This will necessitate the hiring of 3,700 public school teachers, as well as the creation of hundreds of new classrooms within already overcrowded buildings. Parents have concerns about how the process will play out.

Many absolutely see the benefits of smaller classes. 

鈥淎t a school with much larger class size 鈥� teachers don’t have the time to teach the complex writing and reasoning skills students need,” says dad Thomas Fiorella Jr. “I don’t know that my public school student wrote more than a few pages of expository writing all year in their public school with 33 kids per class.鈥�

The issue of extra space looms large, however. Smaller classes require distributing the same number of students across more classrooms, and acquiring more supplies, from desks to chairs to books to science kits, to to stock those classrooms.

鈥淚 am optimistic the smaller class sizes will benefit kids academically and socially, though how are schools going to allocate space for additional classrooms?鈥� an anonymous parent asked. 鈥淢ost of the rooms are already in use. Are they going to be the trailers? If so, are those going to be parked in front of the school in the yard? How are they going to allocate class times for each group to have specials including music, science, STEAM, art, gym, as well as the enrichment activities of dance, chess, drama?鈥�

鈥淭here isn’t additional 鈥� spending in the school budgets at the moment” for equipment, etc., admitted the PTA president of an Upper West Side school. 鈥淥ur school has some unused space that will be brought online and some previously used furniture that will be used again.鈥�

But not all schools have the luxury of repurposing unused spaces.

鈥淲e don’t have the space to split up classrooms,鈥� fumed a parent of a child attending TAG Young Scholars in East Harlem. 鈥淭o get enough classrooms, we are considering destroying specialty classrooms (e.g. music, science, etc.) to convert them into general population classrooms 鈥� so goodbye, high-quality specialty classes (either completely or severely altering their curriculum quality). It’s not like the music teacher can carry all instruments from class to class. It鈥檚 shocking to realize how incompetently this policy change was shoved down from the top.鈥�

, Mayor Eric Adams promised extra funding to schools that submitted a detailed plan for shrinking class sizes by adding new teachers. In May, 741 schools learned they鈥檇 to begin hiring.

However, not all schools took advantage of Adams鈥� offer, opting instead to shrink existing classes by not replacing students who leave and admitting smaller cohorts moving forward.

A parent in Queens District 24 explained that their school 鈥渄ecided not to go for the extra teacher funding because they would have to get rid of the science, art and music classrooms 鈥� which seems so wrong! Something isn鈥檛 working here. Why would anyone want to cut art, science or music from schools to get an extra teacher?鈥�

As for the 741 schools that did receive funding to hire additional teachers, parents expressed trepidation that hiring so many new ones all at once means most will be inexperienced.

鈥淚 am thrilled there鈥檒l be smaller class sizes, though I do have concerns as to the qualifications of these new teachers and where they will be sourced from,鈥� worried another parent who asked to remain anonymous. 鈥淟ast year, my daughter had a first-year teacher, and it was not a successful year.鈥�

Still other parents fear there simply won鈥檛 be enough teachers to go around, experienced or otherwise, considering that NYC is already in the midst of a .

鈥淎t our (school leadership team) meeting, the principal shared that my daughter鈥檚 middle school received funding to hire six new teachers, a tall order for any school,鈥� wrote Jessica Schilling, Brooklyn mother of two. 鈥淣o one I know wants to work in public schools right now. Later that week, I learned my son鈥檚 high school, which has more than twice the student population of my daughter鈥檚, was also hiring. It feels like a citywide scramble for a shrinking pool of talent.鈥�

Within-district competition for teachers is not a new phenomenon. Decades of has focused on the issue of low-performing, usually poorer, schools for high-performing, usually wealthier ones. This leaves the neediest students with the and, sometimes, . 

With popular schools like Beacon HS, Bronx Science HS, Brooklyn Latin HS and Booker T. Washington MS, among many others, putting out the call for more teachers, it stands to reason that some of those currently employed at less selective schools will jump ship, leaving their students in a lurch.

鈥淲e recognize concerns that experienced teachers may be attracted to higher-performing schools, leaving underserved schools with less experienced educators,鈥� conceded Jenna Lyle, deputy press secretary at the city Department of Education. 鈥淎ddressing this is a priority for us, and our strategic efforts, including targeted recruitment, retention incentives and professional development, are specifically designed to ensure that all schools 鈥� especially those in high-need areas 鈥� have access to high-quality, experienced educators.鈥�

Those strategic efforts include an , where seven weeks of training over the summer qualifies candidates to begin work in the fall. (Though it also requires some time travel, as 鈥淭raining begins in June 2025 and concludes in early August 2024.鈥�) It seems difficult to imagine that a few weeks of theoretical instruction, without any classroom experience, would be enough to instantly create the 鈥渉igh-quality, experienced educator鈥� promised in Lyle鈥檚 statement, much less dozens of them in one swoop. (It is, in fact, one of the leveled against organizations like Teach for America and .) It appears equally unlikely that principals at high-performing schools would prefer to hire these new teachers over more experienced ones, leaving the inexperienced educators to be placed, as traditionally happens, in the weaker, neediest classrooms.

鈥淭he biggest problem NYC and other urban school districts have is not attracting candidates, but keeping them over time,鈥� counters Leonie Haimson of . 鈥淭here are showing class size is a key component for what teachers are looking for in a job 鈥� and several studies show lower teacher attrition with smaller classes. This means in the medium to long term, all students, but especially the ones in the highest-need schools, will benefit from more experienced and effective teachers.鈥�

Whether that proves to be true in the medium to long term has yet to be seen. In the short term, Lyle promises, 鈥淲e are working diligently with our union partners, educators and staff to support schools as they staff up ahead of next school year and ensure every student has access to the quality education that they deserve.鈥�

The majority of parents who replied to the query I posted on my 4,000-plus-member mailing list were enthused about the concept of smaller class size in theory, but very worried about how it would be implemented in practice. After decades of broken promises ranging from pandemic school closures to expanding gifted-and-talented programs to a flip-flopping cell phone policy, NYC families are not feeling confident that the department will follow through on its latest pledge, or that it鈥檚 even mathematically achievable to begin with.

New York City is giving schools extra funding to hire 3,700 teachers and 100 assistant principals to comply with a major class size reduction mandate, officials announced Wednesday.

The new educators will be distributed across 750 schools that . About 800 schools submitted applications that were reviewed by the Education Department and unions representing teachers and school administrators.

The move is the most significant effort yet to meet aggressive new class size rules required by a . Most classrooms must be capped at 20 to 25 students depending on the grade level, down from 30 to 34 under current rules.

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About 46% of public school classrooms fall within the new state caps, a number that is required to rise to 60% by September.

City officials said they are confident that the new wave of teacher hiring will allow schools to hit that threshold by the deadline. But they did not immediately say how much the additional educators would cost, where the funding is coming from, or which schools would benefit.

Mayor Eric Adams, flanked by the leaders of the principal and teacher unions at Wednesday鈥檚 announcement, said smaller classes will give students more opportunity for individual attention, boost learning, and help students regulate their emotions.

鈥淭here鈥檚 no intellectual conversation we need to have,鈥� the mayor said. 鈥淚t works, and it has to be done.鈥�

That represents an about-face for Adams, whose administration previously expressed deep reservations about the state class size law, arguing that it amounts to an unfunded mandate that would require billions in additional spending on teacher hiring and school construction. Additionally, experts and the have raised concerns that the city鈥檚 highest-poverty schools , as they already tend to have smaller class sizes.

Multiple school principals said they were grateful for the extra money. Staff salaries typically come out of individual school budgets, which are allocated based on how many students enroll and whether they have additional needs, such as a disability, are behind grade level, or come from a low-income family. Money for the new staff comes directly from the Education Department, circumventing the usual funding formula.

Principals fear a cutthroat teacher hiring season

Evan Schwartz, principal of Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School in the Bronx, recently learned his school will receive extra funding to hire two additional teachers. The news came a day before the school planned to participate in a hiring fair, allowing administrators to recruit four teachers instead of two.

鈥淚t鈥檚 good they鈥檙e getting this out as quickly as possible,鈥� Schwartz said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very difficult to hire a teacher at the end of the summer.鈥�

Schwartz estimated that at least 90% of his school鈥檚 classes will fall under the new caps thanks to the additional two teachers. He also proposed paying staff to teach an extra class on top of their regular schedules, though the Education Department has yet to approve funding requests for such measures.

