edited by George W. Bohrnstedt and Brian M. Stecher, CSR Research Consortium
August 2002
George Bohrnstedt and Brian Stecher have released their fourth and final report analyzing California's class size reduction (CSR) initiative. It provides an excellent introduction to the research in support of CSR and the mechanisms by which California implemented it. CSR's short-term effect was to increase achievement inequality among rich and poor students; some have speculated that the primary reason for this was a migration of experienced inner-city teachers into newly created suburban jobs (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=52#783 for more information). But Bohrnstedt and Stecher view the teacher flight as a relatively minor problem. They blame the achievement inequality on the way CSR was implemented as an incentive program. (Schools were given a grant for each class of less than 20 students. Those that already had low class sizes were rewarded, and overcrowded schools struggled to attract teachers and make the grant stretch far enough to cover the program's cost.) Even after controlling for factors such as poverty, the authors say, CSR's effects are disappointing. The report contains numerous interesting policy recommendations, the most sweeping of which is that CSR and California's other stand-alone education reforms should be consolidated into a single strategy centered on state's recent push towards standards and accountability. For a copy of the report, go to http://www.classize.org/techreport/CSR_Capstone_prepub.pdf.
