Class size is the same class of intellectual disease as is global warming. It can’t be proven empirically but there are numerous ‘studies’ by interest groups touting its important.
And both could be solved by the same easy method - simply ignore them and they will go away.
No small classroom with a stupid teacher is better than a large classroom with a teacher who can read, write and perform mathematics equations (or could spell ‘mathematical equations’). Until we can test teachers, we should be completely uninterested in the size of the class they teach other than to invite the fear of how much damage a bad teacher could do to a large classroom.
I’m in my early 60s- none of my classrooms contained fewer than 35 students, in high school we had trailers to hold the overflow, non-airconditioned, in Florida - and we all managed to learn what we were taught and to go on to the next grade. In those days, you were actually held back if you did not make passing grades (what a great concept!)
In one state, the schools were so crowded that my class was bussed to one elementary school, then bussed to a fire station where we attended school with a wonderful teacher named (I still remember her well) Mrs. Kitchen - at noon we walked several blocks to another elementary school for lunch.
We had no textbooks due to the large number of students. We worked with mimeographed workbook sheets.
All of us learned and went on to the next grade - and no parent thought to complain about the class sizes or lack of amenities.
Of course, the teachers could actually exercise control over the classroom. The year I went to school in the fire house, when we misbehaved, Mrs. Kitchen sent us to the firemen’s kitchen (they lived in the building, and actually used a firepole when the sirens went off - very cool).
WHen I hear parents & students complaining, I wish they all had to go to high school in a converted tobacco warehouse in Izmir, Turkey, where we had very few amenities.
There is an excuse for every student who does not care to do the work - and I am sick and tired of hearing them.