Other principals said they were glad to have the extra staff but worried about finding qualified educators. City officials estimate that they will have to , up from roughly 5,000 in a typical year.

鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be a battle,鈥� said one high school principal whose request for additional teachers was approved and spoke on condition of anonymity. 鈥淚 still don鈥檛 think there鈥檚 this core of great candidates out there who haven鈥檛 been hired yet.鈥�

Studies have found that students in smaller class sizes and that children from low-income families may benefit the most. But some of those benefits when schools are forced to hire new staff.

Experts have warned of other tradeoffs associated with the .

Since affluent schools are more likely to have crowded classrooms, they will likely need more teachers, and a significant chunk of those educators may come from higher-poverty campuses. That could exacerbate existing challenges with turnover, .

Questions remain on meeting full mandate by 2028

City officials have also yet to reveal plans to comply with the class size law beyond this September, when 60% of classrooms are required to meet the new caps. All classrooms must meet the new limits by September 2028.

In some cases, officials said schools won funding to convert other space into classrooms. But hundreds of school buildings don鈥檛 have the space to comply with the new caps, and officials may be forced to issue exemptions from the law.

The city , a move favored by some class size advocates but which also faces resistance from parents vying for coveted school seats. (Some principals requested enrollment caps as part of their class size proposals but were denied.)

Another idea is to ramp up school construction to create new buildings for overcrowded schools, but those efforts are costly and typically take years. Plus, the School Construction Authority predicts that school enrollment is going to .

Some advocates praised the new funding but criticized the city for not yet revealing a broader plan to reach full compliance.

鈥淭he [Education Department] has refused to take positive steps to ensure that they will have more space in the future,鈥� said Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters. 鈥淭his means it is extremely unlikely that the city will meet the requirement of 80% -100% of classes achieving the caps in the last two years of the phase-in, as required by law.鈥�

This was originally published by . Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Education thrives on innovation. While core practices in education have slowly and incrementally changed over time, the innovation and creativity of teachers and administrators have facilitated improvements by modifying the organization and delivery of education. In calling for solutions, A Nation at Risk (ANAR) repeatedly called on local 鈥減olitical and educational  leaders to search for solutions鈥� and to use the 鈥渋ngenuity of our policymakers, scientists, State and local educators, and scholars in formulating solutions.鈥� Indeed, ANAR lauded the 鈥渓ocal laboratory鈥� model that decentralized schooling affords to test new models that could scale and disseminate throughout the country. This chapter takes aim at understanding how innovation in the organization and delivery of education both within and outside the classroom has affected the quality of education.  

I start by looking at large-scale initiatives that sought to modify the ways school districts orga nized themselves. For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided significant funding for the small schools or the 鈥渟chool-within-a-school鈥� initiative. The initiative sought to divide large high schools into smaller sub鈥揾igh schools that might provide a greater cohort experience and allow for greater interaction between teachers and groups of students. After reviewing small schools and other out-of-the-classroom innovations, I turn my attention to innovation within the classroom. Since ANAR, major evidence on class size and the timing of schooling, among other innovations, has influenced policy and practice. This has affected how states and local districts organize and deliver education to students inside schools and classrooms. I review evidence on these and other innovative practices. 

It is impossible to really track forty years of innovation across thousands of school districts. Many innovations were never disseminated, scaled, or evaluated. Other innovations became so popular and widespread that the editors of this series chose to dedicate entire chapters to them. For example, the rapid changes in technology with computers and the integration of standards and accountability systems are two innovations that have altered every classroom across the United States. In this series, Tom Vander Ark鈥檚 chapter on technological innovations and Michael J. Petrilli鈥檚 chapter on standards and accountability review these innovations and how they have shaped school organization, classroom practice, and teacher and principal accountability. This chapter provides a useful companion to those chapters. 

In this chapter, I focus on four sources of system innovation and two sources of classroom innovation. For system innovation, I review evidence on small schools, magnet schools, superstar superintendents, and innovation zones. For classroom innovation, I discuss evidence on class size and the duration of schooling. In choosing the specific innovations, I have conveniently sampled practices that have expanded beyond a single district or school and have thereby shaped and influenced education policy and practice. I also try to focus on innovations where rigorous research has provided some hint as to the causal impacts of these policies.  

While many of the innovations seem to have strong evidentiary bases, they remain seemingly underutilized. In some cases, the costs of the interventions remain prohibitively large. In other cases, the modifications needed to establish the interventions at scale compromise the capacity of the interventions to affect outcomes. I discuss other impediments to expansion, and more generally I discuss obstacles that inhibit the use of the 鈥渟chool laboratory鈥� model.

Systems innovations

鈥淪ystems innovation鈥� refers to new policies and practices that modify governance and the structure of school systems. The specific innovations upon which I focus are those in school organization, creation of specialized schools, school leadership, and innovation zones, which provide schools and districts latitude to implement new practices and policies.

School size and organization

Perhaps the most notable of the systemwide changes was the small schools movement. In the early 2000s, nearly twenty-six hundred small schools were created nationwide. One of the major forces behind this investment was the Gates Foundation, which began in the early 2000s to fund the decomposition of large high schools. Based on its interpretation of existing literature, the Gates Foundation encouraged schools to maintain a size of four hundred students. As Tom Vander Ark, who at that time was executive director of education at the Gates Foundation, said, 鈥淵oung people who attend smaller schools that provide a rigorous, personalized education and enable close relationships with adults are more likely to graduate and continue their education.鈥� The basic theory was that personalized education and deeper relationships with teachers would improve the quality of education and provide better role models and coaching as students began considering and then pursued subsequent education. 

Unfortunately, the short-term results did not generate the anticipated results. Over nine years, the Gates Foundation invested more than $2 billion in creating small schools, and in 2009, it 鈥渞efined鈥� its strategy. As Bill Gates wrote: 鈥淸M]any schools had higher attendance and graduation rates than their peers. While we were pleased with these improvements, we are trying to raise college-ready graduation rates, and in most cases, we fell short.鈥�

Indeed, the short-term evidence on small schools was a bit pessimistic. At the time that Gates was making allocative decisions, the evidence was not strong. However, the tide of positive evidence was soon to come. Studies by Bloom et al., Schwartz et al., Barrow et al., and Abdulkadiro臒lu et al. found positive, long-run impacts. The study by Abdulkadiro臒lu et al., the only one that took advantage of randomized admis sion lotteries, reported that college attendance rates in New York improved by seven per centage points, with additional improvements in math and English scores on the state鈥檚 High School Regents Examinations. Additional work by Schwartz et al. argued that small schools improved the performance of most New York high schools, including schools that were not small schools. 

Yet despite the positive, long-run evidence on small schools, they are no longer receiving the same public and philanthropic support they did in the past. Strong evidence has not revitalized the initiative or the funding streams. While existing small schools have remained, few additional small schools have been added. Why the lack of continued or renewed support? 

First, there was a perception that lessons could be applied and scaled up in other settings that did not require small schools. For example, one theory as to the success of small schools relied on the notion that students developed rich, meaningful, personalized relationships with faculty and counselors. However, such relationships may be possible in other settings as well. As Robert Hughes, director of K鈥�12 Education at the Gates Foundation, explained, 鈥淸W]ith some work, you can really build structures that enable kids to be known and to get the kind of support they need to be successful [even] in larger schools.” Also, small schools cost more per student than traditional schools. If traditional schools can replicate the counseling and other relationship-based mechanisms, then expanding small schools, a far more expensive and involved intervention, may not be necessary. Indeed, the fact that all schools in a school district, including large schools, benefit from the presence of small schools suggests that small schools increase the visibility of some mechanisms that can be transferred to larger schools.  

Second, there have been concerns about the capacity of institutions to scale small schools. One concern is that the cost of staffing might be prohibitively large. Another concern is that small schools raise the demand for both teachers and principals, and it is unclear that the supply of new teachers and qualified principals can satisfy the demand.  

While small schools remain somewhat stalled, there are several aspects of the small schools movement that have had a lasting impact. For example, it was one of the largest, highest-profile experiments in innovating the structure and design of schools. This gave some momentum to districtwide interventions and experimentation, expanding the scope of the laboratories envisioned in ANAR. Also, as mentioned above, it provided significant information about reforming underperforming schools that could be applied in other settings. And there was also important heterogeneity in the impacts that provided additional policy lessons about the implications of certain types of schools 鈥� namely charter schools, which generated significant impacts. For example, the KIPP schools were cited by Gates in the 2009 announcement that the Gates Foundation was refining its investment strategy. Subsequent work such as Abdulkadiro臒lu et al. demonstrated that there were specific strategies (e.g., high accountability) employed by charter schools that may have led to the greater impacts observed in some small schools as opposed to others. Each of these lessons reinforced the notion that school districts could be local laboratories for innovation.

