Cleveland school leaders promised students across the district would gain opportunities as they shuttered their schools.
As they pushed last year to close and merge schools, CMSD pledged to expand access to algebra in 8th grade and to college-level courses, all while keeping class sizes manageable. Closing 18 schools and cutting hundreds of jobs would be painful, CEO Warren Morgan said frequently, but it would help the district give students what they deserved.
Now, a few months into the school year, early data offers a first look at how those promises of the plan, called Building Brighter Futures, are playing out.
Records obtained by Signal Cleveland show more students are taking algebra in middle school and courses that offer college credit in high school. Average class sizes across the Cleveland Metropolitan School District have stayed steady or declined slightly.
The numbers tell only part of the story, though. Students and teachers at some merged high schools describe disrupted relationships, more fights and fewer adults available to help. The district hasn’t released data on safety or assaults yet. And understanding the long-term impacts of the changes on student success will likely take years.
More CMSD students taking advanced classes
The promise CMSD made: More students would have the opportunity to take algebra in eighth grade and college-level classes in high school.
What the data shows: More seventh and eighth grade students are taking algebra this year, and more students are enrolled in classes that give college credit.
Last year, the percentage of seventh and eighth grade students enrolled in algebra across the district was 1.9%. Now, it’s 11% of students. Similarly, there was a 20% increase in enrollment in Advanced Placement courses and a 16% increase in enrollment in College Credit Plus classes through local colleges and universities.
What else matters: The ability to take advanced classes in high school and middle school has been linked to an increase in college attendance. But it’s also important that students are ready to take rigorous classes. It’s unclear whether CMSD will be able to prepare kids for these classes. We also won’t know until the spring how many students will pass the harder classes.
During a recent board of education meeting, leaders got a look at data that tracked a single class of CMSD students — the class of 2033, which is currently in the sixth grade. The numbers showed that around 18% of students scored proficient on a fall math test. That means many students would need extra help to be on track to take algebra in two years.
The research on offering the class earlier is also mixed, and some studies have found negative effects on math achievement when kids aren’t ready for the class. Other studies have found benefits, especially for Black students, who are much less likely to have access to the class in middle school.
Students didn’t leave the district in large numbers
The promise CMSD made: District leaders argued that the Building Brighter Futures plan would give families more reasons to stay by making its schools more competitive with charter and private schools – though they made no explicit promises about initial student retention.
What the data shows: Students didn’t leave the district in large numbers. Around 86% of students from last year returned, which Morgan said in his state of the schools address is similar to other years.
What else matters: The total number of students enrolled in the district did drop from around 32,697 students last October to 30,438 this October, which is in line with estimates that the district would continue to shrink due to declining birth rates and other factors.
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Class sizes have stayed roughly the same
The promise CMSD made: District leaders promised they wouldn’t overcrowd classrooms and would stick to the class sizes outlined in the union contract.
What the data shows: The average class size across the district has remained largely the same, and most elementary school classrooms are below the limits outlined in the union contract.
At the high school level, the average class size went from 18 students last year to 17.76 students this year. Those counts exclude the School of One programs, which are smaller, non-traditional schools that provide an alternative pathway to graduation.
Similarly, at K-8 schools, the average class size stayed roughly the same at around 18 students. This year there are also fewer K-8 classrooms that exceed the contractual limits. Last year, 107 elementary school classrooms exceeded that number, but this year only 54 did.
What else matters: The data shared by CMSD excludes the classrooms that solely serve students with special education needs, which are often small and serve multiple grade levels.
At the high school level, students aren’t assigned to a single classroom and take many classes throughout the day, so the district provided the average class size at each high school and then Signal Cleveland averaged those across the district. But the average classroom sizes provided could be skewed, in either direction, by scheduling quirks such as a single student’s College Credit Plus class counting as a classroom with only one student enrolled.
Averages also can’t capture how often the district is exceeding the limit, set by the union contract, of 30 students to a high school classroom or communicate if certain subjects and grade levels have overcrowded classes. Teachers at some high schools have told Signal Cleveland that they have multiple sections this year with 30 or more students.
That includes, for example, Sarah Spinelli, who teaches ninth graders at James Ford Rhodes High School where all but one of her classes exceed the school’s average class size of 20 students.
At the beginning of this school year, two of the six sections she teaches exceeded the limit at 34 students and 33 students each. Since then the two sections have shrunk to 31 students each as students have transferred, but with lots of students who need support, larger classes can be a challenge, she said.
“I just feel like if I was in a position of power, I would really prioritize adequate class sizes,” Spinelli told Signal Cleveland. “The data shows what is going to help a kid more than any printed textbook, any curriculum, is having a small classroom where they can learn.”
Cleveland Teachers Union President Errol Savage told Signal Cleveland he was surprised to hear average course sizes were so low based on what he’s been hearing from teachers. But, he said, the union doesn’t have access to overall data on class size beyond what the district has shared.
