To the editor:

Overcrowded classrooms make it difficult for all students to learn. Several scientific, comprehensive educational studies have concluded that class size reduction in primary classrooms will raise all students’ achievement significantly, and is particularly effective in closing the achievement gap for minority students. In addition, longitudinal follow-up studies report that more students in small classes finish high school, fewer are retained in a grade or need special education or Title I help, fewer become pregnant teens, fewer receive welfare, fewer are incarcerated and more attend college.

Overcrowded classrooms would be rooms where there are 25 or more students. Small classrooms are 13-17, and regular classrooms are 18-24, as defined by the STAR study. With the continuing practice of inclusion of special education in regular education classes and the new “No Child Left Behind” mandate that imposes massive testing and test-score accreditation of all public schools, small class sizes are much more important than they were in the past. Small class sizes would also help recruit and retain quality teachers.

There is federal money that has the flexibility to be used for reducing class sizes. The school board for USD 497 will be considering a policy to reduce class sizes in primary elementary grades to help raise student achievement across the district. Teachers, administrators and the school board have repeatedly stated that class size reduction is one of their two top priorities. As a teacher, parent and political lobbyist for public education I wholeheartedly applaud this effort.

Barb Thompson,

sixth-grade teacher,