Specialized schools

A second strategy that altered the ways districts organized schools had to do with school choice and the underlying supply of schools. In this series, the chapter by John D. Singleton focuses extensively on school choice, so I defer any discussion of charter schools and vouchers to that chapter. My discussion here centers on magnet schools. While many charter schools behave like magnet schools and vice versa, the administration of magnet schools typically continues under the direction of school district offices, whereas the administration of charter schools often moves outside the district鈥檚 purview.  

Magnet schools existed long before ANAR. As districts grappled with how to desegregate schools, many created specialist or alternative schools to give parents additional options. The first magnet schools began in the late 1960s. The first large-scale experiment occurred in 1970 in Minneapolis, and the first specialized high school, focused on career themes, opened in Dallas in 1971.  

As of 2016, there were 4,340 magnet schools across the United States, with the most common theming centered on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); fine and performing arts; international baccalaureate; career and technical education; and world languages. Whereas before ANAR, magnet schools were often considered as a way to encourage desegregation, the major expansion and specialization of magnet schools took place after ANAR with greater emphasis on school choice.  

The magnet school expansion happened for a variety of reasons. Some of it was driven by parents as they tried to find ways to improve their children鈥檚 educational performance by building on specific skills. Some of it came as magnet schools, particularly vocation-oriented magnet schools, demonstrated that they could have positive impacts on students who were struggling in mainstream classrooms. 

To date, the evidence on magnet schools is largely positive. Gamoran (1996) uses the National Education Longitudinal Study to compare test scores of students at magnet, public, and private schools. Gamoran found that students at magnet schools score higher in science, reading, and social sciences. Crain et al. (1998) use oversubscription lotteries to measure the impact of career-oriented magnet schools. The researchers provide mixed evidence. On the one hand, career magnet schools had lower graduation rates than comprehensive schools.  

This was the result of greater emphasis on career and vocational curricula. On the other hand, students who attended magnet schools reported fewer 鈥渞eckless adolescence behavior鈥� at age twenty. Kemple and Snipes provide evidence that career magnet schools are an effective way to reduce dropout rates among those at the highest risk not to graduate. A synthesis of the literature suggests that impacts are 鈥済enerally positive.” 

Magnet schools were refined in the laboratory of public schooling, and new iterations of magnet schools build upon the principles of school choice discussed by Singleton and on principles of innovation. Career education in particular has become much more central to education policy. As the returns to high school education have stagnated, emphasis on employability and skills has fueled much of the advance in career education. This concern not only has been present in the United States but also has become increasingly popular as a policy tool in developing countries. The evidence from magnet schools provided significant lessons that shaped early attempts to strengthen vocational education.  

Magnet schools also raise the question as to whether education should be similar across students. In many ways, the traditional school model presents very little variety across the types of skills that students develop; however, magnets exist to allow some students to specialize beyond what a traditional school might allow. Heterogeneous students might need more heterogeneous offerings than traditional schools can provide. Magnet schools might be a way to improve the efficacy of education for a subset of students, and there may be limits to the degree of differentiation among students and schools that are possible. Hence, the gains could be large but diminishing as differentiation expands. 

In the short run, magnet schools鈥� enrollment and presence will continue to expand. Whereas they were at one point an answer to desegregation and integration of schools, they are increasingly a means for parents to express their preferences in terms of students鈥� education opportunities. Their growth continues, and while charter school enrollment remains larger, magnet schools remain a viable way to provide differentiated education opportunities. Moreover, as charter schools become more specialized (e.g., STEM or vocation focused), the line dividing magnet and charter schools will continue to blur. 

School leadership

Another trend that has taken place since ANAR is the increased emphasis on high-profile school district superintendents. In many large school districts, superintendents have become chief executive officers with greater power and salaries. For example, Barbara Byrd-Bennett served as the CEO of both Cleveland Public Schools and, later, Chicago Public Schools. She previously served in a leadership capacity for New York City schools. Her compensation in both Cleveland and Chicago was controversial, given the size of the packages. Other CEOs grabbed headlines and made national news as well, such as Michelle Rhee in Washington, DC, and Arne Duncan in Chicago Public Schools. In districts with more than twenty-five thousand students enrolled, superintendent compensation ranges from $140,000 to almost $400,000. To put this in perspective, the median base salary for a beginning teacher in districts of the same size is $44,150. 

Prioritizing hiring high-profile CEOs with extensive experience and increasing their compen sation has been a prevailing societal trend. Just as CEOs鈥� track records were believed to have an impact on a company鈥檚 performance, schools sought to enhance their quality by appointing elite superintendents who would bring about substantial improvements and elevate the institutions they served. Hence, an increasing number of school districts applied corporate strategies to superintendents. In the corporate world, there was a perception that the supply of such leaders was finite, leading to bidding wars and large compensation. The emphasis on superstar superintendents faced the same competition and compensation. 

However, as Chingos et al. demonstrated, superintendents who bring about significant, statistically reliable changes in student achievement within their districts, while controlling for other factors that affect academic performance, are indeed rare. They found that superintendents account for only a tiny fraction (0.3 percent) of student differences in achievement, significantly less than other factors such as student characteristics, teachers, schools, and districts. They further indicated that student achievement does not improve with longer superintendent service, and hiring a new superintendent does not lead to immediate gains in student achievement. 

Increased emphasis on superintendents may not directly yield higher test scores, but nevertheless it remains an area of continual research. For instance, Hart et al. proved that encouraging superintendent longevity can support student achievement, as those with more in-state experience possess a comprehensive understanding of the state鈥檚 curriculum, testing programs, and the organizational stability required for effective leadership. Mitigating superintendent turnover, as suggested by Grissom and Mitani, could involve considering salary increases, particularly in smaller and rural districts and those with lower student achievement, as this would help retain superintendents who are often lured by higher-paying positions in larger, more urban districts with better academic performance. 

The hiring and reliance on superstar superintendents is very much an experiment in progress. While some districts have moved away from the strategy of hiring CEO-like superintendents in favor of other approaches, there are still districts that continue to explore this path. Ongoing research and the findings regarding superintendent longevity and compensation emphasize the importance of considering contextual circumstances being faced or the necessity of exploring alternative strategies. 

Innovation zones

While the principles of innovation zones may have been part of the policies dating back to the early 1990s, states and school districts began implementing legislation in the mid 2000s. Innovation zones are schools or districts to which states or districts grant greater autonomy over curriculum, budgeting, and staffing. Typically, states and districts grant innovation zones additional relief from other state and local regulations. While schools are free to enact policies and practices that differ from the norm, the schools are held accountable for improvements in student outcomes. After some early experimentation, innovation zones began expanding, and by 2017, they covered more than 108 schools and 63,000 students. 

Innovation zones presuppose that regulation and centralization impair the ability of a district to try new and innovative practices. By providing greater autonomy, schools and districts can explore new practices in finance, governance, curriculum, and staffing. This greater autonomy comes at the cost of higher accountability for student outcomes, and schools and districts can lose the autonomy if student outcomes do not improve. More generally, innovation zones are just one category of school turnaround. Under the Race to the Top (RttT) legislation, the federal government funded school turnaround strategies that included other variants such as school improvement grants or No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers. These school turnaround programs also allowed school districts to have more autonomy in some aspects of staffing, management, and curriculum. 

Many studies of innovation zones are emerging. Zimmer et al. (2017), for example, examine the innovation zones established in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. They showed that innovation zones significantly outperformed other public schools and other alter native methods of changing governance. Math scores, for example, increased by 0.20 standard deviations in innovation zones relative to other schools. Science and reading scores also increased. Zimmer et al. (2017) argue that one of the largest mediating factors in the innovation zone was the retention of experienced, successful teachers. Innovation zones in Tennessee generally offered significant raises for teachers who transferred to innovation zone schools. Teachers who previously had significant value added in the classroom were more likely to shift into these innovation zone schools. While the competition for high-achieving teachers may be a zero-sum game in the short run, the responsiveness to compensation incentives alongside the added autonomy may strengthen the overall workforce by inducing the retention and recruitment of top teachers. 

