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Class Size Persuasive Essay

Decent Essays

During a 2012 U.S. presidential debate, the topic of class size came up within the context of global competitiveness. Although the candidates debated the benefits of small classes in K-12 education, the issue deserves attention within higher education. With the growth of online classes, including massive online courses, and with the slow upward in class size, budget issues brought many subjects to worry. It brings the question, does size of classes matter? Do the teaching methods, the learning objectives, teaching standards, and workload expectations vary depending on the class size? Researchers studies on the class size have differed. Some have found no significant impact; others have discovered that student achievement declines slightly as class size increases. More recently, others have found that students in a smaller class learn more because of the size and one-on-one time. Medium classes have …show more content…

In 2003, Finn co-authored a paper that identified a gaping hole in the puzzle: “Despite the many studies that show positive effects, research has yet to come up with a consistent, integrated explanation for the gains attributable to reduced class size,” according to the paper, published in the journal. Review of Educational Research.
The evidence suggests that increasing class size will not only harm children’s test scores in the short-run, but also in their long-run human capital formation. Money is saved from increasing class size will be more substantial social and educational costs in the future. In addition to high costs, reducing class size have unintended consequences. When California lowered class sizes in 1996, they realized that they did not have enough teachers to meet the challenge. Schools were forced to hire new teachers and add portable classmates to accommodate the state

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