Tennessee's Project STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio) randomly assigned 7,000 K-3 students to small classes (13-17 pupils), regular classes (22-26 pupils), and regular-with-aide classes. Small classes ameliorate large schools' effects, reduce grade retention and discipline problems, benefit minority students substantially, allow students…

From a cost-benefit viewpoint, investing school revenues in small K-3 classes has great potential for improving productivity. Statewide class reduction initiatives in Indiana, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin have positively influenced student achievement, behavior, citizenship, and development. Districts cannot afford to ignore this mounting…

Conducted a 6-year followup of almost 4,000 students in Project STAR in Tennessee, a 4-year, large-scale randomized experiment on the effects of class size. Though follow-up data could not be obtained on more than one-half of the students, class size effects persisted for at least 6 years and remained large enough to be of importance for…

The authors examined the conditions that promote or discourage engagement in the classroom among kindergarten students. Engagement included learning behaviors (on-task behavior) and pro- and antisocial behavior. The authors examined 3 policy-manipulable features of kindergarten classrooms: (a) whether the class met for a half day or full day, (b)…

This investigation addressed 3 questions about the long-term effects of early school experiences: (a) Is participation in small classes in the early grades (K-3) related to high school graduation? (b) Is academic achievement in K-3 related to high school graduation? (c) If class size is related to graduation, is the relationship explained by the…

Honors colleges and programs are as individual as the schools that host them, but they all share some features in common: small classes, usually less than 20 students; interdisciplinary classes, often team-taught; and some kind of experiential education unit, from study abroad to internships to service learning. This article focuses on the…

California was, and remains, the largest "experiment" in class-size reduction (CSR) in the country's history. Its sweeping program to reduce the state's classes in kindergarten through the third grade covered nearly 2 million students and dropped the average class size from almost twenty-nine students per class, and often a great many…

Professors often expect students to have the skills that are necessary to participate in discussions. Students, on the other hand, have been trained to glean information from the lecture format; their prior experiences in discussions are likely to be limited to personal opinions on topics such as stem-cell research or evolution. Sudden changes in…

Using rich longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort (ECLS-K), we find that children who attended preschool enter public schools with higher levels of academic skills than their peers who experienced other types of child care (effect size of 0.14). This study considers the circumstances under which the…

The Association Supporting Computer Users in Education (ASCUE) is a group of people interested in small college computing issues. It is a blend of people from all over the country who use computers in their teaching, academic support, and administrative support functions. ASCUE has a strong tradition of bringing its members together to pool their…

Four initiatives to reduce class size are before the California State Legislature--SB 1414, AB 2449, the Governor's proposal, and AB 2821. Three of them were influenced by the findings reported by Tennessee's Project Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR). Project STAR is a longitudinal demonstration project that since 1985 has examined the…

Researchers on the Lasting Benefits Study (LBS) are tracking students who participated in Tennessee's K-3 Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) Project (1985-89) as they continue into later grades. Project STAR was a statewide experiment conducted to demonstrate the effects of reduced student/teacher ratios (15:1) on student achievement…

This paper compares the achievement of first and second grade students in reduced size classrooms with the achievement of previous groups taught in larger classrooms in a Mississippi community. It also examines a longitudinal class size effect through the analysis of student achievement for two years. The subjects involved in the study were 371…

A policy of reducing class size seems sensible, but might have costly, far-reaching implications for students, teachers, and public support for schools. The purpose of this research brief is to summarize 100 class size research studies from 1950 to 1985 and to regroup them into 18 areas of concern. The cluster analysis approach was designed to…

The Tennessee legislature sponsored a study on the effects of class size (Project STAR). The design and measurement techniques of this study are discussed. The establishment of the basic elements of the design is examined, followed by the recruitment of schools and school systems to participate in the study. The process of setting up smaller…