The use of innovation zones and other strategies aimed at strengthening school autonomy remains a hot topic. In this series, Michael T. Hartney, for example, explores other innovations in governance and how they have played out. While the current scale of innovation zones is low, the case of innovation zones is interesting as the initial results have encouraged continued expansion, with at least twenty-five states having adopted policies encouraging innovation zones in districts that were previously classified as failing and more considering legislation to allow innovation zones.  

The expansion of innovation zones raises questions about teacher supply. If, as Zimmer et al. (2017) argue, the mechanism by which innovation zones improve outcomes is through attracting top teachers at the cost of having other schools lose top teachers, then innovation zones might lead to a continued division between high-value-added teachers and others. If the higher wages and reduced legislation in innovation zones serve to attract more (and better) teachers to the profession, then innovation zones might generate momentum toward improving the overall teaching pool. However, if this does not happen, then the competition for teachers is a zero-sum game in which the available teachers for underprivileged schools will be disadvantaged relative to those who want to attend innovation zone schools.

Finally, the continued expansion of innovation zones has two implications for the future. First, the continued expansion of legislation allowing innovation zones suggests that these zones will become increasingly visible in the future. Second, given that the emphasis on innovation zones is both deregulation and expanded accountability, it also suggests a growing discontent with the existing regulations in traditional school districts. Innovation zones are a means of circumventing some regulations. If innovation zones eventually create momentum around deregulation, then deregulation might displace (or potentially devalue) innovation zones.

Classroom innovation

I next turn to classroom innovation. I focus on two separate innovations 鈥� class size and the  timing of schooling. As before, these are only a fraction of the possible innovations that I could use; however, these are two areas where significant experimentation and subsequent policy implementation have happened since ANAR.

Class size

Scholars from all disciplines have long postulated that class size affects student outcomes. The underlying theory suggested that teachers can give more attention to students in smaller classes and that this extra attention might provide a boost in students鈥� education outcomes. Lazear (1999), for example, uses a model to demonstrate that the probability of classroom disruptions likely increases as class size goes up.  

However, in the mid-1980s, some doubt emerged on the relationship. In a series of papers, Hanushek (e.g., 1986, 1999) showed that estimates of the effects of class size were ambiguous. Perhaps students were not as sensitive to class size as they might have been to other inputs, or perhaps teachers used different technologies as class size changed. Nonetheless, the relationship between class size and academic achievement has been hotly contested in the education literature.  

In 1985, then governor Lamar Alexander sponsored the Tennessee STAR experiment. The experiment created small classes in kindergarten through third grade and implemented the intervention with a school-based randomized controlled trial. The results of the experiment were stunning. Education test scores improved by roughly 0.25 standard deviations, roughly one grade level higher than students in regular classrooms. Subsequent research suggested that the impacts endured through primary, secondary, and tertiary schooling.  

Some criticisms have been made of the Tennessee STAR experiment. For example, Hoxby discusses the possibility that the results are exaggerated. She argues that they may be the result of the Hawthorne effect arising from teachers performing differently than they would have otherwise as a result of participating in a high-profile experiment. Others have refuted this characterization, calling the Tennessee STAR experiment the 鈥淏arbary steed鈥� of the class size literature. Nonetheless, Tennessee STAR influenced policymakers. States including California, Florida, and Texas established class size limits. The policy in California in particular provided extensive financial incentives to schools that implemented class size limits. 

While the policy debate has leaned heavily in recent years toward reductions in class size, there have not been significant studies to date documenting whether state policies around class size have generated close to the same effects as observed in Tennessee STAR. In fact, there is some evidence that the emphasis on class size has come at the expense of other inputs. For example, Sims shows that California schools largely achieved class size reductions up to grade three by increasing class sizes in subsequent grades. He shows that the increase in test scores after grade three may have reversed potential positive impacts of class size. 

The class size debates are not over and will likely continue for the foreseeable future. Until evidence can definitely show that the expansion of reduced class size through state policies leads to sustained improvements in student achievement, the debate over class size will continue. Even if Tennessee STAR鈥檚 evidence shows improvements in student outcomes as a result of class size reductions, it does not mean that class size reductions can produce impacts in scaled-up policies. In the Tennessee STAR experiment, Tennessee allocated additional funds. In scaled-up versions at the state level, the cost is likely prohibitive. States have to reallocate funds toward increasing the number of teachers and away from other inputs. In the case of California, it allocated funds to increase the number of early elementary school teachers, yet the cost of this was a decrease in the funds to hire teachers in other grades, and hence, higher class sizes resulted in those other grades. This could counteract any positive impacts from class size in early grades. Indeed, there is no evidence to date that California鈥檚 aggressive class size policy has led to any improvement in outcomes. The literature on class size largely focuses only on class size, but in a scaled-up policy, the improvements from class size must be weighed against the costs of reduced educational inputs elsewhere. As long as costs remain prohibitive, it is unclear whether any state can produce a class size policy that can replicate the gains from the Tennessee STAR experiment.  

While ANAR did not necessarily take on the issue of class size, its call for local experiments to identify promising solutions resonates with the issue of class size. In considering changes in classroom practice, the debates on class size have led to significant investigations throughout the United States and beyond鈥攏ot just in primary schooling but also in higher education. However, a limitation of experimentation can be its ability to understand how the impacts would change as scaled-up versions of the policy reverberated throughout the education landscape. The formulation of policy around class size has largely proceeded without finding a solution for the costs of reduced class size, and states have sacrificed other inputs in order to accommodate class size. While innovation is present in the case of class size, pushing innovation forward without considering the costs of scaling may never generate the promised impacts.

Timing of schooling

One input that was specifically mentioned in ANAR was the length of the school day and year. ANAR鈥檚 authors lamented that the United States had shorter school days and school years than its competitors. The ANAR authors strongly recommended a seven-hour school day and a school year of two hundred to two hundred twenty days.  

For at least a decade after ANAR, there was very little movement or experimentation with the length of the school day. In 1997, Arizona became the first state to increase the length of the school year, requiring at least two hundred days of instruction rather than one hundred eighty. By 1998, fourteen states were considering changes to the school calendar; however, outside of a few districts in Arizona, few changes were happening at scale. 

Since 2000, though, there have been significant changes in the time allocated for school ing. Some of these have come in response to the charter school movement. For example, from 2000 to 2012, the average length of the school day nationally increased by 0.2 hours; by contrast, the average length of the school day in charter schools increased by 0.4 hours. As Farbman noted, multiple studies of charter schools and other school turnaround efforts have attributed the impacts of charter schools, in part, to the length of the school day.

Additional evidence has come from outside the United States. For example, Germany increased weekly education instruction by two hours, thereby improving outcomes, particularly for high-achieving students. Studies in Chile, Israel, Italy, Brazil, and Latin America more generally have shown similarly positive impacts of increasing instructional time. These other studies have found greater benefits for both low- and high-performing students. 

Within the United States, RttT grants for school improvement often targeted limited exper iments in the length of the school day and evidence to date. Some schools implemented changes in the length of the school day in response to these grants. More generally, the largest policy shifts have been in Chicago and Boston. In 2012, Chicago moved from a 5.75-hour school day to a seven-hour school day, and in 2015, Boston Public Schools approved a forty minute extension of the school day. 

While the length of the school day has been the subject of both policy changes and exper imentation, there are few studies on lengthening the school year. The average number of school days has shown almost no change nationally and remains around one hundred eighty days.  

What does the future hold? The mounting evidence on the impact of increased instructional time will likely increase pressure to consider policy options, particularly for students who are struggling. The continued expansion of charter schools, which have longer school days on average, will continue to put upward pressure on the length of the school day. Not only do they contribute to the increased average school day, but they also put pressure on districts to examine the amount of instruction time they offer. Areas where charter schools provide greater competition to local schools are likely to face greater pressures to increase instruc tion time. In terms of increasing the average length of the school year, there appears to be little momentum. 

Other systemic shifts

While I have highlighted systematic changes that have focused on improving education quality, there are other systemic shifts that have occurred. Many of these have less to do with school inputs and more to do with the changing context of education. I briefly consider three examples.

Learning disabilities

Learning disabilities have become more prevalent over time. Zablotsky et al., for example, report a significant increase from 2009 to 2017 in the percentage of children diagnosed with any developmental disorder, attention deficit disorder, and autism. Special education enrollment rates continue to rise. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic increased attention on issues of mental health among students. 

