Oh, For Dumb

Matthew Yglesias on class size:

I don’t really think there’s a ton to be said about the class size issue—an effective teacher could be more effective at the margin on a per capita basis if she has fewer students, but an effective teacher could also teach more kids at the margin if she had more students.

Yes, she could unless, of course, at certain number of students the aforesaid teacher can no longer intereact with her students effectively and, go figure, the class becomes unruly or even worse, she loses sight of the fact that a student is lost in space. Had there been fewer she catches and teaching continues.

Unlike Yglesias and most educational reformers, like much saner Dana Goldstein who still gets the class size issue wrong, I've taught, talked to actual teachers, and read stuff by other teachers about teaching, as opposed to reading things by reformers about teaching, and practical experts agree size matters and smaller is better.

He really needs to stop talking about teaching.