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ANSWERS TO CRITICS

Small Classes Save Children AND Save Money

Teachers Speak Out in Favor of Class Size Reduction

Be Aware

The Preservation of American Public Education Needs Your Help

Editorials:

Our Public Schools are Doing God's Work
By: Frosty Troy, Editor, Oklahoma Observer

Chester E. Finn's "study" Gets an F
By John T. Benson, Wisconsin's Elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Excerpts from the Keynote Speech given by Bob Chase, NEA President

REAUTHORIZATION OF THE EDUCATION LAW
Excerpts from North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan's Speech

Class Size 101 for Politicians

Importance of Class Size Reduction Program

Good Teachers + Small Classes = Quality Education

Small Classes in K-3 Will:

"Teachers consider class size reduction one of the most beneficial reforms in public education" says Maureen Larmour, Belshaw Elementary, Antioch, California. "Class size reduction is more than just numbers and research on paper.It';s seeing firsthand how children achieve far more with fewer students vying for a teacher's attention..I feel I know where each of my students is academically and socially.It's double the time I can give to the students.I also see more confidence in children in smaller classes."

Helen Robinson,a fourth grade teacher at Jack London Elementary in Antioch said ,"The larger the class, the harder it is for a teacher to work with children who may be falling behind. If one or two students don't get something ( in a larger class) we just have to move on. (In a smaller class) we could accomplish so much more."

Robert Kessler, superintendent of the San Ramon Valley (California) school district, states that "class size reduction has 'without a doubt in my mind' been one of the most beneficial reforms in public education in the past 10 to 20 years. It has meant teachers are able to do their job the way the public expects them to do their job."

State Senator Jack O'Connell, D-Santa Barbara, California calls himself "the biggest advocate of class size reduction you'll ever meet."

-- Contra Costa Times, January 28,2002

BE AWARE OF MISLEADING "RESEARCH"

In his 1999 publication, "An Economist's View of Class Size Research," Alan Krueger, Bendheim Professor of Economics at Princeton University and National Bureau of Economic Research reanalyzed Hanushek's (1997) literature summary of class size. He found the following.

• Eric Hanushek's (1997) latest published summary of the literature on class size is based on 277 estimates drawn from 59 studies (Krueger, 1999, p. 3).

• The method Hanushek uses to summarize the literature is often described as a "vote counting" exercise. The results depend critically on whether the approach allows one study, one vote (Krueger, 1999, p. 32).
  

• Hanushek places a disproportionate amount of weight on "studies" that are based on smaller samples. (The word studies in is quotation marks because the unit of observation in Hanushek's work is not a study, but rather an estimate. Further, a majority of his estimates in the literature are statistically insignificant.) (Krueger, 1999, p. 2)

• Estimates based on smaller samples are likely to yield weaker and less systematic results (Krueger, 1999, p. 4). Hanushek used a selection rule that took more estimates from studies that analyzed subsamples of a larger data set than from studies that used the full sample of the larger data set. (Krueger, 1999, p. 3)

• Nine studies contributed more than seven estimates each. These nine studies made up only 15% of the total set of studies, yet they constituted 44% of all estimates used (Krueger, 1999, p. 6).

• Hanushek used more estimates from studies that tended to find insignificant or negative effects of expenditures per student, and fewer form studies that found positive effects (Krueger, 1999, p. 16).

• Although findings from the largest longitudinal study of class size, Project STAR, were excluded from Hanushek's review, studies of a much smaller magnitude were included. For example, Hanushek used Burkhead's (1967) study which yielded 14 estimates, all of which were statistically insignificant (three-quarters were negative). Four of these estimates are from a sample of just 22 high school level observations in Atlanta. Moreover, the outcome variable in some of the models, post high school education plans, was obtained by "a show of hands survey in the high schools." Despite these limitations, this study receives over three times as much weight as the median study in Hanushek's summary (Krueger, 1999, p. 14).

