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Michelle Oertner
Professor Maslonka
English 101.1N
20 October 2014
Academic Achievement: Starting Young
While many studies have addressed the question of class size and its effects on academic
achievement, few have provided conclusive results. One of the major issues with these studies is
the difficulty in randomizing participants in such a way that the experiment can be considered
credible and uninfluenced by uncontrollable outside factors. While no studies have been able to
show results based solely on class size, a 1985 experiment in Tennessee called Project STAR
was able to successfully gather a large, randomized group of participants that showed the desired
results when other factors were taken into account (Finn 215). This study included nearly 12,000
students and was a part of more than 300 classrooms across the state of Tennessee (Finn 215).
For this experiment, students entering Kindergarten were randomly selected and placed in one of
three class types: a small class (13-17 students), a full-size class (22-26 students), or a full-size
class with a full-time teachers aide present (Finn 215). These students were then kept in the
same class type throughout third grade, with a different teacher assigned at random every year
(Finn 215). The students were returned to full-size classes in fourth grade, but took achievement
tests every year through eighth grade and their academic records were observed throughout high
school (Finn 216). The results of this study turned out much the same as many of the other
studies that had been conducted, but due to its large-scale data sample and the complete
randomization of all participants, including the educators, it is seen as more concrete. When this

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study came to an end, it showed that academic success throughout a childs school career could
be attributed not to a specific student to teacher ratio, but to class size and intensity during key
developmental years.
It is important to understand that a low student to teacher ratio and a small class are not
the same thing. Studies have shown no difference academically between students in full-size
classes with just one teacher and those in full-size classes with a teacher and a full-time teachers
aide (Finn 216). The level of student engagement reported by teachers is not at all increased
when a full-time teachers aide is actively participating in the class (Finn 216). This makes it
evident that the issue is something larger than just having enough educators present for the
students to go to. If a student does not show engagement in their classes during the early years,
the chances of them dropping out of high school are greatly increased (Finn 219). This presents
the idea of a correlation between students social engagement and their academic achievement.
Although unproven, many studies have noted that students in full-size classes, with or without a
teachers aide, were not noticeably social or open to the teachers or the other students (Finn 219).
This means that the students would be less likely to go to the teacher for help with school or
personal issues. It is important that students, especially during the key developmental years
between Kindergarten and third grade, feel that they can depend on someone outside of their
home, such as a teacher. In a larger classroom, this sense of trust and openness is often
impossible for students who are naturally shy and reserved. Having a young child in a full-size
class with a teachers aide may give them all that they need academically, but it leaves little
room for them to develop their social skills or confidence. Many students who were noted by
their teachers throughout school as being extremely antisocial went on to drop out after the

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STAR program was over, before finishing high school (Finn 219). The social skills and
confidence a young child should develop could lead to their graduation from high school.
The easiest way for a student to develop all of those necessary social skills is to be part of
a small class in at least Kindergarten through third grade. Some groups have argued that one or
two years of being in a small class is more than enough (Finn 216), but many studies have shown
that one or two years of small classes only shows a short-term improvement, and students often
lose those improvements after being moved back to a full-size class (Finn 216). These students
who spent short periods of time in smaller classes were no more advanced than students who
spent their whole school career in large classes. It takes time to develop true social skills and
self-confidence, and two years is not enough time for those developments. Students who are
given the full four years of small classes are often able to retain the skills they learned in those
younger years, giving them an advantage in school and on standardized testing, such as the
achievement tests which were a set of both norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests (Finn
215). Many of the teachers of the study reported that when they were teaching the small class, it
was much easier to give the student individual attention while still remaining a part of the class
(Finn 215). Basically, it was easier to make learning more like a group conversation or a game
than a normal lesson. Students in smaller classes were rated by their teachers as being more
engaged in learning and more willing to participate in class without acting out (Finn 215). This is
most likely because it allowed the student to feel close to the teacher and feel like their teacher
was something that they could absolutely depend on. A student in a larger class would not feel
that way. They would feel more like a random face in a crowd. A side note of the studies even
showed that, in smaller classes, the students that were usually more likely to fail such as lowincome minority students or students attending inner-city schools, showed a significantly higher

