‘A focus on reducing class size is the biggest dead end in the world' ...

COLLINGWOOD, ONT.— Smaller class sizes are “ludicrous” and a waste of money, according to best selling author Malcolm Gladwell.

"Everything the world has learned about education shows that the quality of the teacher is the most important factor in a student's success", Gladwell said. “I know that from time to time there is a lot of interest in the power and importance of reducing class size but the data shows class size is the biggest dead end in the world". .
“Even if you were to cut every class in Ontario in half, you'd improve the performance of Ontario's schoolchildren by about 5 percentile points,” Gladwell said. But changing teacher quality has a “massive impact” on student outcome, he said. “If a child is unlucky enough to have a bad teacher three years in a row they will fall three years behind a child lucky enough to have a good teacher three years in a row.” The question is how do you improve the quality of teachers, Gladwell said. Raising academic requirements isn't the simple answer. Teaching is complicated in this modern world, he said. “We are asking them to play six, seven, eight different roles in the classroom. The best thing we can do for teachers is to simply let them teach. That requires a government that is activist ... that is not afraid to try something radically new,” he said.