This article originally appeared in The Detroit News June 5, 2025.
Is pouring money into smaller class sizes the answer to Michigan’s education crisis? Lawmakers seem to think so. They’ve proposed spending hikes as a way to reverse the downward performance trend in our public schools.
If only it were that simple.
In theory, reducing class size makes sense. With fewer students in the classroom, the teacher can give more personalized attention to them. More personalized attention should lead to improved student outcomes.
But in practice, it’s more complicated. Simply reducing the number of students on the class roster won’t improve student learning. And doing so is expensive.
As a former teacher, department chair and school administrator of nearly 20 years, I was accustomed to class sizes changing from one year to the next. It was not unusual for teachers to be assigned classes ranging from 10 students to 20 or more. The numbers fluctuated with annual changes in student enrollment and staffing. As a high school principal, I observed teachers adhering to the same tried and true practices, regardless of their class roster.
Sure, most teachers prefer smaller classes. I’m one of them. But if the goal is to improve student outcomes, placing a cap on class size isn’t the way to do it.
It is, however, certain to increase taxpayers’ costs. Hiring enough teachers and building more classrooms to accommodate smaller classes would cost billions. The state’s per pupil spending has increased by 35% in the past 10 years, while achievement has stagnated or declined, according to the Michigan Department of Education. Spending more to reduce class sizes would do nothing more than worsen this trend.
Besides being expensive, placing a cap on class size would dilute the quality of the teacher workforce. This happened in California after a class size law passed in 1996. It required districts to hire thousands of new teachers at a significant cost to taxpayers – and too many students were placed with lower-quality teachers.
Yet ensuring students learn from high-quality teachers is the best way to improve their academic outcomes. An effective teacher with 30 students will improve student learning more than a mediocre one with 20. In fact, the quality of a teacher influences student achievement more than any other factor within a school’s control – including class size.
If lawmakers are serious about improving our state’s public education system, they should work to improve teacher quality. They can do this in a few ways.
First, they can require districts to adopt a robust, evidence-based teacher evaluation system. An evaluation that incorporates objective and standardized student achievement data is the most accurate measure of a teacher’s performance. Unfortunately, the Legislature repealed the state’s rigorous evaluation system in 2023 and replaced it with a watered-down version. As a result, districts will struggle to distinguish the best teachers from the less effective ones.
Second, lawmakers can require districts to make job performance the top factor in making personnel decisions. Until recently, state law required districts to give significant weight to job performance when deciding where to place teachers, whom to lay off, and when to award merit pay. “Last in, first out” policies that prioritized seniority over quality were no longer permitted. But the law was repealed in 2023, allowing districts to revert to seniority-based personnel decisions that prioritize a teacher’s longevity over his or her impact on student learning.
Third, don’t allow teachers unions to negotiate policies that impact student learning. In 2011, labor reforms removed several subjects from collective bargaining, prohibiting unions from influencing certain personnel policies. School administrators had the authority to decide how to structure evaluations and classroom observations, with the goal of retaining and promoting the best teachers.
But the Legislature undid these and other reforms in 2023, allowing unions to bargain over subjects that impact the quality of education students receive. Instead of ensuring students learn from the best teachers, contracts now give priority to teachers with the most seniority – regardless of their effectiveness in the classroom.
If the goal of future education reforms is to improve student outcomes, policies that emphasize teacher quality – not class size – are how to achieve it. An effective teacher improves student learning, not because of the size of the class but because of the quality of the instruction.
Lawmakers serious about improving achievement must stop reversing good policy and pass laws that ensure students learn from the most effective teachers. Anything else will only increase the cost to taxpayers and maintain the status quo.