• Hanushek's literature reviews have had widespread influence on the allocation of school resources. First, Hanushek has testified about his literature summaries in school financing cases in Alabama, California, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, and Tennessee, and in several Congressional hearings. The tabulations are also widely cited by other expert witnesses in other venues. The conclusion that school resources do not translate into educational outcomes for the average school district has not always carried the day in the court of law, however. In rejecting Hanushek's argument for the defense, for example, the Supreme Court of New Jersey reasoned like a stereotypical economist:

We return to the plaintiffs' insistent and persuasive question: if these factors [e.g., smaller classes] are not related to the quality of education, why are the richer districts willing to spend so much for them?

In view of the shaky statistical ground on which Hanushek's literature summary is based, and the qualitatively different results obtained when more plausible weights are used, this strikes me as a sensible objection. Before profound changes in schools are made because of a presumed, and in my view inaccurate, conclusion that resources are unrelated to achievement, compelling evidence of the efficacy of the proposed changes should be required (Krueger, 1999, p. 32, 33).

• Research is not democratic. In any field, one good study can be worth more than the rest of the literature. There is not substitute for understanding the specifications underlying the literature and conducting well designed experiments. In the class size literature, I would agree with Mosteller (1995) that Tennessee's {project STAR "is one of the most important educational investigations ever carried out and illustrates the kind and magnitude of research needed in the field of education to strengthen schools." Personally, I think the design of the STAR experiment produces results that are more persuasive than the rest of the literature on class size (Krueger, 1999, p. 4).

• The positive relationship between educational attainment and earnings across workers is perhaps the most robust empirical regularity of all of social science. Moreover, much of the literature suggests that education has a causal effect on earnings. Two important benefits of improved school resources are that students learn more and raise their educational aspirations, which pays off in terms of better job placements and higher earnings later on when students join the labor market (Krueger, 1999, p. 21). Economic considerations suggest that resources would be optimally allocated if they were targeted toward those who benefit the most from smaller classes (Krueger, 1999, p. 34).

Of all the groundless, hurtful attacks on public educators, none is more painful than the charge that public schools are "godless" institutions of secular humanism. From Phyllis Schlafly and William Bennett to Pat Robertson, D. James Kennedy, James Dobson, and Jerry Falwell, the staccato drumbeat against public education includes religious defamation.

The Constitution requires that public education be neutral in the arena of sectarian religion, but that's a far cry from the debasement heaped upon public educators. A torrent of abuse has flooded the airwaves since the shootings in Littleton: If only the Ten Commandments had been posted. If only prayer had been permitted. If only school teachers were not void of values.

It is ironic that the religious and political critics bring no facts to the table. Columbine High School was rife with religion-the kind permitted under the Constitution. There were Bible clubs, a religious organization for athletes, "prayer at the pole," and a largely Christian faculty.

The crescendo of calumny heaped on public education by the likes of Cal Thomas, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and other politicos is a partisan attack. They promote vouchers and charter schools-the resegregation of America, this time along class lines.

Who is for spiritual values for kids and who is just kidding? Can you name one other institution that comes nearer to biblical injunctions than public schools?

Feeding the hungry? Last year, for nearly 30 percent of public school children, a school lunch was the only hot meal they got.

Clothing the naked? There's hardly an elementary school in a poor neighborhood in America that does not have a clothing closet stuffed with underwear, socks, and other necessities for have-not children.

The widow's might? The average teacher spent more than $400 of personal funds for such things as workbooks and pencils for poor children.

Visiting the prisoners? Those are public educators manning the GED, vo-tech, literacy, and skill centers behind the walls-redeeming tens of thousands of otherwise lost lives.

No greater love? The Littleton teacher who herded children into a room for safety, then shielded them with his own body, lay shot and dying in front of the praying students he had saved.

Role models? No other profession provides a higher percentage of Sunday school teachers.

Suffer the little ones? Who takes millions of little ones who are retarded, developmentally disabled, or mentally handicapped? Who redeems the dispossessed and the delinquent in alternative education programs?

If you're looking for values, consider the majority of teachers who spend their own time and money mentoring students, sponsoring non-academic class activities, all the while attempting to deal with the most undisciplined generation ever to enter public education.

