The debate continues. As a master’s student at UVM my thesis focused on Vermont’s historical trends in educations which contributed to and set the stage for our high ranking public school system (at the time, according to certain resources). I placed particular emphasis on the fact that Vermont’s long standing traditions and demographic arrangements had contributed to very small class sizes (the pupil to teacher ratio is still around 10:1, one of the lowest in the nation). Subsequently this also means that VT has one of the most expensive education system on a per pupil basis in the country as well.
It’s nice to think that Vermont has the best public education system in the country, but that’s hotly debated with each of the number of sides, resources, experts, etc. pointing to a diverse array of statistics: class size, student achievement, teacher pay, graduation rate, unemployment, etc. It all depends how you define “outcomes”.
I’ve been swayed from my original assertion that VT had it good because of the low class size (which was more caused by geography and population density than any public initiative). And it seemed that a lot of other individuals had been too, even Bill Gates who threw a lot of money behind the small schools movement has largely backed away from it.
In my opinion, the debate swung to teacher quality and effectiveness and is partially being driven by Michelle Rhee and others (the question of merit pay has also been wrapped into this discussion, though I think that effectiveness/quality is and should be the focus). There are plenty of questions remaining (like how to measure effectiveness in real time, rather than retroactively) but I like where the debate is going.
It’s interesting to see though that the Total Student Load theory¹ is still getting attention. Could it be both? From personal experience, it was much harder to get lost in a small class (just think back to your senior seminar courses in college). But from the other side I can also remember big classes where the teacher was awesome and their instruction was lasting. It’s no wonder we can’t make up our minds.
¹note that the article might be password protected at Edweek.org, but it’s basically a write up on William G. Ouchi and his new book The Secret of TSL. If you really want to read up on class size and the debate against it, Eric Hanushek’s research is well known in education as an opponent to the class size argument (he says it’s bunk).