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Conventional wisdom suggests that students perform better when they are enrolled in smaller classes. But new research and advoca

admin2015-03-25  63
问题     Conventional wisdom suggests that students perform better when they are enrolled in smaller classes. But new research and advocacy groups suggest that targeted resizing of classes—including increasing class sizes in certain subjects—can save districts money while minimally impacting student achievement.
    Education Resource Strategies(ERS)estimates that up to $6 billion could be saved nationally by increasing class sizes by just one student. A report released in May by the Brookings Institution states that the same move would reduce the number of teachers necessary by approximately 7 percent.
    Class-size legislation has remained an important political issue in many states. At least 24 states have enacted class-size laws that limit enrollment. Karen Miles, executive director of ERS, says these laws can hurt students in the long term. Important programs like teacher development classes and extracurricular activities have been cut in order to employ enough teachers to keep class sizes low, she says.
    Others, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, have come around to her way of thinking. In a letter to governors weighing state budget cuts, he wrote that states should use federal money in a way that would have the "greatest positive impact on students. " Among his suggestions were "targeted adjustments in class size, and compensation models that reward the best, most effective work. "
    Research shows that drastic class size reduction can improve student performance. The most widely cited research, the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio study conducted in the late 1980s, showed that when class sizes were reduced from 22 students to 15 students, student a-chievement increased by about three months of additional schooling. Subsequent studies have shown that slight increases or decreases in class size enrollment have negligible effects on student achievement.
    The May Brookings report says, " It appears that very large class-size reductions, on the order of magnitude of 7-10 fewer students per class, can have significant long-term effects on student achievement. These effects seem to be largest when introduced in the earliest grades, and for students from less advantaged family backgrounds. "
    Miles stresses that schools and districts need a strategy when it comes to changing class enrollment. If class sizes are increased, the money saved should be spent training effective teachers. She says schools should experiment with hiring part-time experts to teach reading in small groups. If there are three third-grade classes in a school, for instance, those classes could be combined for part of the day in classes such as art.
    Enrollment reductions should be focused on underprivileged students and young students, she adds. Better teacher evaluation systems need to be developed and implemented so that ineffective teachers can be held accountable for student performance, and effective teachers can be rewarded.
The second paragraph indicates that increasing class size
选项 A、is one way to save national economy.
B、will increase the number of teachers.
C、can bring some benefits to students.
D、is better than reducing it.
答案C
解析 推理判断题。根据题干提示定位至第二段。由第二段可知，增加班级人数不仅可以节省教育经费，而且可以减少所需教师的数量，这些都是增加班级人数所带来的好处，故[C]符合作者意图，同理排除[B]。由上述分析可知，增加班级人数节省的是教育经费，并不是可以挽救整个国家经济，[A]夸大事实；通读全文可知，增加和减少班级人数都是有利有弊的，因此作者提倡对班级进行有目标地重新调整(targeted resizing)，而不是为了比较增加和减少班级人数哪个好，故[D]不符合文意。
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