Because teachers can't pin on a church label and baptize the students doesn't make public education any less spiritual. It isn't the babbling critics who wrap themselves in religious intolerance who are making a difference for all of God's children. They preach to the saved in the rear echelon while public school teachers staff the front line.

Public educators don't have the time or the inclination to bash Christian, parochial, or other private schools, or the home schoolers who so often bitterly denounce public education.

Look who comes to public school among the 46.5 million enrolled this year, then consider who truly does God's work:

* Six million for whom English is a second language.

* Six million special education children.

* More than two million abused children.

* Nearly 500,000 from no permanent address.

* One out of four comes from extreme poverty, often born out of wedlock, and many are neglected, unwashed, unwanted, and unloved

You won't find these kids on Robertson's "700 Club" or at Kennedy's Florida church, or playing in the backyards of William Bennett or Lamar Alexander. They won't profit from the $114 million that poured into Dobson's Focus on the Family last year, and they won't be adopted by the childless Pat Buchanans.

Public school teachers are scorned on editorial pages and maligned from ignorant pulpits, but they keep on keeping on-and only God knows why. They earn the poorest salaries among all the industrial nations, yet a new study shows they are among the brightest college students, and nearly half hold master's degrees.

With all its warts, public education produces more math and science brains than all of private education combined. From astronauts to Pulitzer prize winners, from Nobel laureates to the clergy, public school graduates are in the front rank.

The public school day may not start with a Hail Mary or an Our Father, a mantra, or a blood sacrifice, but public education does more of God's work for children every day than any other institution in America-and that includes the churches.

This article originally appeared in Church & State, published by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

Chester E. Finn's "study" Gets an F
By John T. Benson, Wisconsin's Elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction

In the last decade, few people in America have hurt our children more than Chester E. Finn Jr. As president of the conservative Fordham Foundation, he has redefined mean-spiritedness in his ongoing assault on public schools.

Finn's most recent fiction - "The State of State Standards 2000" – pretends to grade the states on educational standards and accountability. In truth, the report is yet another effort to turn public schools - this country's most successful institution - over to profiteers.

His faulty conclusion that public education is failing has become the Holy Grail for critics who want to spend public tax dollars on religious and other private schools with an academic record of success little different than their public counterparts. In his ideal world, education is for-profit classrooms and cut-throat competition for the best students and the wealthiest parents; disadvantaged students be damned!

If distortions, half-truths, and shoddy research weren't so dangerous, it would be laughable. Yet, Mr. Finn ought to be feared by those with the best interests of children in their hearts and souls because, unfortunately, he has the ears of conservative talk-show hosts, social engineers, and political powerbrokers.

Enough is enough.

Finn's real motives are described best by his own so-called research. The five states that make the report's "Honor Roll" in terms of standards are among the lowest scoring states on the only accountability measures available: the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

For example, only four nations (Colombia, Iran, Kuwait, and South Africa) scored lower than "Honor Roll" member Alabama in math, and only six nations (the same four plus Cyprus and Belgium) scored lower in science.

On the other hand, many of the states Finn blasts for "irresponsible standards and weak accountability" scored extremely high on both NAEP and TIMSS, including Connecticut, Vermont, North Dakota, and our neighbors Minnesota, Iowa, and Michigan. Very few countries can touch these "irresponsible" states in terms of academic achievement.

According to Finn, Wisconsin is among "42 states (that) still hold mediocre or inferior expectations for their students"; we're not irresponsible, he says, just "going through the motions." Yet, in all comparisons of national and international achievement, the countries with students whose performance equals or exceeds that of students in the Badger State can be counted on one hand.

What's up, Chester? Shouldn't "mediocre standards and weak accountability" result in low student performance? Maybe he's playing politics, or maybe Finn is just so far removed from reality and wrapped up in his own altered ego that simple logic escapes him.

Most of all, I detest Finn's constant attacks because of what they do to our schools, to our educators, and especially to our children. No matter what public school educators do, it's never right and it's never enough. America is arguably the only remaining global power, an accomplishment that I choose to believe relates directly to our ability and willingness to educate each and every child.

