I think one of the folks quoted in the article was spot on when he commented that smaller classes are popular because they"re obvious and tangible”; either it happened or it didn’t.  Then you add in massive publicity from the teacher unions pushing for more jobs and the whole thing becomes almost absurd.

The one isue that never seems to come up is what should be considered a reasonable workload for a professionally-tranined and competent teacher.  Why shouldn’t she/he be perfectly capable of teaching a class of more then 20 or 21 or 22 kids.

Then there’s the issue of determining the opportunity cost of cutting class size to some artificial level.  That is bound the have an impact on what’s available to pay for everything else…What won’t kids be getting?

The problem, I think, is that just about nobody says hold on a minute when the “smaller is better” crowd go into action and asks if that’s actually true.

In the comment section, there is a link that confirmed what I was thinking about on class size.

“As this review demonstrates, establishing an appropriate class size is, at the very least, a balancing act between contemporary fiscal realities and children’s developmental needs, which vary considerably depending upon their life circumstances and social advantages or disadvantages. Indeed, the matter assumes even greater complexity when we consider the relationship between class size and educational equity. This is the central focus of this review.

http://www.equitycampaign.org/i/a/document/6863_Ready_Class_Size_Research_Review.pdf

With the increase direction toward inclusive classrooms,  money would be better spent on improve instruction and teaching training, and not on reducing class sizes.