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academic performance in every school subject in every grade during the experiment (Finn 215).
This data was used in other studies and it is noted that Krueger and Whitmore (2001) used the
STAR data to estimate that the White-minority achievement gap would be reduced by 38.0% if
all students attended small classes in K-3 (Finn 215). Krueger and Whitmores study also found
that students who participated in STAR and were in the small classes for Kindergarten through
third grade were more likely to take college admissions tests such as SATs and ACTs no matter
their race, socioeconomic status, or the urbanicity1 of the school they attended (Finn 216). This
shows that if all students were placed in smaller classes, they would all have the same chances of
attending college, no matter their background.
However, class size is not the only thing that matters. A child can be in small classes for
those four years and still do poorly if the class is not set up correctly. Many programs intended to
accelerate young childrens learning have no long-term effect because the child is only there for
a couple of hours a day or a few days a week. Tennessees STAR program started all of their
children off in full-day Kindergartens (Finn 216); it was considered a high-intensity school
experience (Finn 216). Many programs such as The Perry Preschool Project or Head Start may
give the child an academic bump, but with so little time actually dedicated to learning, the
children would often lose that advantage by the time they reached third grade (Finn 216). The
STAR program was set up with the idea that school programs, even ones that begin before
Kindergarten, must actually change the learning environment in some significant ways in order
to have a long-term effect (Finn 216). Although programs like the Perry program or Head Start
begin when the child is only 3 or 4 years old, they often only last for a year or two which is not
enough to give the child a long-term advantage academically (Finn 216). They only had about 2-

Schools were divided into three levels of urbanicity: rural, urban, or inner-city

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4 hours of school time, usually four days per week, and many of the children entered half-time
Kindergarten after leaving these programs (Finn 216). Half-time Kindergarten is directed
towards non-accelerated children, which is why any early advantages they may have gained in
attending those preschool programs were lost after being in that school setting for a few years
(Finn 216). The children of STAR however, did not attend any preschool programs; they simply
started off in full-time Kindergarten (Finn 216) where the educators used the fact that a young
childs mind is very quick to absorb new information if you can keep the child interested long
enough. Having a child in a small class setting for 7-8 hours a day, the normal length of a school
day, makes it very easy for educators to get their children interested in the topic they are learning
about and have time for the lesson. Often in the half-day, low-intensity classes, by the time the
children are interested and ready to pay attention it is time for them to go home.
Many studies similar to Project STAR have been conducted over the years, although
many of them were considered poor quality because they were not randomized experiments.
Project STAR was a large data set and was highly randomized, and showed many of the same
results as those other studies. Children who are put into high-intensity, small classes for at least
the first three to four years of school, starting with Kindergarten, showed many academic
advantages over their peers who had been in full-size classes. These small class students carried
those advantages throughout their entire school career, even after being returned to full-size
classes, and showed a higher graduation rate. They also displayed other advantages such as a
higher level of engagement in their classes along with an increased likelihood of taking college
admissions tests. The gap between minority students or those from low-income homes and their
middle-class peers was also significantly reduced when all of the students were placed in these
small classes. Although it is difficult to draw concrete conclusions on a subject such as academic

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achievement, the results are basically the same across the board. Students in small, full-time
classes in Kindergarten through third grade are much more likely to graduate with high grades
and go on to academic success after school.

Works Cited
Finn, Jeremy D., Susan B. Gerber, and Jayne Boyd-Zaharias. Small Classes in the Early Grades,
Academic Achievement, and Graduating from High School. Journal of Educational
Psychology Vol. 97, No. 2. (2005): 214-223. Web. 6 October 2014.