Are Class-size Reduction Reforms Effective?

There are two different levels of judgment to judge whether the class scale reform is effective or not.First,whether the class scale reform is effective for students' academic achievement,and whether the class scale reform is successful or failed.Both have internal relations.A successful class scale reform needs to prove its effect in improving students' academic achievement.Similarly,the improvement of students' academic achievement has become one of the important basis to judge the effect of class scale reform.The study of class size in the United States has been in the forefront of the world for more than 100 years.During this period,it has experienced different value orientation development stages,and then from theory to practice change.In the theoretical research stage,according to different value orientation,it can be divided into three stages: pursuing the effectiveness of education management,pursuing the fairness of educational resources distribution and pursuing the high quality of education development.At the end of the 20th century,the research on class size in the United States entered the stage of experimental exploration of reform,among which STAR program in Tennessee,SAGE program in Wisconsin and CSR program in California were the most famous.After the case study and comparative analysis of the background,content,implementation and effect of the three reform experiments,it can be found that the reduction of class size has a significant positive impact on students' performance,and the impact on the lower grade students and the minority or the disadvantaged students with lower socioeconomic status status is more obvious,and the positive impact continues to exist.In the non cognitive level,the reduction of class size avoids students' bad behavior,which helps students' emotional development and self-awareness.The American class scale reform experiment focuses on achieving the pursuit of high quality education through education equity,and has sufficient financial guarantee and policy support,this is the successful experience of class scale reduction.But,it lacks the consideration of the economic cost of class scale reduction,and the education resources can not support the continuous reform of class scale.This is the experience and lesson it brings to our class scale reduction.China's policy on class size has undergone a series of adjustments.But at present,the class size in China is still too large,and there is still a huge gap with the requirements of high-quality education development in the dimension of class size,especially the problem of large class size between high-quality primary and secondary schools at the county level and key schools at the city level is more prominent.The enlightenment from the experiment of class size reform in the United States is as follows: class size reform should consider the economic cost and rationally use the educational funds;The reform path should be explored from the angle of educational equity;The top-level design should be considered comprehensively and promoted flexibly;The course of class size reform should step by step and act according to ability.