By Adam Pagnucco.
Previously, we reviewed County Executive Marc Elrich’s critique of how MCPS measures class size. The question is ripe for consideration because MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor is justifying his new recommended operating budget, which calls for a 5% spending increase despite falling enrollment, in part by claiming that it cuts class size in elementary schools. At stake is $35 million that Taylor has designated for new staffing standards to implement the reduction.
How well does MCPS measure class size?
MCPS measures many things. In financial terms, its statistics are guided by the Maryland State Department of Education’s Financial Reporting Manual for Maryland Public Schools. (This is required reading for anyone attempting to read MCPS’s budgets.) But take a look at the hundreds of pages in MCPS’s capital budget and operating budget and you won’t find any historical series of class size stats. It’s not like, for example, approved operating spending for which one final number appears in each succeeding year.
MCPS does in fact report several measures of class size but they don’t appear in its budgets. Instead, they are reported by school type and individual school as part of the district’s Schools at a Glance series. These two definitions of class size have remained unchanged since FY09.
Average Class Size— Elementary
The regular student enrollment in Kindergarten–Grade 5 divided by the number of attendance sections for each school.
Average Class Size—Secondary
The regular student enrollment divided by the number of classes, excluding special education, reported for two areas: English (required courses) and all other academic subjects (Non-Required English, ELD, Math, Science, Social Studies and World Languages).
Prior to FY09, average class size for elementary schools included Kindergarten through Grade 6.
Since FY03, Schools at a Glance has released these class size estimates by school type and individual school.
Kindergarten
Grades 1-3 (this was grades 1-2 before FY06)
Grades 4-5 (this was grades 3-5 before FY06)
Middle school English
Middle school other
High school English
High school other
As you can see, there is no one publicly reported number for all classes across the entire system for each year.
Recently, the county council began asking MCPS for regular class size reports. The document which can be downloaded below is one such report sent by the district to the council in February 2025. It’s filled with impenetrable gobbledy-gook but again contains no one unified number for class size.
So far, I have not located one systemwide estimate of class size from MCPS. We will start digging into what the existing data says next.