Here in Wisconsin, we know what our kids can do. We know the excellence of our teaching force, and we know that our public high school graduates are responsible, in part, for a strong economy, an improving environment, and a standard of living second to none.

In my estimation, Mr. Finn is a conservative ideologue, a demagogue, and a political hack. There is no doubt that our schools face many challenges. The challenge, however, is to make the best better, not to destroy a public education system that has helped to make America great.

Excerpts from the Keynote Speech given by Bob Chase, NEA President
Presented to NEA's Representative Assembly on July 4, 2001 (Los Angeles, CA)

We must work together to reach the neediest children and up-lift the lowest performing schools.

My friends, we all know that public education too often gets a bad rap. The majority of public schools are doing an exceptional job of teaching our nation's children. And we know this because we work in them. And we see. We see the daily miracles that occur when children break the code of language for the first time. When they ace the spelling bee. When they program the computer. When they win the county science fair, master the scales on the piano, or plant seeds in a simple milk carton.

We see these miracles occurring all the way through college - when students suddenly understand the beauty of a sonnet -- or prove a theorem - or simply become the very first person in their family to earn a bachelors degree.

And too often, all of these spectacular little miracles - all of this good news - is drowned out by sensational headlines about "failing schools," "incompetent teachers," and below-average test scores.

But.

And this is a very important "but."

We also know that an achievement gap - and an opportunity gap -- do exist in this country.

We know that some public schools are in serious crises.

And so are some children.

We all know these schools.

And we all know these children. . . .

These are the children with no one to go home to.

These are the children you see playing in the dust of empty lots, doing nothing in particular, kicking a can, waiting for trouble.

These are the children whose eyes, at first, have that glimmer of brightness - that hot coal of intelligence burning -- they could be anything -- An astronaut! A movie star! A teacher! --but whose eyes, by fourth grade, have gone dead and cold and flinty.

These are the children who grow up hearing the constant drum of adults' fear and racism and low expectations.

These are the children that no one wants to deal with.

And the schools these children attend are often schools that we would not allow our own children to attend.

Well, if these schools are not good enough for our child, then I say they're not good enough for any child.

The question then becomes: whose responsibility are these forsaken schools? Whose responsibility are these forsaken children?

Well, they are the responsibility of many people. They are the responsibility of parents and politicians, business leaders and communities.

But they are also our responsibility. The children and schools are our responsibility as people of conscience. They are our responsibility as people who work in public education. . .

If we do not take the lead in ensuring that every child can receive a quality public education in his or her own neighborhood… that every public school is a place where we would gladly send our own children… then we have failed our professional mission and our moral obligation. . .

And so, in a society obsessed with making a dollar and passing the buck, we have got to be the ones who stand up and insist that all children and all schools receive the investments they deserve.

In a society that bemoans the achievement gap - but not the school funding gap- we have got to be the ones who stand up and remind the world that equitable education requires equitable resources - and that no child, no child is dispensable or undeserving.

In a society where quick-fixes are often valued over long-term solutions, we have got to be the ones who stand up and say, "Just one minute, please."

We have got to serve as a community of conscience.

And so we must raise our collective voice for reforms like universal pre-school. Intensive literacy programs. AND SMALLER CLASS SIZES - ESPECIALLY IN THE EARLY GRADES.

It's funny, but there are all these debates about whether smaller classes improve education. Then studies come out confirming: yes, they really do!

But we could have told you that! Anyone who has more than two grandchildren can tell you that! The fewer children you have in one room at a time, the easier it is to teach them, to talk to them, and to care for them. This isn't rocket science. It's common sense!

Similarly, at a time when testing is being exalted as a cure-all, we must insist that tests be used as a stethoscope, not a sledgehammer…that standards be rigorous, yet reasonable…that children be tested on what they are actually taught…and that disadvantaged children receive the extra resources they need to help them clear the bar.
However, it is my personal hope that we will also remind the public about what a stellar education - a truly stellar education - is all about.

