| | | This paper provides a long-term follow-up of students who participated
in the Tennessee STAR experiment. The Tennessee STAR experiment randomly
assigned 11,600 elementary school students and their teachers to a small
class, a regular-size class or a regular-size class with a teacher-aide.
The experiment began with students who entered kindergarten in 1985, and
lasted for four years. After third grade, all students returned to regular-size
classes. We analyze the effect of past attendance in a small class on
standardized test scores through the eighth grade, on whether students
took the ACT or SAT college entrance exam, and on how they performed on
the ACT or SAT exam. The results suggest that attending a small class
in the early grades is associated with somewhat higher performance on
standardized tests, and an increase in the likelihood that students take
a college-entrance exam, especially among minority students. Most significantly,
being assigned to a small class appears to have narrowed the black-white
gap in college-test taking by 54 percent. |