These changes in health have impacts on classrooms. Students with disabilities have renewed protection and have increased access to accommodations as a result of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the expansion of 鈥�504鈥� plans. Students with disabilities are often more expensive to educate, costing as much as thirteen times that of the average student, and the increased incidence of documented disabilities puts financial pressures on schools. While schools receive additional funds for students with disabilities, the marginal cost of educating a student with disabilities is likely higher than the increased allotment. Indeed, Bergman and McFarlin showed that charter schools actively discriminate against students with disabilities in the way that they encourage (or discourage) enrollment. The reason for this discrimination is likely the disparity between the cost and revenue associated with a student with disabilities.  

While the increase in disability diagnosis and treatment will certainly improve education quality for those with disabilities, the additional education expenditure required to teach students with disabilities inevitably leads to reductions in expenditures elsewhere. Increased expansion of charter schools, if indeed charter schools discriminate against students with disabilities, could exacerbate existing inequalities by segregating students by costs. Improvements in our ability to diagnose and treat learning disabilities can reduce the costs of educating students with disabilities and reduce the fiduciary burden. 

School safety

School shootings have become more commonplace, and a frequent motivation for students to pursue charter or private schools is often school safety. Since ANAR, the presence of police, metal detectors, and other security enhancements has shifted the ways schools behave. While the prevalence, particularly in the wake of violent shootings, seems high, in truth there has been a decline in the rate of victimization and threats to teachers from 1994 to 2016.  

School safety, including policies and procedures to ensure safety, continues to be a hot topic in state and federal legislation. Each school must maintain a plan for ensuring safety and for dealing with school violence. As in the case of increased disability rates, a focus on school safety requires resources and attention. Governments have been reluctant to increase funding to fully cover the costs of such expenditures. The resulting policies create more pressure on schools to cut expenditures in other ways. Moreover, to date, there has been little experimentation in ways that can help identify cost-effective strategies for improving school safety. Using schools as laboratories across the United States could provide greater opportunities to learn best practices.

Parental inputs

Education scholars have often posited that parental inputs are a significant part of students鈥� academic achievement. While the correlation between parental characteristics is extremely strong, particularly in the case of the mother鈥檚 education, few papers have established causal relationships between parental inputs and student outcomes. Many localized experiments have attempted to increase parental involvement; however, none of these efforts have scaled in any meaningful way. 

There are a couple of notable exceptions in more recent years. While not occurring in the United States, the Oportunidades conditional cash transfer program was a major randomized controlled experiment in Mexico that targeted parents and students. Parents received a subsidy conditional on student attendance and student health visits. These programs had a demonstrable impact on student attendance and attainment. While parents are clearly involved in the treatment, it is not clear if the effects came because of their vigilance or other factors (attendance, health, or increased family income).  

Recent randomized controlled experiments have aimed at a more novel approach to encouraging parental involvement. With the expansion of texting capabilities, researchers have used text messages to try to engage parents. York and Loeb did this for literacy among low-income parents. Through a series of text messages, York and Loeb coached parents of young children how to teach literacy skills. They found that students arrived at kindergarten with improved literacy as a result of parental engagement. 

Bergman and Bettinger et al. tested interventions that focused on communicating with parents about students鈥� academic behaviors. Parents received notes about students鈥� truancy and assignment completion. These notes reshaped parents鈥� beliefs and led to improvements in attendance and academic achievement. Bettinger et al. demonstrate that the saliency of the messages in informing parents of important behaviors that they should be monitoring was likely the mechanism by which this impacted student achievement. In both cases, the cost of the intervention was small relative to the benefits. 

New and innovative research designs are extending more and more interventions to parents, and this remains fertile ground for the laboratory of public schools. The recent text message interventions are particularly cost-effective and may have more potential to scale. 

Conclusion and discussion

When I was invited to write this chapter, the charge was to document how education systems changed after ANAR. How does one capture forty years of trial and error, of innovation and failure? I have chosen to identify a handful of innovations within districts and within schools. These examples 鈥� using small schools, specialized schools, school leadership, and innovation zones as cases of education system innovations and class size and using the time spent in schools as cases of classroom innovation 鈥� are just a sampling of innovations that have changed, at least incrementally, the way in which education is delivered. One only needs to browse the research-related web pages of organizations such as the American Institute for Research, MDRC, Mathematica, and RAND Corporation to learn about the breadth of continued experimentation and innovation in schools. 

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of many of these interventions is their failure to be scaled up or to generate impacts when scaled up. The key problem in many cases is the cost of scaling. Oftentimes, scaled versions lack the same features as the original laboratory experiment, and in many cases, funding the scaled version requires sacrifices in other areas. Moreover, in many cases, we lack the supply of personnel or funding to move forward. Perhaps the great challenge of the next forty years will be learning how to create cost effective versions of the innovations that laboratories produce. 

ANAR envisioned an education ecosystem where experimentation and learning from the laboratories of local schooling provided lessons and accelerated the process of change. While one can debate the relative quality of education over time, education systems of experimentation and learning across organizations have greatly increased, especially with the advent of the internet and the role of social media in drawing attention to innovation and to evidence. 

The What Works Clearinghouse and other formal and informal collections of evidence on innovative practice and policy only accelerate the role of education institutions as laboratories in identifying promising practices and moving them to scale. However, finding and scaling the products of these laboratories remains the next challenge to be solved if the vision of schools as laboratories is to yield long-run improvements in the quality of education.

See the full Hoover Institution initiative: .

This initiative would phase in over a period of six years until, by 2028, Kindergarten through 3rd grade classes would be capped at 20 students, 4th through 8th grades could have no more than 23, and a maximum of 25 students per class would be allowed in high school.

But , a member of the , understood some parents鈥� concerns: 鈥淭his entire situation is quite counterintuitive. When I first heard about smaller classes, I was, as well as most parents naturally would be, very supportive of the idea. It sounds so good in theory. The more I learned about the implications and trade-offs involved, I (became) convinced this is not in service of our kids. Most parents I speak to are supportive of the concept until they learn about what this will actually mean for their kids and the students of DOE as a whole. The data that I鈥檝e seen is that currently the schools with larger classes are performing overall at a better level than the schools with smaller class sizes. So, in terms of what this is attempting to achieve in bridging the gap for lower performing kids and schools, I have no level of confidence it is going to move the dial at all.鈥�

Robin Kelleher, who served on from 2021 to 2023, concurs. 鈥淲hat is most glaringly apparent to me is that this will disproportionately harm the very population its champions pretend to represent. Schools serving the highest poverty families already have smaller classes. Unfortunately, this mandate will force students out of more desired and populated programs and into these smaller classes at struggling schools. How will kids who are behind in math and reading benefit from MORE kids in their class? They will not.鈥�

Budgeting is also a major concern. Schools receive funding based on how many students are enrolled per year. 

Public school teacher and parent Lisa Marks fears that 鈥渟uccessful and popular schools/programs which are technically 鈥榦verenrolled鈥� will be forced to artificially cap classes, and face funding cuts due to enrollment loss. The current law as written will have dire repercussions to successful schools by cutting enrichment programs like art, dance, drama, science, foreign language or AP classes due to lack of funding and space constraints.鈥�

Debbie Cross is particularly concerned about shrinking language options under those circumstances. 鈥淒ual language programs will be made unsustainable 鈥� you have to have more kids in those programs to deal with ongoing attrition 鈥� and then eliminated, and we will lose additional language classes beyond the Regents’ “bare minimum” for graduation, just to make more room for the core subjects because space is a real constraint.鈥�

Deborah Alexander, a member of the Department of Education鈥檚 , confesses, 鈥淚 have been an advocate for lower class size since my eldest was in kindergarten. He used to tell me he didn’t raise his hand in school because, 鈥榃hy bother…there are so many kids, the teacher won’t ever get to me.鈥� I joined a lawsuit as a plaintiff arguing for lower class size. And then the law was passed. A law that is either completely ignorant to the realities of NYC geography, schools, budget, and staffing, or knows these things and was written to score political talking points. This is the mandate of magical thinking, completely divorced from reality in terms of the city’s ability to implement it. I have sat on the CEC in Queens for 10 years, begging for more buildings, but SCA () is constrained by school building regulations; it’s not like it can build anywhere. Lot size, environmental safety, transportation availability are just a few of the considerations. Particularly in Queens, the idea that schools will simply shut their doors to the thousands of students who currently pack the halls, with no plan on where they’re supposed to go to school, is ludicrous. High schools in Queens already are thousands of seats short, now we’re adding another 20% of kids to the “go to another borough” pile? The law means well. But it puts the cart before the horse. It should have mandated that the DOE create seats, then require class size reduction. The unintended consequences of the law as written are going to be major.鈥�

Chien Kwok, a dad of two public school students, has similar concerns: 鈥淭he class size law has consequences such as reducing education opportunities for low income, disadvantaged students to benefit from special education or academically accelerated programs because these programs must reduce overall enrollment in order to meet the class size law requirements.鈥�

Brooklyn Mom Yiatin Chu summarizes the attitude of parents whom the NYT was surprised to learn existed. 鈥淭he districts with the greatest number of classrooms out of compliance are the highest performing ones in NYC. Class size is obviously not the primary factor for good academic outcomes. Families are attracted to move/live in areas with good schools. These districts have had severe overcrowding for a long time so clearly parents are not prioritizing class size as the determining factor in choosing schools.鈥�

To understand the current state of the teacher labor market, you have to be able to hold two competing narratives in your head. 

