go up to 60 students. How many kids in a class is too many? What experiences have you had with the ways class size affects learning?

In “Tight Budgets Mean Squeeze in Classrooms,” Sam Dillon writes:

Millions of public school students across the nation are seeing their class sizes swell because of budget cuts and teacher layoffs, undermining a decades-long push by parents, administrators and policy makers to shrink class sizes. Over the past two years, California, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Utah and Wisconsin have loosened legal restrictions on class size. And Idaho and Texas are debating whether to fit more students in classrooms. Los Angeles has increased the average size of its ninth-grade English and math classes to 34 from 20. Eleventh- and 12th-grade classes in those two subjects have risen, on average, to 43 students. “Because many states are facing serious budget gaps, we’ll see more increases this fall,” said Marguerite Roza, a University of Washington professor who has studied the recession’s impact on schools. The increases are reversing a trend toward smaller classes that stretches back decades. Since the 1980s, teachers and many other educators have embraced research finding that smaller classes foster higher achievement.

Students: Tell us about your experiences with the ways in which class size can affect teaching and learning. In general, how many kids are in your classes now? Have you ever experienced significantly smaller or larger classes? How do you think that affected how much and how well you learned? Do you agree with some of the experts in this article who argue that the impact of small classes on achievement has been exaggerated and that giving students a skillful teacher is more cost-effective? Why or why not?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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