By Julie Hubbard - The Tennessean -

Angie Venable relies on an arsenal of tricks to keep 27 Head Middle Magnet School algebra students’ eyes on her.

She has taught classes with 13 to 42 students over the past decade, and knows never to lecture planted at the front of the room in big classes, because she’ll surely lose students in the back. She asks open-ended questions. She breaks students into small discussion groups after a half-hour — sitting still too long doesn’t work.

Venable can lavish more individual attention with smaller classes, she concedes, but the chances of that happening are falling by the wayside across the U.S. as fewer states can afford it and are allowing the number of students in a class to creep up. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam wants a bonus system that eliminates state-imposed average class size caps and pays the best teachers to take on more students.

Tennessee’s average class size grew by about five students per class from 2000 to this year. Haslam’s legislation could grow classes by another five, making 25-30 students in elementary grades and up to 35 students in high school the new norm.

But it also would free districts from paying teachers by the state step plan — which gives annual raises based on degree level and years of service — and allow them to pay more based on class size or student learning gains.

The switch would be optional for districts, and no teacher would lose pay under any new plan.

Some teachers are intrigued and others concerned.

“Remembering back to the first three years I taught, would I have opted to take on more students? No,” Venable said. “Now, it depends on the right group, and as changes come you have to roll with what comes your way.”

But Marta Anderton, an English teacher in Jackson County Schools, opposes Haslam’s proposal. Having even two fewer students can make a difference in teaching in some classes, she said.

“In this profession, you need to have faced a room full of 25 children or teenagers every day for at least a year in order to truly have a say in how education should be run,” she said.

Williamson County parent Liz Ferguson said it makes sense to be sure only educators who can handle bigger classes get them. Her children attend Centennial High and Moore Elementary, and she wouldn’t want them in larger classes without good reason.

“Increasing class sizes is only a good idea if a teacher shows a track record of performance that goes above and beyond,” she said. “If not, kids could suffer.”

Districts can't afford smaller classes
At least 11 states have increased classes since federal stimulus act funds started running out in 2010, Education Counts Research Center data show.

Georgia’s state board of education passed a flexibility resolution that year to allow districts to ignore a class size mandate of 21-23 students per room in elementary and middle schools and 32 in high schools after state and local revenues declined. Without enough money to pay teachers, districts couldn’t comply.

Wisconsin also gave districts a class size waiver. In 2002, Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment to cap class sizes, and a 2010 ballot issue to reverse that over its high cost failed.

Nobody questions that smaller classes help younger students and those who live in poverty make higher learning gains, said Raegen T. Miller, associate director for education research at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based policy think tank. But few districts can afford to hire based on that.

“The bad news is that the policies are enormously expensive,” Miller said. “We don’t have much evidence on class size at the high school or middle school level with the good evidence focused on early grades. The question is whether there are other ways to use the money that would yield as much or better academic results.”

That thinking was echoed by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who gave a speech titled “The New Normal: Doing More with Less” at the American Enterprise Institute two years ago.

Teachers’ salaries comprise more than half of a district’s expenses, with $8 billion being spent by districts each year to give raises based on credentials that Duncan argues may or may not increase learning. He called for a rewrite of teacher compensation.

“We support shifting away from class-size-based reduction that is not evidence-based,” he said. “Secondary school classes in South Korea average about 36 students. In Japan, it’s 33 students per class.”

Haslam’s proposal, House Bill 2348, sponsored by Rep. Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, has been assigned to education subcommittees for review. There’s no fiscal note explaining how much the state would free up by allowing larger class sizes.

Study led to caps
An often-cited Tennessee study helped put some of those class size caps in place.

In 1985, former Metro Nashville teacher Helen Pate-Bain persuaded lawmakers to spend $12 million for Tennessee State University, the University of Memphis (then known as Memphis State University) and other colleges to study class size effects on inner-city and rural students in 79 schools across the state. Some classes were capped at 17 and others at 25.

The four-year STAR Project — Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio — showed that students in smaller classes scored higher on national exams and were less likely to fail a grade. The benefits of attending small K-3 classes carried through to high school, and minority students in smaller classes made more significant gains than ones in larger classes.

“If you would say to the school board, ‘Reduce class sizes,’ they would say, ‘You can’t prove it makes a difference,’ ” said Pate-Bain, now 87 and living in Gulf Shores, Ala. “We discovered there was data. Fewer end up in prison. They have a better career and everything that kids ought to have. In the long run, you save money.”

The project findings ignited a movement.

From 1986 to 1991, there was a 5 percent national decline in student-teacher ratios, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In 2000, Congress approved $1.6 billion to help school districts hire extra teachers to reduce class sizes in grades 1-3 to a national average of 18 students, a trend lasting until the recession.

In 1999, Metro Nashville opened the first three of nine Enhanced Option schools, where 95 percent or more students come from low-income families and attend classes of no more than 15. None of the nine met test score goals last year in reading, and six also missed in math.

The district operates six other schools not labeled Enhanced Option but with where classes are kept small. The effort requires 66 extra teachers at a cost of about $3.69 million.

“One of the main components for them is having the lower class size, so I don’t see this proposal having an effect on that,” Metro spokeswoman Olivia Brown said.

Metro hasn’t taken a position on whether it would use the flexibility at its other schools, she said.

Don Odom, assistant superintendent for curriculum at Rutherford County Schools, said he won’t support paying teachers bonuses to raise class sizes, especially for low-income students or those with disabilities or language barriers. Those students need more attention, he said.

But Sumner County Director of Schools Del Phillips said he supports it in some situations, such as when it could avert having to hire another teacher for new students who move in midyear. Teachers would likely be open to it, too, if they are able to help create salary criteria, he said.