On one hand, teacher turnover hit across the U.S., morale is and schools are facing shortages as they seek to hire more educators.  

At the same time, the latest data suggests that public schools employ more teachers than they did before the pandemic. Thanks in part to strong state budgets and an infusion of federal funds, districts had about 20,000 more teachers in 2021-22 than they did five years earlier (a gain of 0.7%).

Meanwhile, those same schools were serving 1.9 million fewer students (a decrease of 4%). Those declines are widespread, with and more than two-thirds of districts enrolling fewer students than they did five years before. 

A comparison of enrollment and staffing trends makes clear that public schools collectively reduced their student-to-teacher ratios over the course of the pandemic. In fact, American public schools are on the cusp of hitting all-time lows in the number of students per teacher.

As those figures mask tremendous variation across the country, I worked with Eamonn Fitzmaurice, 蜜桃影视鈥檚 art and technology director, to help visualize how these changes are playing out in individual communities nationwide.

After screening out very small districts and those without sufficient data (marked in black), we examined staffing and enrollment trends for 9,800 districts, comparing federal data from 2021-22 鈥� the most recent available 鈥� with 2016-17. Click on the map below for an interactive version.

Interactive Map

School Staffing vs. Enrollment

Districts shaded orange had more students per teacher than they did five years earlier. There were 2,737 districts in one of these two categories (28% of the sample). Districts in Alabama, Louisiana and Florida, for example, are predominantly orange, meaning they have higher student-to-teacher ratios than they did before the pandemic. 

But many more districts are shaded blue or gray, meaning they serve fewer students per teacher than they did five years earlier. Overall, 72% of districts in the sample fell into one of these categories.

There are three ways a district can reduce its student-to-teacher ratio. The sections below give examples of districts in each of these three categories and quantify how many districts fell into each one. 

Option 1

More teachers, fewer students

The clearest divergence occurs when a district has more teachers serving fewer students. New York City is the largest example in this category. According to the latest federal data, enrollment in the nation’s largest district fell by about 125,000 students (12.7%) from 2016-17 to 2021-22. Meanwhile, it employed 3.7% more teachers. The two trends were already diverging, but, when the pandemic hit and enrollment fell sharply, teacher staffing levels continued to rise. 

New York City is an outlier in many ways, but it was one of 3,119 districts, or about one-third of the total in the sample, that had more teachers serving fewer students. This group also includes districts such as Elgin, Illinois; Worcester, Massachusetts; and Eugene, Oregon.

Option 2

Fewer teachers, even fewer students 

Another way to reduce student-teacher ratios is to downsize staff more slowly than enrollment falls. This group is exemplified by Texas’s Brownsville Independent School District, which serves about 38,000 students near the Gulf of Mexico. It has reduced its teacher count by 12% over the five-year period starting in 2016-17, but student enrollment has fallen over the same time period by 18%. 

Among other districts, St. Louis; Jackson, Mississippi; and Corpus Christi, Texas, exhibit similar patterns. Slightly more than 2,300 districts (one-fourth of total in the sample) decreased their teacher counts less quickly than student enrollment fell. These districts have been making adjustments, but they may have to come into closer alignment in the years to come. 

Option 3

More students, but even more teachers 

The last category is districts where enrollment is growing but teacher counts are rising even faster. The Katy Independent School District, near Houston, is representative of this group. Its staffing and enrollment lines were growing in parallel until the pandemic hit. Since then, student enrollment growth has slowed while staffing growth did not. All told, the district is now serving 17% more students than it did five years before but employs 22% more teachers. 

About 1,600 districts (one-sixth of the sample) are following a similar trajectory. These are typically faster-growing communities, and they include districts such as Irvine, California; Hays, Texas; and Ankeny, Iowa.

Caveats, questions and what might come next 

This analysis is capturing change over time, and it鈥檚 not meant to pass judgment on any particular district鈥檚 staffing levels at any given point in time. It鈥檚 possible that a district was understaffed in 2016-17 and remained so in 2021-22. 

Some readers may naturally cheer the increased staffing levels as one potential solution to getting kids back on track after the pandemic. But research on class size reductions suggests their success on a variety of factors. And they can be expensive. of a law passed last year mandating low class sizes in New York City pegged the additional staffing costs at $1.6 billion a year.

This analysis is limited to teachers because they are the staffers for whom districts have the most complete data, and teaching positions have been more stable than other types of staffing within schools. Although the data in this piece ends in 2021-22, the trends have continued since then 鈥� student enrollments are to continue to fall nationally, while public schools have only added to their over the last year. 

That said, the district-level totals certainly may be masking staffing challenges at particular schools, and they are likely hiding specific shortage areas such as math, science or special education. 

Still, this analysis gives a sense of how communities’ teacher staffing levels have changed due to the pandemic. It may also help identify districts that are most in danger of layoffs in the coming years, if they were using one-time federal relief dollars to avoid making layoff decisions or to bring in additional educators to help students get back on track. 

Ultimately, a district鈥檚 funding is at least partially tied to how many students it serves, and the reductions in per-student staffing levels over the last few years may be unsustainable at current levels.

Some campuses could see those numbers rise further still: In May, a , which kept millions of people from seeking in the United States, is set to expire 鈥� a development that comes amid a crippling teacher shortage in parts of the nation. 

Newcomers鈥� impact on social services, including schools, has long been a talking point for politicians. It鈥檚 also been posited as by New York City鈥檚 Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, who began upon their request: His administration cited their rising numbers as a key factor in this month鈥檚 , including to the . 

The White House has taken note of the educational imperative. President Joe Biden, in his March 9 budget address, proposed devoting in fiscal year 2024 to help these students gain English proficiency 鈥� a over the current amount. He鈥檚 also pushing for an additional $90 million to build multilingual teacher pipelines through Grow-Your-Own initiatives and $10 million for post-secondary fellowships to further bolster the educator pool.

But it鈥檚 unclear if this new round of funding will meet the needs of one of the fastest-growing student groups in the country. English learners made up 10.4% of total U.S. enrollment in 2019, according to the most recent available , up from 8% in 2000.

To gauge how these students are being served, 蜜桃影视 reached out to 13 school districts across the country representing hundreds of thousands of English learners requesting information about their numbers and their teachers鈥�.  

ESL Student to Teacher Ratio

Responses received over the past several months show dramatic differences in student-teacher ratios ranging from roughly 4:1 in San Diego, 9:1 in the Houston Independent School District and 11:1 in both Chicago and Cypress Fairbanks, which also serves Houston. It’s approximately 23:1 in Los Angeles and Las Vegas鈥檚 Clark County schools, and 30:1 in Baltimore City, though school officials there say it鈥檚 usually closer to 40:1. 

鈥淢ost teachers are begging for there to be a cap on classes, but there usually isn鈥檛,鈥� said Pamela Broussard, a long-time educator who serves new arrivals just outside Houston. The magic number for her, she said, is 15, but the U.S. Department of Education does not regulate this figure, a spokesman said: It鈥檚 a state and local issue. 

A manageable class size, experts and educators say, depends on students鈥� age, English proficiency, level of trauma and the instructional model used to help them, among other factors, including the teacher鈥檚 own training.

In the classroom 

When queried about their experiences by 蜜桃影视 on a Facebook group for English language instructors, dozens of educators replied, describing a vast array of conditions in the classroom.

Those with caseloads hovering around 20 or 30 generally found their workload manageable while those responsible for 75 or more multilingual learners found it untenable.  

Some say they have supportive administrators, make great use of related technology, employ top-notch curriculum and work alongside highly trained peers in a single building 鈥� with the help of paraprofessionals. 

Others say they are the only such teacher in their district, work across several campuses and struggle with scheduling, plus administrative duties and paperwork. Among the most exasperated are those who have little assistance and serve students of varying age, need and ability. 

鈥淣o limit for me,鈥� wrote one Oklahoma teacher. 鈥淚鈥檓 personally responsible for around 80 and do paperwork and supervise over an additional 30 to 40.鈥�

Jody Nolf, a literacy engagement specialist based in Palm Beach County, Florida, said the appropriate class size depends on whether, for example, students missed years of schooling or were unable to read in their home language 鈥� all of which can slow their progress.  

鈥淪ome teachers do well with 20 to 25,鈥� said Nolf, who works with East Coast school districts. Others, she said, barely manage 10 to 15 when students鈥� needs are great.   

鈥淔ew of us, however, teach in ideal circumstances,鈥� she said.聽

If the primary purpose of English language instruction is for children to make gains in reading, writing, speaking and listening, Houston鈥檚 Broussard said, students need time to tackle all four tasks. 

鈥淪maller class sizes give children time to talk,鈥� said the teacher, whose charges, many of whom hail from Cuba and Venezuela, have lived in the United States for less than six months. 

By the numbers 

New York City Public Schools reported roughly 150,000 multilingual learners among some in the 2021-22 school year. The figure excludes charters 鈥� and the who鈥檝e enrolled in the past year. 

Some 77,000 of these children were identified as newcomers, meaning they had three or fewer years of English language learner status. Roughly 9,500 of the city鈥檚 teachers had either a bilingual and/or English-as-a-Second-Language credential. 

Teachers in bilingual education classes instruct students in two languages while ESL teachers focus on English 鈥� as do those labeled . 

Georgia鈥檚 Cobb County serves more than 12,000 multilingual learners 鈥� more than 1,300 are newcomers 鈥� with 274 ESOL teachers. More than 1,800 other educators have some certification in this area, the district said, but it鈥檚 not clear how many teach English exclusively to these students.

Baltimore also serves a substantial number of newcomers, defined by that district as those who have been in U.S. schools for less than a year and are at the lowest English proficiency level. More than 1,500 of the district鈥檚 nearly 9,000 multilingual learners fit this category.  

Brevard Public Schools in Florida has 723 such students out of 3,181 multilingual learners. It has 27 English to Speakers of Other Languages teachers to serve them. Seven positions remain vacant. The district also has 55 bilingual assistants 鈥� 16 spots remain open. 

Students assigned to Clark County’s Global Community High School, designed to serve newcomers, enjoy a 10:1 student-teacher ratio: It has just 165 students and 16 teachers. Another 3,792 newcomers are elsewhere in the Las Vegas school district. 

While many school systems across the country employ specially designated staff to help immigrant students build their initial inroads to learning, other districts, including Brevard, provide none. Houston ISD has 4,125 newcomer students and no specifically assigned staff to serve their unique needs.

Teacher training 

As with class size, there鈥檚 little agreement regarding what constitutes teacher preparedness, a fact evidenced by vastly different state standards. Some educators who responded to 蜜桃影视鈥檚 Facebook queries said they earned their credentials after passing a single test 鈥� many sought additional training afterward 鈥� while others had to complete numerous courses and spend many hours in the classroom working with multilingual learners. 

No matter how they win the designation, said Diane Staehr Fenner, founder and president of SupportEd, which aims to provide educators with the skills and resources they need to serve these children, these instructors must understand how language works, use culturally relevant and responsive materials and have expertise in crafting and implementing effective lesson plans. 

They must also collaborate effectively with other teachers, design appropriate classroom assessments and know how to interpret the scores their students earn on the state-wide English language proficiency exams that determine whether they are eligible for services. 

Staehr Fenner credits the Teachers of English for Speakers of Other Languages International Association鈥檚 P-12 for the criteria. She said these educators must also protect students鈥� legal rights; they should 鈥渞eally empower multilingual learners and all of the teachers who work with them.鈥�

Schools are legally obligated to enroll all children who live within their district boundaries, , according to the 1982 Supreme Court case Plyler v. Doe. Almost a decade earlier in 1974, the high court ruled in that schools must provide appropriate services to students who do not yet speak English. 

But multilingual learners face ongoing discrimination: Districts across the country have been sued for failing to and these children. 

Boston Public Schools has been under court order since 1994 to direct a more equitable share of its federal funding toward this group, but last month a longtime legal monitor said Boston school leaders recently for the records documenting how it spent the money. 

Learning a new language   

The goal of providing appropriate services is to move newly arrived and non-English speaking students to the place where they are proficient and can learn in English without additional support.

Tim Boals, founder and director of WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, said studies show it takes either four to seven or five to seven years for a child to exit ESL services. But there are variations: Some children graduate from such programs in three years, he said. For others, it takes longer. 

鈥淏eing younger is assumed to be a big advantage, but that鈥檚 not always the case,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f kids don鈥檛 come with basic reading skills in their home language, that can slow things down. Arriving in high school can also be hard since kids have only four to five years typically to 鈥榗atch up鈥� and accrue credits.鈥�

Added time is unlikely in many classrooms as teacher shortages persist: While the English learner population is growing, staff are . 

Officials from Baltimore City Schools, who said they travel all over the country looking for staff and also recruit from overseas, hope to hire at least 25 more teachers in the coming months to serve this student group. 

The need was so drastic last fall that administrators and other leadership staff went back into the classroom to teach, with some staying on for months. 

鈥淓very year has been hard trying to find teachers,鈥� said Lara Ohanian, the district鈥檚 outgoing director of differentiated learning. 鈥淎fter the pandemic, with this national teacher shortage, we have seen even more challenges.鈥�

Ohanian said the student teacher ratio varies throughout the year and is more typically 35 or 40:1. 

It can be difficult for schools to plan or predict class size as many children arrive long after the academic year begins, said Ferlazzo, of Sacramento, a city that has become from all over the world.

鈥淪chools didn鈥檛 know a Russian invasion of Ukraine would cause an influx of refugees late in the school year,鈥� he said. 鈥淥r know the Afghan government was going to collapse.鈥�

Florida鈥檚 Duval County Public Schools has 9,597 multilingual learners and 2,747 teachers to support them: 329 held an English to Speakers of Other Languages K-12 certificate, which requires passing an ESOL K-12 Area test, and much of the remainder had an ESOL endorsement, which demands 300 hours of specialized courses. 

The district had 3,199 newcomer students and 77 teachers to support them. The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest, has 6,786 in grades 9 through 12 alone 鈥� and 19 dedicated staffers at three high schools to help them.

The Paradise Valley School District, which serves students in the Phoenix area, has 2,024 multilingual learners this school year and 69 properly endorsed teachers who teach targeted English language development. 

McAllen Independent School District, located on the Texas-Mexico border and long accustomed to serving newcomers, is home to 7,338 English learners and has more than 550 teachers to serve them. 

A trio of reactions to new arrivals 

The resources allotted to these students might depend on their reception by their school district: In some cases, Sacramento鈥檚 Ferlazzo said, immigrant students are considered an inconvenience. 

鈥淭heir needs are not prioritized,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat might result in putting (English learners) into classes with English proficient students with no extra support at all.鈥�

Ted Hamann, professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, has long studied children who were educated in both America and Mexico as their families traversed the border. 

He said schools and communities faced with a significant uptick in new arrivals react in three ways: through a spirit of welcome, disquiet or xenophobia. 

In the first instance, people regard the influx as a positive development, a reflection of their town鈥檚 attractiveness to newcomers. In the second case, locals note the change with curiosity or uncertainty, but general neutrality. 

The last reaction is hostile, in which newcomers are cast as a threat or contaminant. 

鈥淲hat is striking,鈥� Hamann said, 鈥渋s that in most of the communities we work in, we see all three.鈥�

On campus, it鈥檚 up to school leaders to determine which reaction is dominant, he said, adding our duty to educate multilingual learners in this country should hinge on a belief that all children deserve investment, no matter where they come from 鈥� or where they are headed. 

鈥淲e owe in the present to these kids a future that may or may not be geographically local,鈥� Hamann said. 鈥淲hat kind of world do we want to live in 鈥� where we have reciprocity to each other, or we don鈥檛? Can we be generous to each other or is it this desperate struggle for survival?鈥� 

Providence Teachers Union President Maribeth Calabro can only imagine the relief if a bill to limit class sizes from kindergarten to grade 2 in public schools that passed the Senate last week became law.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 know if you鈥檝e ever been in a room with 26 five-year olds,鈥� Calabro said. 鈥淚t makes a big difference.鈥�

Sponsored by Senate President Pro Tempore Hanna M. Gallo of Cranston, seeks to limit K-2 classes to 20 students unless a student registers after Oct. 1 and needs to be placed in a maxed out classroom within three days. The Senate approved the bill on Thursday, March 16. The bill now goes to the House of Representatives.

