edited by Lawrence Mishel and Richard Rothstein, Economic Policy Institute
2002
In 1996, California launched an ambitious $8 billion initiative to reduce class size in that state's elementary schools. According to Education Week, "some 40 states have such initiatives, and federal money for class-size reduction is available as well." Is this a good use of resources? It is this essential question that the economists Eric Hanushek and Alan Krueger tangle over in "The Class Size Debate." Hanushek contends that investments in reducing class size are not an efficient use of public resources. He uses data from more than 50 studies to conclude that, "Despite the political popularity of overall class size reduction, the scientific support of such policies is weak to nonexistent. The existing evidence suggests that any effects of overall class size reduction policies will be small and very expensive." Krueger turns Hanushek's findings on their head arguing that, "when the various studies in Hanushek's sample are accorded equal weight, class size is systematically related to student performance (italics belong to Krueger), even using Hanushek's classification of the estimates-which in some cases appears to be problematic." In other words, applying different methodologies to the same data, Krueger comes up with opposite results. Much of the book is made up of statistical equations and tables showing why one side is right and the other is flawed. The reader is left to form his own conclusions. But who ever said that economics is an exact science? Editors Mishel and Rothstein try, in their introduction, to find "points of consensus" between the two camps. The middle ground they identify appears to us closer to Hanushek's conclusions than to Krueger's. To dig into this debate, go to http://www.epinet.org/.
