State: Class size cap experiences instructional

Six years after California made a multibillion-dollar commitment to reduce class sizes in public schools, the Irvine Unified School District board decided it couldn't afford it anymore.

Then, in a remarkable show of popular support earlier this year, Irvine parents raised nearly $1-million in three months to keep classes small. Most of the money came in small donations from moms and dads.

"We just decided it was that important," said Lita Robinow, a mother of two. "Parents said "We can't let this happen.' "

As Florida voters consider a Nov. 5 ballot initiative to shrink class sizes, California's experience offers some lessons.

Parents and teachers there love the smaller classes, and test scores have improved. They see small classes as essential and worth paying for. They speak of calmer, more orderly classrooms.

But the same parents and educators warn of intractable problems.

Reducing classes required more teachers, worsening an already bad teacher shortage. Many schools hired underqualified teachers. School districts took money from other areas to build classrooms.

Because class sizes are capped, students are often forced to attend schools across town. One superintendent said that when a pair of twins showed up mid year, one stayed and one had to leave. A family bought a home near a good school and were infuriated to find that their son couldn't attend because he would have exceeded the cap.

After spending more than $9-billion, student achievement has barely increased. And it's unclear how much the smaller classes helped.

Now Californians are asking the same questions facing Floridians: Is this the best way to spend education dollars?

Florida's proposed constitutional amendment is far more ambitious than what California has done, prompting many there to wonder if Florida's approach will work.

California capped class sizes at 20 kids in kindergarten through third grade, and it is voluntary for all school districts, though financial inducements led most to embrace it. Florida's cap would include all grades, from prekindergarten through high school, and would be mandatory across the state.

"We had some serious problems that might be even more serious in Florida," said Dennis Smith, superintendent of the Placentia-Yorba Linda schools, who was school superintendent in Orlando until 2000. "Don't get me wrong, small classes are great for kids.

"But when I was in Orlando, we had portables coming out of our ears. And we could never find enough teachers. Unless you solved all those problems since I left, Florida might be making a big mistake."

* * *

In 1994, California's reading scores were terrible. On the National Assessment of Education Progress reading test, California's fourth-graders placed last among the 39 participating states. (Florida was tied for sixth place.)

Suddenly, all the talk about overcrowded schools and lackluster achievement turned into a crisis.

The solution: do whatever it takes to get kids off to a good start reading.

With a strong economy and a sizable state surplus, California lawmakers agreed to cap classes at 20 students in kindergarten through third grade. The number was something of a compromise. In the most promising class size research in Tennessee, classes ranged between 13 and 17 students.

In Florida, class size cap proponents read the research and essentially split the difference for the primary grades, settling on a cap of 18.

The problems in California started early.

"There were some interesting effects on the teacher market," said Brian Stecher of the RAND think tank, one of the lead researchers studying class size reduction in California. "Children with the greatest need for qualified teachers were less likely to get that high-quality teacher."

Teachers were in great demand and could go to schools where the salaries were highest -- and those weren't at high-poverty schools.

Inequities appeared immediately. All school districts got the same amount of money for each group of 20 kids. So some districts that already had small classes got a windfall. But at other schools, state money didn't cover the costs.

The state suddenly needed to build some 18,000 new classrooms to keep up. School districts scrambled to find space, converting libraries, labs and conference rooms to classroom space and using more portables.

Local school officials were forced to make difficult choices. Since the class size cap affected only kindergarten through third grade, class sizes ballooned in other grades. Parents seemed to understand.

"You can have 30 fifth-graders and they can take notes, but 30 first-graders? You can't get anything done," said Julie Hudash of Irvine, who was at the center of the fundraising.

The 20-student cap led to some unintended consequences.

"We literally have to move kids out of their neighborhood," said Irvine superintendent Dean Waldfogel. "If you're the 21st kid, it doesn't matter if you live across the street, we might have to send you to a school across town. It's a terrible thing to do to a kid."

Yet as the Irvine example shows, the class size cap remains popular.

Though it is a voluntary program -- districts that participate get extra money for each class that has 20 or fewer kids -- pressure from parents, teachers and lawmakers ensured nearly across-the-board participation.

"To say that it's popular is an understatement," said Dianne Daugherty, principal at Greentree Elementary School in Irvine. "Parents love it. My teachers love it. They can really work with kids now. There's less classroom management and more learning."

Parent enthusiasm remains high. The best evidence is the fundraising miracle in Irvine, where parents willed the program to continue.

"I don't even know if we believed we could raise that much money," said Hudash. "But we knew we had to try."

The big question in California is whether the state achieved its original goal of increasing student achievement.

A coalition of researchers from RAND and the American Institutes for Research will release their fourth and final report this week. The conclusion: "California's class size reduction program had, at best, a small positive effect on student achievement."

They can't say with any certainty that the test score improvements were due solely to the class size reduction, because other school reforms coincided with it.

California shook its last-place showing in the fourth-grade reading test. But just barely. In 1998, California's fourth-graders scored higher on the National Assessment of Education Progress reading test, tied for next to last. (Florida remained tied for sixth.)

Waldfogel of the Irvine schools summed up the problems of reaching conclusions.

"We can show a substantial amount of improvement," said Waldfogel, whose district routinely outperforms the state. "But we made other improvements in curriculum, so it's hard to say what effect class size had.

"On the assumption that there's never enough bucks to go around, you have to decide whether this is the wisest way to spend your money."

That's more than a rhetorical question for several school districts since the economy took a dive. Irvine kept classes small. But the Riverside Unified School District east of Los Angeles did not. Its board voted in the spring to let third-grade classes balloon.

"It was a hell of a tough decision, not what we wanted to do," said board president Lewis Vanderzyl. The district saved about $1.5-million with the decision, but "in third grade, we went from 20-to-1 to 30-to-1, just like that. As I said, it wasn't what we wanted to do."

* * *

Florida's current education debate echoes California's in the mid 1990s.

Florida classes are the seventh largest in the nation, with kindergarten through fifth grades averaging 23 kids in a class. Reading scores are nothing to brag about.

"If we continue the way we're going we'll be ranked 50th in everything," said Damien Filer, spokesman for Florida's Coalition to Reduce Class Size, the group that collected signatures statewide to put the initiative on the ballot.

Florida's proposal differs significantly from California's. Florida would cap all class sizes. That protects other grades from getting overcrowded. But it also drives up the cost.

Researchers urge states to narrow the focus.

"It's well to start slow and target the kids who would benefit most from it," said George W. Bohrnstedt of the American Institutes for Research. "I don't believe the across-the-board approach is as effective."

The Florida plan also would be phased in over eight years, which supporters believe will help avoid some of California's growing pains.

"They tried the "microwave plan,' " said Sen. Kendrick Meek, the driving force behind Florida's class size initiative. "They tried to do it overnight, and they ran into problems."

But like California, the Florida initiative calls for a hard cap on class sizes, leading to questions about what to do when a second-grade classroom hits the 18-student cap and one more child shows up.

Gov. Jeb Bush and a coalition of educators and former lawmakers are working hard to defeat the class size measure, mostly warning of the potential costs.

Bush and others regularly point to California's experience as evidence that class size reduction doesn't work. Education Secretary Jim Horne has characterized California as "a mess."

When told of the Florida opposition's summary of the California experience, Bohrnstedt laughed.

"I would have to say that's something of an exaggeration," Bohrnstedt said. "Look, as a parent and a grandparent I would never say "Go with larger class sizes.' But as a researcher I'd have to say you can't look at this as a silver bullet."

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk