With degrees in classics and Latin, EMU College of Education Professor Charles Achilles seems an unlikely champion of little children.

Dr. Achilles could have marched away from elementary school kids struggling to learn ABCs and 123s. Instead, during more than 45 years in education, his driving passion catapulted him to the forefront of international debates about the effects of elementary school class-size reduction.

"He could have been an expert in countless other fields, but his passion of all things is advancing the lives of 4-year-olds to 8-year-olds," said Mark Sharp, an assistant principal at Howell High School and a former EMU doctoral fellow who worked with Dr. Achilles. "I give him credit for it. It's been a battle, because the politics of this issue were – and still are – incredible."

Dr. Achilles' clear-eyed research and forceful rhetoric in more than 400 professional publications have placed him among the world's leading experts on the often misunderstood issue. Additionally, his influence has extended to EMU's College of Education, where doctoral students under the guidance of Dr. Achilles and other professors have contributed work showing the benefits of small class size in early grades.

"He is so passionate about it, and that has encouraged our doctoral students to continue investigating this area from various interesting aspects," said EMU Professor William Price, Dr. Achilles' colleague in the Department of Leadership and Counseling.

Named a "living legend" in 2001 by the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration, Dr. Achilles will wrap up 13 years of teaching part-time at EMU in December. "He's internationally known in his field; he's a prolific writer and researcher; he's been a strong mentor to students, so he will be missed," Dr. Price said.

Current and former doctoral students agreed.

Deborah Clarke, superintendent of Buena Vista School District in Saginaw, Mich., is finishing her class size-related dissertation this fall, guided by Dr. Achilles and "his strong research base and his knowledge, his ability to deeply look at an issue through a number of lenses and to be open to any and all options, but to be invested in finding the right answer and doing what's best for kids."

"He inspired something different in every person he encountered," added Dr. Sharp. "It's going to be hard to replace him."

Thought-provoking research possibilities drew Dr. Achilles, 70, to study class size and its impact on students' learning, on crowding and on classroom air quality. "It's exciting because every year we discover something new," Dr. Achilles said in a telephone interview from his home in Geneva, New York.
The results of that research transformed the issue from an interest to a mission.
"No study in any nation where they've reduced class sizes has ever shown anything but extraordinarily positive results," Dr. Achilles said.

The title of his 1999 book, "Let's Put Kids First, Finally: Getting Class Size Right" (Corwin Press), says it all. Dr. Achilles' position is unequivocal: that youngsters should be taught in classes of no more than 17 students starting in kindergarten and continuing through third grade. The benefits are so wide-ranging and longlasting that class-size reduction should be a cornerstone of education reform nationwide, Dr. Achilles asserts.

"The research shows it so strongly," he said. "Small class size is preventive and not remedial. You don't play catch-up in this game."

Dr. Achilles earned all of his college degrees from the University of Rochester in New York, accumulating an A.B. in classics, a master of arts in education and Latin, and educational specialist (Ed.S.) and doctor of education (Ed.D.) degrees in education administration between 1953 and 1967. He taught in grades 7-12 before shifting to what would become his life's work: research, writing, policy development and higher education. He has contributed research in areas ranging from teen pregnancy, to institutionalized kids, effective schools and teacher-student communications.

He first became active in class-size research in 1982 during a 22-year career as a professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. However, his passion took root from 1985 to 1989 while he served as one of four principal investigators for Tennessee's ambitious Project STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio), the largest longitudinal, experimental design study ever conducted in education.

The STAR experiment involved nearly 12,000 Tennessee students randomly assigned to small classes (13-17), full-size classes (22-25) or full-size classes with a full-time teacher aide. Students remained in classes of the same size through third grade, with teachers randomly assigned each year. The experiment ended when students reached fourth grade, although data were collected on them through middle school. Later studies gathered high school transcripts on the students for long-range analysis.

"One of the myths about reducing class size was that it only works for a short time, and STAR destroyed that myth," Dr. Achilles said.

Students from the small classes outperformed their larger-class counterparts in every subject from kindergarten through eighth grade. Later studies showed students from the small classes were less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to take advanced high school courses and college entrance exams. Benefits of small classes were greatest for students who were economically disadvantaged, eliminating socioeconomic differences in student performance.
Countless other, smaller, non-experimental studies in districts around the country have drawn similar conclusions.

"When you're in a classroom with 18 kids, there's a tremendous sense of energy," Dr. Achilles said. "Students are engaged, they're connected with the teacher. You don't see as much bad behavior. It's not a quiet room; it's a busy room, and it's fun to watch."

The results of STAR led some states and school districts to implement class-size reduction in the early 1990s, notably in Wisconsin, California and parts of the South. Yet despite the clarity of research on the topic, smaller K-3 class sizes have not become the norm nationwide.

One reason for reluctance among school administrators and parents is fear of cost, Dr. Achilles said. But budgetary constraints need not be a stumbling block as many creative districts have shown, he added.

"We can afford small classes in those first four years," Dr. Achilles said. "It shouldn't cost any more than we're spending now."

Policy leaders and school administrators must be willing to re-examine how money is spent, he said. For example, federal Title I money targeting schools with large populations of students from low-income families often is used to hire professionals who remove low-achieving students from the classroom for small-group remediation.

