Show lr a. 1 I V I V I l nv W nr Hi Superintendent ri a r lKC a tentative conclusion drawn from a recent Educational Research Service A Summary of is that the learning most helpful to one child is not necessarily the best for Put the ideal class size varies from child to child-depending largely on the student's level of academic and personal The study pointed out that a great number of factors combine to influence a child's performance in Not the least of which is the home attitude toward While current research generally does not support the contention that smaller classes of result In greater academic achievement gains for studies have shown that for certain students ln certain bigger unquestionably is not The groups found to benefit most from small classes tend to be with lower academic ability and economically or socially disadvantaged The dilemma school board members are left is to judge the cost ef- of smaller Even In I a small district such as Daggett County School let alone a medium sized district like that of a system-wide reduction of one or two students per class has a sizeable im- pact on the district's Board members are looking very closely at the studies that have looked at what happens when classes do indeed get This ERS report for although teachers of small classes tend to employ more new instructional practices than their counterparts with larger is no evidence that money for small classes is better than money for better At the same instructional methods may weigh as heavily as class despite the claim for more found in these smaller classes considerable use of group-oriented As its bottom the ERS report suggests a different tack to the class- size Instead of searching for some optimum class school officials would do well to seek the answer to another What types of students benefit most from smaller |