The following is from yesterday’s post and inspired some pushback:

“Here’s another inconvenient, urban truth that seldom hits the airwaves. Those bigger classes will be more of a problem in Detroit or Chicago than in Grosse Pointe or Winnetka. In upscale suburbs, thirty-five, mostly college-bound students are likely to prove easily manageable for an experienced teacher. As we move from Winnetka to Chicago, though, the picture shifts. Thirty-five students in a classroom where maybe fifteen plan to go to college, and ten are thinking they might go to college, while eight are waiting to be allowed to drop out, and two are so sick with morning sickness that they have put the future on hold — thirty-five students in that classroom can overwhelm even an experienced teacher, especially if enough behavior disorders come into play.”

The comment I want to answer is this: “It should not matter if the teacher is in Chicago or Winnetka. A good teacher should be able to manage classes anywhere.”

Eduhonesty: I’d venture that Chicago teachers overall may have stronger classroom management skills than suburban counterparts, simply because they are called upon to use those skills more often. The issue here is more one of leverage than management skills. When all or almost all my students intend to go to college, my students have a strong reason to please me. They want to see “A” grades on their report cards. They may want recommendation letters. College-bound students want to make me happy because my opinion of them and their work can affect their future — and they see that connection clearly. In a classroom where many students intend to drop out or have zero interest in college, though, I’ve lost that leverage. Why not interrupt me with thoughts or actions unrelated to the day’s lesson? So what if I’m frustrated? Adolescents can be extremely self-centered. Once they decide class content will not benefit them personally, possible future benefits to others often get tossed in the discard pile.

It only takes a few wandering, would-be dropouts to suck hours and even days away from more motivated counterparts throughout the school year.

Eduhonesty: I suspect that part of the reason that research on class size returns mixed results stems from our refusal to include the differences in motivation between groups. Motivation may be hard to measure, I understand. But motivation is the reason why Japanese high school math classrooms function well with up to 60 students in a room.  If students are trying to succeed — and if a teacher has the option to send out students who are misbehaving without having to fill out reams of paperwork, call the parents first, etc. — then the weight of class size as a variable in our classroom learning success equation falls dramatically. I can teach 60 kids who are eager to learn. But I may be struggling with 22 kids if four or five of those kids have no desire to study the material in my syllabus. In these times, when students are placed in classrooms with little regard for interests or previous performance, I may uncover my unmotivated or under-motivated kids in the first week or two of class. But I am stuck, they are stuck, and only classroom management skills, combined with a fierce effort to make my material fun and absorbing, is likely to save me and my class.