> III. Methodology ............................. p. 44
Research Design ......................... p. 44
Population and Sample ................... p. 44
Treatment ............................... p. 45
Data Analysis ........................... p. 46
Results and Discussion .................. p. 46
IV. Implications for Public Policy........... p. 51
V. Recommendations for Future Research ..... p. 53
VI. References .............................. p. 54
VII. Appendix A .............................. p. 59
Reports began to surface in the mid-1980s about the failures of American public education. One manifestation of the problem included increasing numbers of high school graduates who gained entry to colleges and universities only to learn that they required remedial education before they could fully participate in college-level academic programs. Since that time, educational experts and the general public have sought answers to the problem (Brandt, 2000). There were two general motives for seeking answers to the problem.
Educators focused on searching for ways to improve the quality of educational output. A second focus was on finding convenient scapegoats to take the blame for educational failure. One of the factors that surfaced in these searches was class size (Ryan & Heise, 2002). The term "class" refers to an individual school classroom. The term "size" refers to the number of students in a classroom.
The class size factor served each group of searchers equally well. For those people seeking to improve educational performance, it appeared obvious that a lower student-teacher ratio would equate to higher performance. For people seeking a scapegoat, high student-teacher ratios were a godsend. The high ratios absolved both teachers and students from responsibility for poor performance (Heise, 2002).
Problems arose, however, in implementing policies mandating smaller student-teacher rati...