The Hoover Institution's Eric Hanushek seeks a silver lining to California's budgetary clouds. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, he contends that this could be the time to free California from the costly "straitjacket" of class-size reduction and thereby free some resources for more effective achievement-boosting strategies. Hanushek explains, for example, that "the difference in benefits gained from a good teacher (even in a large class) and a mediocre one (even in a small class) is far larger than any difference produced by class size." He believes that California would be smart to use its available education resources on such high-yield strategies as attracting better teachers, rather than placing fewer kids in every classroom.
"End the class-size straitjacket," by Eric Hanushek, The Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2003