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鈥淭here are so many benefits to keeping class sizes from becoming too large in the early grades, and they are not limited to the years students are in those classes,鈥� said Gallo, a speech language pathologist for the Cranston School Department in a statement released by the Legislative Press Bureau.

鈥淐hildren who begin school in smaller classes have higher achievements throughout their academic careers, including higher graduation rates and better college entrance exam grades.鈥�

Students who are assigned to smaller classes in the early grades score higher on tests, receive better grades and exhibit improved attendance, according to studies.

Children from poor and minority backgrounds experience twice the gains of the average student when taught in smaller classes in the early elementary grades, reducing the achievement gap by an estimated 38%, according to research by the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization Class Size Matters.

Teacher shortage more acute in Providence than elsewhere

The bill鈥檚 approval came shortly after found that teachers in Providence Public Schools are fleeing from the district, for which Calabro said the takeover by the Rhode Island Department of Education is the main culprit.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not just first, second, third year teachers,鈥� she said. 鈥淭eachers are being asked to do more and more every day with less time and resources.鈥�

Providence Public School District said it was already making efforts to address the concerns brought up in the study.

鈥淥ver the past two years PPSD has greatly expanded its hiring and retention incentives in various ways to include non-teaching staff such as teacher assistants, bus monitors, crossing guards, and clerks,鈥� district spokesman Nick Domings said.

He added the district has implemented a referral bonus program to close the deficit and their   鈥渉as supported over 50 teachers to pay back their student loans.鈥�

According to the report, the three-year teacher retention rate in PPSD fell from 84% to 75% between the 2016 and 2022 school years. Meanwhile, the Rhode Island average fell only three points, from 85% to 82%.

The resulting teacher shortages put more pressure on teachers, pushing many out of the profession due to mental health reasons.

The Rhode Island Department of Education鈥檚 most found that 564 such authorizations were issued in the 2020-21 school year, 160 more than in 2019. The certifications are temporary measures issued to alleviate shortages.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com. Follow Rhode Island Current on and .

The decision comes with a contentious cap on the number of students in the classroom 鈥� topping out at 25 at the high school level 鈥� with the final goal to be reached by 2027. 

The agreement also increases the size of the panel that votes on education policy, partly an effort to curb the mayor鈥檚 power while including more parent voices. But many say the changes are not enough, that the current system cannot account for the needs of such a wildly diverse group of students.

Tajh Sutton, twice elected to the Community Education Council in District 14, which covers large swaths of Brooklyn, said she would love to abandon mayoral control in favor of a system that would allow communities to develop programs that suit their specific needs.

“The mayor is not deeply invested in the majority of our kids,鈥� she said, adding the current system makes it difficult for residents to get his attention. 鈥淲e need more student, parent and staff voices. We have some really good ideas about how to improve public education as a whole and we really want to see citywide systematic change.鈥�

Paullette Healy, of Bay Ridge, said Adams is too focused on improving the gifted and talented program, neglecting others that impact a far greater number of students, including her son, who has autism. The mayor鈥檚 four parent appointees to the expanded Panel for Education Policy must include at least one, like Healy, whose child attends a District 75 school, which serve students with the most significant disabilities. Parents of children with any kind of disability and those in bilingual or English as a second language programs must also be newly represented.

鈥淭here are a barrage of special ed concerns,鈥� said Healy, who sits on the Citywide Council on Special Education. 鈥淕ifted and talented is not mandated. Special ed is.鈥� 

And while the cap is popular with teachers and the union for making classrooms more manageable and for requiring a sizable staffing increase, skepticism remains about its funding 鈥� and whether the shift will bring about major educational gains. 

Adams initially denounced the idea, saying before the vote that, 鈥渦nless there is guaranteed funding attached to those mandates we will see cuts elsewhere in the system that would harm our most vulnerable students in our highest need communities 鈥� including the loss of counselor positions, social workers, art programs, school trips, after-school tutoring, dyslexia screenings, and paraprofessionals.鈥� 

New York City Schools Chancellor David C. Banks agreed, worried class size will become too high a priority in a district facing other pressing challenges, including a 40 percent absenteeism rate.

鈥淢ake no mistake, it will lead to large cuts in these critical programs,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his should not be a choice that school leaders have to make.鈥�

But the mayor softened his stance Friday. 

鈥淲e are optimistic that there is a way forward on key elements, including ensuring we achieve the shared goal of smaller class sizes without forcing the city into a fiscal crisis and impacting programs for our most vulnerable students,鈥� he said in a statement.

State Sen. John C. Liu, chairman of the Senate鈥檚 New York City Education Committee, said the cap will, in fact, be funded by $1.6 billion in additional money NYC schools will receive as part of long-awaited action on . Liu called the move, 鈥渁 huge victory for NYC school kids that will finally fulfill the long-overdue constitutional duty of providing students with a sound, basic education.鈥�

Adams may have made peace with the legislature鈥檚 plans, but Mona Davids, president of the New York City Parents Union, has not. She chided lawmakers for putting too many constraints 鈥� and demands 鈥� on the mayor, undermining his authority and making him responsible for a costly directive. 

鈥淭he only people who benefit from this bill are the United Federation of Teachers,鈥� she told the . 

Farah Despeignes, president of the Community Education Council in the Bronx鈥檚 District 8, warned the class size reduction alone won鈥檛 translate to improved results. 

鈥淚f you have a mediocre teacher, they won鈥檛 be any more innovative with a smaller class,鈥� said the former educator. 鈥淏ut if you have a well-trained teacher, you get more out of it: This teacher is already doing good work and will have more time with the students. I don鈥檛 want people to think outcomes will automatically be great with a smaller size class. That鈥檚 not the only issue.鈥�

In addition to the specific parent representatives, the mostly appointed Panel for Education Policy, or PEP, will grow from 15 to 23 members. Also, the mayor and borough presidents will no longer be permitted to remove those members who don鈥檛 support their initiatives as has . And PEP members will serve one-year terms and can be renewed. 

While some embraced the change as a check on Adams鈥檚 power, Jonathan Greenberg, president of the Community Education Council in District 30 in Queens, said many parents would like to see a new model, a break from mayoral control 鈥� and from the 32 community school boards that preceded it. 

鈥淭here is an urgent need for a task force to study and recommend a new alternative,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 would like to see a more democratic system where those responsible for the system are chosen for that purpose.鈥� 

The state has been granting mayoral control over the city鈥檚 schools since 2002 when it first went to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. This year鈥檚 decision was delayed as lawmakers considered additional parental involvement, a core feature of the previous, more decentralized but .

Sutton, of Brooklyn, remembers clearly the school board misconduct that rocked her community when she was a student. Even so, she believes mayoral control is far too centralized. 

Each of the three mayors given this privilege, she argued, have used children as political pawns to further their own ambition. She faulted Bloomberg for pushing for privatization with public and charter schools occupying the same buildings and said while Bill de Blasio campaigned on student equity, he couldn鈥檛 close the opportunity or achievement gap. Adams may be only months into his first term but Sutton sees the mayor and his chancellor as already showing an affinity for charter schools, which are publicly funded but independently run.

But no matter who is in office, parents remain sidelined, Sutton said, frustrated about the removal of mask mandates, the lack of reliable transportation for special needs children, unaddressed language barriers and a host of other concerns. 

鈥淎 lot of parents have come to see mayoral control as a huge hoop we have to jump through,鈥� she said, adding that parents must not only advocate at the school level, but at the district and city level, hoping to catch the mayor鈥檚 attention on social media. 鈥淚t shouldn鈥檛 be this one politician who is completely inaccessible.鈥�

Despite a steep pandemic-related decrease in the student body, in the NYC school system in 2020-21. Of those, 13.3 percent were English language learners, 20.8 percent were students with disabilities and 73 percent were economically disadvantaged. 

More than 40 percent of students were Hispanic, 24.7 percent were Black, 16.5 percent were Asian and 14.8 percent were white: More than 138,000 were in charter schools. 

The four-year graduation rate was 81.2 percent in August 2021 with a 4.8 percent dropout rate that year. 

The schools are run on a $38 billion budget.