Mike reported yesterday on Arne Duncan's ?red-hot? speech at AEI and his borrowing heavily from Stretching the School Dollar.
Today, we begin to get a peek at the realities in the trenches as the Times reports that despite a ?landmark? agreement three years ago to lower class sizes in Gotham, the numbers are going in the other direction.
The obvious reason is lack of money. The Times story marches through the hand-wringing from administrators, union leaders, and parents before getting to Dan Goldhaber, director of the Center for Education Data and Research at the University of Washington,?who pours the proverbial cold water on the class size fires.
Goldhaber?tells the Times that ?the effects of class size, if they exist, are small, and class size is really expensive.?? Goldhaber explains that class size reduction may even cause some harm, as the Times says, ?as many sub-par teachers were quickly hired to fulfill the mandate, and many well-qualified teachers left poorer urban schools for new slots elsewhere.?
We can expect more of this.
?Peter Meyer, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow
