March 6, 2009

Class Size Matters, but Not in the Way You Think

To the Editor:

In their commentary "It's Not All About Class Size" (The Chronicle, January 30), Stephen J. Ceci and Spyros Konstantopoulos argue that reducing class size increases test-score variability in the Tennessee Student Teacher Achievement Ratio class-size experiment, and that this may lead to a "widening of the achievement gap between rich and poor students, and between minority and nonminority students."

They are correct about the theoretical possibility of widening