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Letter: Walker closing plan ‘penny wise and pound foolish’

Editor, Gazette-Journal:

State funding cuts have initiated a move to shut down T.C. Walker Elementary School. This plan is penny wise and pound foolish. Research of smaller class sizes shows such classes result in more learning, less retention, and closes the achievement gap among students of various backgrounds, abilities and economic means.

One of the most credible and familiar of the studies supporting these findings is Tennessee’s Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project, lasting from 1989 through 2006. This longitudinal class size study involved students in kindergarten through third grade and provided important information about class-size effects on pupil achievement and development. Project STAR demonstrated that small classes provided higher student outcomes and better student behaviors than either regular or regular-with-aide classes. In addition, students demonstrated higher reading and math skills, completed more advanced courses, and completed high scho...

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