Bruce J. Biddle and David C. Berliner, WestEd
Winter 2002
The tag-team of Bruce J. Biddle and David C. Berliner is at it again, trying to settle the class-size dispute in favor of those who want to shrink the number of kids in a given classroom. It's published as a "policy perspective" by WestEd, the regional lab, but the fine print notes that Messrs. Biddle and Berliner supervise that whole series of reports. Although this one purports to be a meta-analysis, in fact, as the authors note, there's been only one true class-size reduction experiment of any scale or duration, the much-discussed Tennessee STAR venture. Everything else is either a "pilot" program or, as in California's massive class-size reduction effort, a universal policy. To their credit, they acknowledge that California's venture has worked badly, but they ascribe its problems to poor implementation and meager funding, not erroneous theory. They're obviously sold on the theory. They offer no alternative theories, such as the hypothesis (by Lakdawala and others) that America's fixation on smaller classes has more to do with compensating for WEAK teachers - and with the many powerful interests arrayed on behalf of MORE teachers. Nor do they mention the planet's many nations that have (by U.S. standards) huge classes but continue to best us in every international assessment. You can see for yourself at http://www.wested.org/online_pubs/small_classes.pdf.
