Pacific Research Institute - Why More Class-Size Reduction is a Bad Idea

Excerpt: "A state-sponsored consortium of top research organizations analyzed the program and found no association between the total number of years a student had been in reduced size classes and differences in academic achievement.  Further, there's no evidence that CSR helps at upper grade levels."

American Legislative Exchange Council - Class Size

ALEC offers advice to policymakers on the issue of class size reduction (CSR), arguing that the focus should be on improving the quality of instruction, not on "imposing strict, arbitrary limitations on class size."

Hoover Institution - Crowd Control

Excerpt: "[The] evidence suggests that capable teachers are able to promote student learning equally well regardless of class size (at least within the range of variation that occurs naturally among grades). Less capable teachers, however, do not seem to be up to the job of teaching large classes."

School Reform News - Class-Size Reduction Brings Mixed Results

Excerpt: " California’s class-size reduction program did have consequences--unintended ones. Qualified teachers in urban areas fled to higher-performing schools in the suburbs, where class-size reduction meant new teaching positions opened up. Urban schools were faced with huge shortages of classroom space and qualified teachers. As a result, many less-experienced teachers were hired. Since student achievement tends to be more strongly correlated with teacher quality than with small class size, many urban students were actually worse off after the class-size reduction program took effect. "

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research - Smaller Classes Mean Less-Qualified Teachers

Excerpt: " When class size reduction has been applied on a large scale, any gains from having fewer students in each classroom seem to have been negated by the need to hire less qualified people in order to fill all those newly created teaching jobs. Only two things have been shown to result from large-scale class size reduction: less-qualified teachers and much higher education costs. Why pay more to get less?"