It surprises me that a professor could make such wild generalisations about the relation between class size and performance, as if class size was the only possible explanation for performance (and his claim that performance has declined is itself a gross generalisation).

There is very good evidence that reducing class size has a positive effect on learning, including some of the most rigorous studies in the US state of Tennessee. However, class size alone is not the only factor influencing learning outcomes.

It is of course very possible to question the effectiveness of education spending on particular policies, but class size is not one of them.

So true Scott. The only thing that smaller class sizes does, is make the ride easier for the lazier teachers.

I & my class mates, knew a damn site more at ten, coming from class sizes of over 40 at Townsville central state, than any of my kids did at the same age, having never been in a class of more than 24. In fact if we had not stepped in, one of our kids would have learnt nothing in his first 2 years.

About 15% of the teachers they had experienced could not have succeeded with a class of one.

The teachers union will continue to have zero credibility until they start to weed out the incompetents & hopeless in their midst, rather than protecting them.

I sent a letter to the editor when this article appeared in The Australian. It was not published, just as every other letter I have sent in pointing out the absurdity of the supposed “44 per cent increase in expenditure” claim has not been published:

‘4/7/2012

‘Scott Prasser’s claim that education spending increased by 44 per cent (“AEU blitz a class in bully tactics”, 4/7) is not backed by the official figures.

‘The National Reports on Schooling in Australia show that government spending per student in Australia was $8,115 in 1999-2000 ($11,731 in 2012 dollars) and $13,544 in 2008-09 ($14,637 in 2012 dollars). That is a real increase of only 24.7 per cent, about half the Grattan Institute’s thoughtlessly repeated 44 per cent.

‘The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports a real increase in per capita GDP over the ten years from 1998-99 to 2008-09 of 24.4 per cent. The relevance of this is that the salaries of teachers have to keep up to some extent with the general living standards of the population as a whole. Does anyone really think we would attract able people to teaching and retain them if that 24.7 per cent increase in education spending had not occurred and, as a consequence, the top Victorian teacher salary was now only $67,406 and the beginning salary was now only $45,696?

‘Professor Prasser is also misleading on class sizes; e.g., while the average Victorian secondary class size did improve from 22.7 students in 1999 to 21.4 students in 2011, that improvement left it behind the 20 students it was in 1992. The secondary pupil teacher ratio, at 11.8:1, is way behind the 10.9:1 it was way back in 1981.

‘Finally, the Australian students who sat their PISA tests in 2009 did not benefit from the 24.7 per cent increase in expenditure for all of their ten years in school, but for the last one only.’

Chris C writes

'Does anyone really think we would attract able people to teaching and retain them if that 24.7 per cent increase in education spending had not occurred and, as a consequence, the top Victorian teacher salary was now only $67,406 and the beginning salary was now only $45,696?'

Someone has it very wrong. Victorian teachers salaries range from 56,900 for a graduate to 91,883 for LT 3

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/hrweb/Documents/Teacher_salary_rates.pdf

Pretty good money for the hours most teacher work.

The Gonksi report is an excellent and comprehensive study of current funding systems in Australian education. It has its faults, but they are not the ones you get to read about in the press. Its two major faults are its reliance on so-called high-performance reference schools to determine the costs of education and its continuation of the Howard government’s dreadful SES system, as I explain in my paper, Implementing Gonski (reproduced at http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/576719.aspx). That link also lists all 28 unpublished letters sent to The Age on the topic of school funding and the three unpublished letters sent recently to The Australian pointing out that the flaws in the 44 per cent argument. Luckily we now have the web and more people can learn the facts that are not published in the daily press.

Union-bashers still have an opportunity to get stuck into the federal AEU. That attack should be about its failure to even propose a staffing formula, an actual funding system or a specific funding amount in its initial submission or in its follow-up submission to the funding review. My posts at http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3844502.html explain in more detail where the federal AEU went wrong. As attacks on the AEU are really disguised attacks on teachers, the union-bashers will pass up this opportunity.

runner,

Read what I have written. The LT3 salary is for a promotion position, not a classroom teacher. The figures I give are what the salaries would be if the 24.7 per cent increase in real per student expenditure had not occurred and as a result teacher salaries had not increase in real terms buy that amount.

Teachers work over 50 hours a week. As staffing in Victorian secondary schools has reduced and consequently class sizes have increased over the last few decades, teachers must be working longer hours now than they did in the past, yet their salaries have fallen compared with what they were relatively speaking in the past, which means less able people are attracted to teaching. If you are interested in facts, or even if you’re not, can find lots of them at http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/449991.aspx?PageIndex=31.

Intelligent societies support and encourage their teachers. Dumb ones take every opportunity possible to denigrate them and drive good people out of the profession.

Hasbeen, you have a very valid point - and one that is backed up by evidence that could have been cited in this article.

Class sizes ALONE make very little difference (check out what John Hattie's broad research has revealed on the matter) - but smaller classes do have potential to enhance learning. The problem is that many teachers have continued to do with their small classes the same things they did with their bigger classes. I teach a remedial class of eleven students, and have helped them to develop their skills and achieve at a higher level than they did in larger classes where they were 'lost in the crowd'. I don't pretend to be a better teacher than my predecessors, but I certainly don't employ the same teaching methods I use with classes of twenty-seven or thereabouts. The key here (in my opinion) is that employers have come to the party by providing opportunities for reduced class sizes. Teachers need to meet that commitment by adapting their pedagogy to take full advantage of the opportunity given to them.