For this week I went a researched more on my topic of why smaller class sizes in schools are important to children’s education. This week I decided to look into the laws that are put in place for class sizes in America and what evidence has been proven that have made this policy’s possible. 

The first source I came across is Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach of the University of Colorado Boulder, National Education Policy Center. This article was produced in 2014 and is titled Does Class size Matter? Diane starts this article off by explaining how schools have changed in the last 30 years from stressful standardized testing to Common Core standards. Many of these things make school stressful and extremely overwhelming for students. Larger class sizes in schools make all of these changes in education even hard for students to be successful at. Many policymakers argued that a smaller class size does not matter towards a student’s education. Although many policymakers are under the impression that class sizes don't matter, research supports that children learn more and teachers are more effective in smaller class size environments. 

Do to the amount of research done that has proven large class sizes to negatively impact children’s education many policy recommendations have emerged. Some of these policy recommendations include that class sizes is important when determining students education and something that can only be determined by policy and that increasing class size will be harmful to the education of our youth. Low-income families are more impacted by the reduction of class sizes and that increasing class sizes will be most harmful to this population of students. Class sizes have been proven to impact test scores during a students education but also the their overall life outcome in years after research had been done. 

The second source I found was titled What are the Advantages to schools with small class sizes. This source states multiple different reasons as to why smaller class sizes in schools are important. Some of the advantages of smaller classes as stated in this source are higher test scores, less stress on educators, being able to tailor instructions easier, and less distractions and interruptions. It has been proven that test scores are usually higher in classes that have 20 or less students per class. Teachers are already very busy as it is even if they don't have a huge classroom. The teachers that do have 25+ students in their classroom find it harder to find time to grade assignments or even time to help the kids who are struggling. When teachers have smaller classes it is easier to fix lessons plans based on what the students need or don't need to learn. It is also harder for instructors to keep their classrooms under control when there are a lot of students in one small class room and its hard for one adult to keep 20+ students under control at once. 

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