If we're going to make every school in the nation a quality school, we are going to have to pay teachers and support staff decently and competitively. Otherwise, public schools will continue to be like sieves - constantly losing bright and experienced staff to better paying districts and better paying professions.

So, using every channel available, we must remind America that we know what it takes to uplift low-performing schools and close the achievement gap. It takes time. And a profound, sustained commitment. And, yes, it takes money.

It won't take vouchers.

It won't take rhetoric about "leaving no child behind" espoused by an administration more committed to building missile shields than repairing schools.

And it certainly won't take a $1.3 trillion tax cut aimed at the wealthiest one percent of all Americans.

You know, when this new tax cut is fully in place, it will give the wealthiest one percent of all Americans over 69 billion dollars per year. 69 billion dollars. That's almost three times the federal budget for public education in the year 2000!

Do you know what 69 billion dollars could do for public schools?

For 69 billion dollars, 2 million new teachers could be hired.

For 69 billion dollars, we could provide almost $1,500 of additional funding for every single child attending public school in America.

For 69 billion dollars, we could build 1,864 state-of-the-art high schools.

For 69 billion dollars, the federal government could fully fund its share of I.D.E.A. - with money left to burn.

10000000
WASHINGTON: Tuesday, April 24, 2001
Senate
REAUTHORIZATION OF THE EDUCATION LAW
Excerpts from North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan's Speech

We talk about what is wrong with education and how we will fix it. We almost never catch our breath to talk about what is right. In fact, when you listen to people talk about what is wrong with education in America, you wonder how on Earth this country became what it has become.

Anyone who has done any traveling throughout the world understands there is not any other country like this. Go to Europe, Asia, South America, Africa--just travel and ask yourself: Have I visited a country with the same conditions that exist in the United States? Is there a country quite as free as this, as open as this, with an economy as strong as this, where every young child goes into a school system which allows him or her to become whatever his or her God-given talent allows? That is what our school system provides our children.

This is not true in many other countries in the world. By the eighth grade, often other countries have moved kids into different tracks where only selected children have an opportunity for higher education. A lot of countries do that.

Our country has said for a long while that we believe in universal education. All children in this country, no matter their background, ought to have the opportunity to be whatever their God-given talents allow them to be.

Some say if you compare the SAT scores in the United States to the same scores in other countries, the United States ranks well down the list or that our scores have decreased over time. But those people are not comparing apples and apples. Only the best students in other countries are taking the ACT and SAT, while in our country a majority take them. Thirty years ago, only the top 25 percent of U.S. students would take the SAT tests. Now, perhaps the top 60 or 70 percent of the universe of students take the same tests. Would you perhaps get a lower score on average by taking 70 percent of the universe instead of taking the top 25 percent? Yes.

But compare the top 25 percent now to the top 25 percent 30 years ago? What do you find? Higher test scores. You need to compare like comparisons if you are going to make judgments.

Our students are taking tougher courses. Between 1992 and 1997, the number of high school students taking advanced placement courses in all subjects increased by two-thirds, from 338,000 to 581,000.

It is hard to make the case we are in an educational recession.

We need good teachers, students willing to learn, parents involved in education, and a safe environment in which students can learn.

When those elements are present, education works and works well. When they are absent, we have great difficulties.

After World War II we built schools all over this country. Many of those schools are now 50 and 60 years old and in desperate disrepair.

We have a responsibility to deal with crumbling schools around the country. If we will have a first-class education, it ought to be in a first-rate classroom.

Second, we also know from experience and from research that children learn best in classrooms of 15 to 18 students. I have had children of mine in classrooms in mobile trailers, the temporary classrooms with 32 and 34 kids. It doesn't work well. We know that. We know a teacher who is teaching 15 to 18 children has much more time to spend individually with those children and does a much better job. We have a responsibility to try to help and do something about that as well.

Class Size 101 for Politicians
By Helen Pate-Bain and Helen Wise

Teachers get it. So do parents. Even students get it. Why can't the politicians?

Listen to the research, Mr. or Ms. Politician: If you want to improve student learning, then reduce class size. No "and's, but's, or maybe's" about it. What other school reform measure can you say that about?

