Ecole Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or the French School of Austin, provides preparatory education to international, American, and French students in preschool, elementary school, and middle school. One of the unique features of the French School of Austin, Ecole Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is the fact that it has small class sizes that promote hands-on involvement from bilingual teachers.
On average, class sizes in the United States range from about 23 students to almost 30 students depending on the state and the grade of students. For this reason, many states have introduced legislation that attempts to reduce classroom sizes to benefit students and teachers. However, it’s often debated how worthwhile such legislation would be, despite decades of research showing that smaller class sizes do improve student performance.
According to several studies, students in smaller classrooms outperform their peers on all assessments and in all subjects. In fact, they are usually one to two months ahead of students in larger classrooms in terms of their content knowledge. This benefit is seen regardless of whether students come from high- or low-income families, or whether they have been lower-achieving students during their time in school.
There are several reasons why this improvement occurs. Many people assume that it is because teachers with smaller class sizes are able to tailor their instruction more effectively to each student. While this does play a role, teachers don’t automatically change their behavior just because their class size is smaller; they need to be trained before their teaching habits change.
Smaller classes may also improve student performance because students in such settings are shown to behave better in class. This lets individual students, and the class as a whole, learn more efficiently.
