Class Sizes - The Why is the Most Important Question

While the factual data described in the Detroit News recent series on school class sizes (Michigan school districts pack kids into classrooms as reading scores falter, Detroit News, April 15, 2025) may be a shock to some, but it isn’t to parents. This phenomenon is not new, and it’s not caused by a lack of funding.

I was a member of the Northville School Board for over eight years. At meetings to discuss spending, we would often convert the request into an equivalent number of teachers—would we rather have new desks for an elementary school, or four new kindergarten teachers? Schools do not have unlimited money, or a method to raise revenue other than attracting new students. So choices have to be made.

Yet many schools, even my district, have instead made outrageous decisions over the past few years. The number of school administrators and staff have skyrocketed while overall public school enrollment is flat to down. Covid funds were wasted, with no transparency on how money was spent. Schools wasted money on DEI coordinators and other educational fads. School boards, mostly elected with the support of teachers unions, are now shocked to find out the people who elected them want more pay and better benefits. And the same Democrats elected to the state legislature and Governor’s office rolled back education reforms, including prohibited subjects of bargaining and best practices funding, which increased costs with no educational benefit.

The implication in the article, that recent drops in educational performance are somehow caused by overcrowded classrooms, is not supported by data or experience. Yes, class sizes are too big, but they have been for decades. No, it’s not caused by a “lack of funding.” When the Governor commissioned the School Finance Research Collaborative, they recommended a major increase in funding, yet specifically excluded teacher headcount, teacher salaries or unfunded pensions and benefits. Schools took their findings to heart, and loaded up on non-educational staff. Did that yield better results? Clearly not.

Districts can and should lower class sizes. That requires strict discipline and focus on spending, which they, along with most over governmental entities, do not have in their nature. Perhaps Lansing will force them to learn. If not, parents will continue to vote with their feet, and move their children to private schools and charters at best, or at worst to other states. The market will have its say, one way or another.