It's simple.

A teacher in a class of 15 students, instead of, say, 25 or 30 students, spends far less time on crowd control, paper work, and supplies management-and far more time actually teaching.

What's more, the teacher in the class of 15 students can devote serious one-on-one time to each student. You really get to know each student because in the small class there is no place to hide. And you are able to have an in-depth, heart-to-heart conversation with every parent about his or her child.

So teachers have always supported class size reduction. We went into teaching in the first place to make a difference in children's lives-that is why God created teachers! And a small class gives every teacher a real chance to instruct and inspire every student.

Teachers and parents who have advocated class size reduction down through the years have always been treated as well meaning but fuzzy headed. "There is no empirical evidence that reducing class size will raise student achievement," countless policymakers have told us.

Then along came the STAR research project with enough empirical evidence to light up the educators' sky-and blow to smithereens the policymakers' perennial excuse for not reducing class size.

STAR tracked some 6,500 Tennessee students who attended kindergarten through third grade in classes of 15 to 17 students. It found that the children in the smaller classes outperformed their peers academically, and they had fewer discipline problems.

And here is an even more remarkable STAR finding: Those same children continued outperforming their peers in reading, math, and science right through their senior year of high school, even though they had gone back into bigger classes after third grade.

A significantly higher percentage of the K-3 small class size kids finished in the upper 25 percent of their class, graduated from high school, and went on to college.

To top it all off, the STAR children who benefited the most from the smaller K-3 classes were poor and minority youngsters.

A subsequent class size study done in Los Angeles, California by Vital Search, an independent research firm, also reported similarly unequivocal results. The students in the smaller K-3 classes did better in math and English than their peers. And poor minority students showed the greatest gains.

In Washington, D.C. today we have a new President and Congress, and education is everyone's self-proclaimed number one priority.

Much agonizing is going on right now over how to improve the academic achievement of poor and minority students, and rightly so. And the Federal government's major vehicle for helping disadvantaged students-Title I of the Elementary Secondary Education Act-is being hotly debated.

But President George W. Bush proposes to defund the relatively new but already useful Federal Class Size Reduction program and bury it in a block grant to the states. Instead, parents and teachers would like to see this Federal initiative expanded so that more inner city and rural school districts that serve predominately disadvantaged children can hire more teachers to reduce class.

As teachers with a combined classroom experience of 68 years, we know patience is a virtue, but we also know that the children need help right now.

So we must raise our voices: Anyone who is serious about leaving no child behind will spend what it costs to reduce class size.

Helen Pate-Bain and Helen Wise are retired public school teachers.

Importance of Class Size Reduction Program

A. Three Components of Education

1. Quality teachers
2. Quality teaching and learning conditions
3. Accountability of teachers and students

B. Small class size is a key factor in teaching and learning conditions, especially in the early grades.

1. Teachers can attest to this.
2. Students can attest to this.
3. Parents can attest to this.
4. Research has proven that small class size is a key factor in teaching and learning

C. Small class size needs to be adopted by every state legislature.

1. The federal Class Size Reduction has been a great incentive to help states to achieve this goal.
2. The continuation of this program will help assure that all children will be in a small class in K-3.

D. Small class size will attract quality people into teaching

1. When people see that they will have a manageable teaching situation, they will choose to teach.
2. Good teaching conditions will reduce the number of teachers leaving the profession.

---

May 26, 2004
New York Times

Good Teachers + Small Classes = Quality Education

By MICHAEL WINERIP

The secret to quality public education has never been a big mystery. You need good teachers and you need small enough classes so those teachers can do their work. Period. After that, everything seems to pale, including the testing accountability programs, technology, building conditions. Even curriculum seems secondary, as our best public colleges demonstrate. We have West Point and we have Berkeley, and the question isn't which has the correct curriculum; the question is which curriculum is the best fit for the student and teacher.

Parents get this. Joe Gipson, a black parent from Sacramento who feels that black students are too often shortchanged, told me the best thing that happened to his children's school was the California law capping class size at 20 through third grade. You can still have incompetent teachers, he said, but with small classes you can spot them faster and weed them out.

