New British research suggests that there “is no evidence that children in smaller primary classes do better in maths or English”.
Via Sam Smith, who points out that small schools, on the other hand, are another matter entirely.
Yet California continues to fund class-size reduction to the tune of over a billion dollars per year while ignoring the benefits of smaller schools. California’s modest goals–classes of 20 students in grades K-3–may help account for its very limited success with CSR, but greater reductions (research suggests that 12-15 is a better target) would be correspondingly more expensive, as would expanding the program to higher grades.