NEWS ANALYSIS : No Simple Answer to Class Size Problem

As Gov. George Deukmejian and some of the state’s education leaders exchanged rhetorical blows last week over the problem of crowded classrooms and what to do about them, some important points were obscured that raise doubts about efforts to reduce overcrowding. Consider the following:

* Class size reduction costs so much money that not much can be done, especially in a state where public school enrollments are increasing by 200,000 a year and now top 5 million.

* The Los Angeles Unified School District and many others do not have enough space to accommodate smaller classes and the state is at least $5 billion behind in its school construction program.

* In some subjects and in some grades, there would not be enough teachers to handle the extra classes that significant class size reduction would generate.

Few question the need to trim class size. California’s pupil-teacher ratio is topped only by Utah, according to the U.S. Department of Education. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, some classes in basic subjects like English, history and mathematics have 35 to 40 pupils, which officials describe as an almost impossible teaching situation.

“Ever since I’ve been governor, I’ve been getting nothing but complaints about class size,” Deukmejian said last week.

But neither the governor nor the Legislature has figured out how to make a significant dent in the problem in a state that is enrolling 200,000 new public school pupils each year.

Research studies indicate that only deep cuts in class size lead to improved student performance.

“When current research is analyzed critically, it shows (very slight) student achievement impacts . . . for class size reductions from 30 to 20 or even down to 15 students,” Allan R. Odden, professor of education at the University of Southern California wrote in a report a year ago.

Because it would cost between $400 million and $500 million to reduce class size by a single pupil statewide, the expense of providing meaningful reduction is so astronomical that it has discouraged educators and office holders who are seeking solutions to the problem.

But they keep trying. Last Thursday, Deukmejian proposed that $189 million be removed from the schools’ basic support budget and that the money be spent instead to reduce enrollment in some high school classes and to improve language arts instruction in grades one, two and three.

When added to $31 million that was already in the 1990-91 budget for this purpose, the new money would provide more financial heft for legislation that was authored by State Sens. Becky Morgan (R-Los Altos Hills) and Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) and signed into law by Deukmejian last year.

The governor is a late convert to the cause of class size reduction.

On a visit to Japan three years ago, he noted that Japanese classes are much larger than those in California but that the students still seem to learn more.

However, Deukmejian said last week that new research has convinced him that smaller classes can, indeed, improve student achievement.

The governor conceded that his $220-million plan “will be just a beginning, obviously,” and that it would take “eight years or so” for California’s pupil-teacher ratio to reach the national average, which in the 1988-89 school year was 17.4-1. But he added, “we have to start somewhere.”

The governor’s plan has drawn fire from State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, from the California Teachers Assn. and from other educational groups.

They are especially annoyed because the money to trim class size would be taken from the schools’ operating budgets.

“The problem is, he’s pitting class size reduction against the regular bread-and-butter program,” said Maureen DiMarco, president of the California School Boards Assn. “He’s talking about redecorating the house when he hasn’t paid the mortgage.”

Overcrowded school districts like Los Angeles have no room for the students that smaller classes would displace.

“We don’t have the space to reduce class size,” said Henry Jones, budget director for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Other school officials said they did not think the state would provide enough money to carry out the intent of the Deukmejian plan and the Morgan-Hart legislation.

For instance, San Diego high schools would have to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio from 32-1 to 20-1 in at least one academic subject in one grade and, said Henry Hurley, controller of the San Diego Unified School District: “We don’t think the state will provide enough funds to do that.”

But Hart, a former high school teacher, replied: “Well, some bureaucrat in charge of facilities might not like this but I can tell you the teachers are euphoric” about having fewer students in at least a few classes.

One problem with the class size debate is that the discussion slips quickly into a sticky statistical bog.

The U.S. Department of Education counts not only teachers but school nurses, librarians, psychologists and other support personnel in determining what it calls “pupil-teacher ratios” for each state.

Federal figures show California with a 22.7-1 pupil-teacher ratio for all grades in the 1988-89 school year. Only Utah, with a 24.5-1 ratio, was higher.

But the California Department of Education, counting only teachers who are actually in classrooms with students, comes up with a pupil-teacher ratio number of 27.5-1.

In the all-important first, second and third grades, where many non-English-speaking pupils must learn basic skills, the pupil-teacher ratios last year were 27.6-1, 27.4-1 and 27.7-1, according to James Fulton, manager of the California Basic Educational Data Systems unit in the state Department of Education.

Fulton said that only 647 of the state’s 13,747 first-grade classes had fewer than 20 pupils last year, while 2,731 classes contained more than 30 youngsters.

The situation was even worse in Los Angeles, where the pupil-teacher ratio in grades one, two and three was 29.5-1 last year.

Even if Los Angeles had the money to hire enough teachers to cut this number in half, there would be no where to put the classes that would be created, officials said, because almost all existing buildings are full and only a few schools are being built.

This is why the Morgan-Hart plan, which the governor now has embraced, allows local school districts great flexibility in deciding how to alleviate the effects of overcrowded classes.

One school might hire additional teachers or teachers’ aides for language arts instruction in the first three grades; another might employ “pull-out” programs, in which small groups of pupils meet with a reading teacher or other specialist; a third school might add a period to the school day or take a “team teaching” approach to instruction.

Morgan said it would be possible for a school to meet the program’s requirements without reducing class size at all, although that is unlikely.

There is less flexibility at the high school level, where each participating school must select one of four basic subjects--English, mathematics, science or history--and lower the pupil-teacher ratio to 20-1 in all of the classes in that subject at one grade level.

Next year’s budget allocates $31 million for implementation of the Morgan-Hart legislation. All of that will be spent in the high schools.

If the Legislature agrees to spend the additional $189 million the governor has requested for class size reduction, there will be more than enough money for both the primary grades and the high schools for the first year, said Fred Tempes, the state Department of Education official in charge of the program.

Morgan and Hart hope additional grades and subjects can be added each year until the pupil-teacher ratio in California has been reduced enough to make a significant difference in pupil performance.

But that will depend on the desires of future governors and legislatures and on how much money is in the state treasury.