Good teachers and small classes. Those were the two main factors New York's highest court cited last year when it ruled that the state had financially shortchanged New York City schools.

The state must provide more money, the court ruled, so the city can afford to attract more good teachers and improve classroom conditions, particularly reducing class size.

Michael Rebell, the lead lawyer for the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which brought the suit on behalf of the city's poor children, says that research has shown it's hard to attract the best teachers until you have good working conditions. And the crucial element for good working conditions? "Small class size," he says.

In the original 2001 trial court opinion, Judge Leland DeGrasse put it succinctly: "The advantages of small classes are clear. A teacher in a small class has more time to spend with each student. Fewer students mean fewer administrative tasks for each teacher. Student discipline and student engagement in the learning process improve in smaller classes."

There were 72 witnesses and 4,300 exhibits for the trial, but as Leonie Haimson, a parent advocate, says, the most important piece of evidence may have been a single table showing how much larger classes are in New York City than the rest of the state. In middle school - when so many children are lost - city classes averaged 28 versus 21 statewide.

Academic studies show small class size carries many benefits, even mitigating racial problems that interfere with learning. A recent study by Tom Dee, a Swarthmore professor, in "The Review of Economics and Statistics" concluded that both white and black children achieved more when they were taught by teachers of their own race. This is bad news for black children since the vast majority of teachers, even in big cities, are white and the vast majority of urban children - 85 percent in New York City - are minority.

But there is a hopeful exception. If classes are small, Dr. Dee found, black children do equally well with a white or black teacher. "It may be because there's more personal interaction, less chance for stereotyping," Dr. Dee said.

Market forces tell us that small class size is worth a lot. Well-to-do parents pay for private schools with good teachers and small classes. At Horace Mann in the Bronx, a leading private school, tuition is $25,000 and class size averages 15 in the middle grades, or half of what it is in nearby public middle schools.

So what's the obstacle to small class size? Money, of course. New York's top court did not specify how much was needed and the politicians have spent the last year creating committees that have concluded that city schools need $2 billion to $6 billion more a year in operating funds. Similar cases in other states have dragged on for years. The New York case took 10 years to get through the courts, with Gov. George E. Pataki fighting it every step of the way.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is losing patience, as well he should. Having made his own billions in the private sector, he understands that quality costs. He estimates city schools need $5.3 billion from the state in extra yearly operating funds and $6.5 billion more in construction aid. Smaller class size requires more classrooms, and many city schools are overcrowded.

Which raises the question: Are we as a people willing to pay the price - are we willing to sign the social contract - to give city children more good teachers and small classes?

The answer is supposed to be the federal No Child Left Behind law, passed in 2002. It mandates that every American child be proficient in reading and math by 2014, that the achievement gap between white and black be eliminated once and for all.

To do this, President Bush's budget calls for spending $13 billion for all Title I poverty schools in America. In other words, what Mayor Bloomberg says he needs extra for the New York City schools is what the president has offered for all the nation's poor schools.

At heart, leaving no child behind is about eliminating poverty's effects. To President Lyndon B. Johnson, that meant war - a war on poverty - since war is the best model we have for the kind of mobilization it would take. We understand that military wars cost; that's why the president has asked Congress for an extra $25 billion for Iraq.

And for the education war? All the rhetoric and data are in place for the education war: high standards, tough accountability, disaggregated data by the truckload. But financing?

No Child Left Behind is superb at finding fault. It has labeled a third of America's schools failing. It has labeled over half of New York City's middle schools failing. Within a few years, almost all city middle schools are expected to carry that label. Fine, fail them all. But where is the money from the states and the federal government to arm city schools with small classes and more good teachers?

Blaming public schools, their principals and teachers for losing the education war feels a lot like blaming the ground troops for losing the Vietnam War. Are we committed to an education war? Do we have the will? I fear that the late Walt Kelly, creator of the comic strip Pogo, had it right: We have met the enemy and he is us.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com