Small Classes Succeed

Wisconsin program especially benefits African Americans.

By Joanna Dupuis

A three-year-old program of small classes in Wisconsin is raising the academic achievement of participating students, according to a new evaluation.

Wisconsin's program, known as Students Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE), shows gains especially for African-American students. For example, third-grade African-American students in the program succeeded in narrowing the gap between their achievement and that of white SAGE students. In comparison schools, the gap widened.

The Wisconsin findings mirror a Tenneessee initiative, known as Project Star, that also found gains for young children in small classes, especially African Americans in inner-city schools.

Wisconsin's SAGE was first implemented in 1996-97 in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms in 30 public schools throughout Wisconsin. Its goal is to increase the academic achievement of children living in poverty by reducing the student-teacher ratio in kindergarten through third grade to 15:1. The latest study of the program, released this January, found that smaller classrooms tended to score significantly higher when adjusted for socioeconomic status and attendance. But in all cases, classrooms with more affluent children outperformed classrooms with children from lower-income families.

SAGE expanded to include 80 schools in 1998-99. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Education evaluates the original 30 schools and 16 comparison schools annually.

Other findings of the 1998-99 evaluation include:

Third-grade SAGE students scored significantly higher in reading, language arts, mathematics, and total score than comparison students on the third-grade tests.

First-grade African-American students in SAGE classrooms achieved greater gains in test scores than first-grade white SAGE students, reducing the achievement gap. African-American students in comparison schools achieved lesser gains and the achievement gap widened.

The positive effects of SAGE that occurred in first grade were maintained in the second and third grades.

While SAGE focuses on smaller classes, it has several accompanying components. SAGE also requires participating schools to stay open extended hours (creating "lighted schoolhouses"), develop rigorous academic curricula, and implement plans for staff development and professional accountability.

To better understand SAGE classrooms, the SAGE evaluation gathers information from case studies and from questionnaires completed by teachers and principals. Teachers report many advantages of being in the smaller classrooms: They get to know their students better, spend less time on discipline, and are able to provide students with more individualized instruction. Generally, smaller classes go hand-in-hand with greater enthusiasm and achievement among both students and teachers.

One parent observed that children in SAGE classrooms have "learned how to care for each other, how to express themselves, how to control anger," because "these things can all be taught in a small class."

The report is available at: www.uwm.edu/dept/CERAI.

Spring 2000