Reassigning available teaching positions to a K-3 classroom is one way to achieve small class sizes without hiring new people, he said. With fewer students, classroom teachers can address students' individual needs without so-called pullout programs.

"There is a coherence to the lesson that isn't broken up by kids running in and out of the classroom every day (for remediation)," Dr. Achilles said.
However, finding space to house a greater number of classes can be a big challenge. Creative solutions tried in some districts include reopening closed buildings, redesigning unused space in existing buildings and borrowing or leasing underused buildings from the community, which are then connected via closed-circuit television to the main school.

"Kindergarten and first-grade students don't need cafeterias, computer labs, libraries," Dr. Achilles said. "They need to be with a teacher and learn some basics."

Howell High School's Dr. Sharp, as part of his dissertation, demonstrated Dr. Achilles' point when asked by a small suburban Detroit school district to develop a K-3 class-size reduction plan within existing budget constraints.
"Looking at existing grants and reallocating other money, I showed them it could be done," Dr. Sharp said. "All in all, it's clear what we need to do if we really want to improve test scores and raise achievement levels. Nationally, we need small class sizes in K-3 and all-day everyday kindergarten."

Another aspect of Dr. Sharp's dissertation clarified the difference between pupil-teacher ratio and average class size, a common point of confusion in the national debates over class-size reduction. Because the pupil-teacher ratio nationally has fallen to approximately 15:1 over the past few decades, opponents of class-size reduction use it to argue that smaller classes do not affect student achievement.

However, pupil-teacher ratio includes all certificated personnel – and often other adults – at a school site and divides that into the total student population. Average class size only considers the number of students in each regular teacher's classroom to create average numbers of students per teacher for each grade level.

Dr. Sharp's dissertation quantified the difference between pupil-teacher ratio and average class size at about 10 students. In other words, a school with a pupil-teacher ratio of 15:1 has actual class sizes of 25:1. Dr. Sharp's work is now widely quoted among advocates for change.

"Policy makers and critics of reduced class sizes were advancing their arguments by using these terms incorrectly," Dr. Sharp said.

It's no accident that Dr. Achilles – a sought-after speaker and consultant on the class-size topic all over the world – has inspired several EMU doctoral students to study the issue from new angles, said Dr. Price, a 30-year education veteran who has taught and guided dissertations at EMU for 15 years. "He's so passionate about it," Dr. Price said. "It's an area where we know from empirical evidence what can be done to significantly improve student achievement."

At least eight EMU dissertations have been completed or are under way that relate to class size and its effects on learning, examining subjects from student behavior to classroom air quality. Buena Vista's Clarke has gathered data for her dissertation-in-progress addressing whether small K-3 class sizes can extend the benefits of Head Start, the federal preschool program for low-income children.

Benjamin Edmondson, principal of Ann Arbor Public Schools' Scarlett Middle School, conducted research for his 2004 dissertation in part comparing the performance of African-American and white students in small and large kindergarten classes. Dr. Edmondson used STAR data to show a dramatic narrowing of the gap in reading test scores between African-American and white students in the smaller classes.

"People make all sorts of excuses why we can't have smaller class sizes," Dr. Edmondson said. "They'll say we can't afford it, or it won't work here. They'll look at it like it's not science, like it's not definitive. They'll say class size alone doesn't impact the achievement gap. Well, I'm a practitioner. I use research, and I can say, 'Yes, it works.'"

Dr. Edmondson's dissertation earned two awards, one for Outstanding Research Presentation at EMU's spring 2005 Graduate Research Fair and another for Outstand-ing Dissertation from the International Society of Educational Planning.

Working with Dr. Achilles has been a life-changing experience, because he pushes his students hard to make teaching a profession, Dr. Edmondson said. "The first time I took Chuck's class, it was the first day, and he said, 'How many of you are teachers?' And people raised their hands. Then he said, 'How many of you assign homework?' People raised their hands. Then he said, 'What does the research say about homework?' And nobody in the class knew. I was so humbled, but it felt good. I knew this was someone who was going to challenge me."

Lynette Sutton, an assistant superintendent in the Taylor (Mich.) School District, received her doctorate from EMU in 2000 after completing a dissertation, directed by Dr. Price, comparing student behavior in small and large classes. She was amazed at Dr. Achilles' ability to refer to articles and research from memory despite his less-than-organized office.

"He could pull an article out of a cardboard box at a moment's notice," Dr. Sutton said. "A couple of us used to joke that we were going to get him plastic filing boxes, because the cardboard ones were kind of raggedy. But he could find anything. His mind is like a steel trap."

Dr. Sharp called him "brilliant."

"If you ever had a question, he could quote you an article, the author, the date," Dr. Sharp said. "His memory is phenomenal. You'd talk with him and then two days later you'd get a package in the mail full of articles. He was always helping."

Dr. Achilles said he planned to stay at EMU for only two years when he was lured to the part-time job in 1994 by former College of Education Dean Jerry Robbins, who wanted help "developing a research mentality" among students.

"I was already retired when Jerry called me at home and asked me to come," he said.

After leaving EMU in December, Achilles plans to continue teaching part-time at Seton Hall University in New Jersey and to focus more time on writing.
"He's an interesting guy, a heck of a storyteller," Dr. Sharp said. "He's been everywhere, seen everything and been on every committee. His network is incredible. The guy will never retire."