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Last week I wrote about the impact that the economic recession has had on personnel, as determined by the American Association of School Administrators’ survey Surviving a Thousand Cuts: America's Public Schools and the Recession.

And it’s bad. 34% of respondents anticipate furloughs in 2011. 66% anticipate layoffs. But in the nature of education debates, those are very “adult” concerns. Lest anyone get confused that I am not putting “students first,” let me draw attention to a few of the survey’s other findings.

• 57% increased class size for the 2010-11 school year, while 65% anticipate doing so in 2011-12
• 27% eliminated summer school programs for the 2010-11 school year, while 40% anticipate doing so in 2011-12
• 17% reduced collaborative planning time within the school day for the 2010-11 school year, while 26% anticipate doing so in 2011-12

What does this mean?

Well, research has shown that students in grades K-3 who are put in smaller classes, with a maximum of 15-18 students, perform better than students in larger classes on standardized reading and mathematics tests – and the performance gap widens for each year (K-3) they are in a small class. These benefits are lasting. And minority students often experience even greater gains than white students when in small classes. See the Center for Public Education’s review of the research on class size and student achievement for citations. But in other words: Small classes can help close the gap.

Research has also shown the importance of summer school. All students lose math skills during the summer, and some lose reading skills. Back in 2007, one study found that two-thirds of the gap that exists in the reading achievement of low and high socioeconomic 9th graders could be traced to their summers. So if we are serious about closing the gap, wouldn’t it make more sense to expand summer school, not eliminate it?

And multiple studies have shown us the importance of teacher collaboration, which has been shown over and over to be correlated with higher levels of academic achievement. Most teachers and principals believe that creating environments in which staff work together more would improve their student achievement. And turnaround story after turnaround story speaks to the importance of collaboration in improving struggling schools. So why are more than a quarter of schools looking to cut it next year?

Money, of course. Education budgets - as all budgets - are being slashed across the country.

But at this point in time, when we as a nation are concerned about our performance on the world stage and when research is starting to give us some guidance on what we can do to improve our students’ achievement, is education really the place to cut?

Photo from the Deutsche Fotothek