Just How Important is Class Size?
One of many factors, class size is a facet to consider when evaluating a school. How much attention do students receive? Are there options for small-group or individualized instruction (this is especially important in lower school)? This week, we will focus on how to review class size within the lens of assessing a school’s efficacy.
Class Size vs. Student-Teacher Ratio
GreatSchools.com and niche.com both do excellent jobs in crunching the numbers to publish both class size and teacher-ratio information for many public and private schools. However, it’s important to not lump both into the same bucket as synonymous data points; rather, we need to keep in mind the overall number of students enrolled in the school. Class size stats refers to the average class size at the school (some classes may be larger or smaller); watch this play out particularly in lower grades where some schools operate within state or governing body-mandated class sizes. Case in point: Just because a school offers mandated lower class sizes in grades K-3 , doesn’t verify that they will have smaller class sizes in upper grades (more than often, they don’t).
On the other hand, student-teacher ratios are based on the total number of school instructional staff divided by the total of enrolled students. Note that this number may include specialist teachers such as reading or literacy specialists, PE coaches, special education teachers, para-professionals, or assistant teachers. Thus, student-teacher ratios may show smaller numbers than actual average class size. Though ratios in Georgia are based on full-time teachers, some schools are still eligible to report data based upon part-time faculty. For example, if a small school has five part-time teachers (who each work 20% of the time), the student-teacher ratio at this school would be calculated based upon one “full-time” teacher—instead of the five part-time employees. In this scenario, the student-teacher ratio would appear higher than it actually is. In your school research, if data shows an unusually high student-teacher ratio, don’t be hesitant to clarify with the admissions team to find out why.