re: #511 iossarian

I agree up to a point. I think the “small class == better education” argument works in some cases (e.g., 40 students vs. 25 students to a class) but may break down somewhat at lower numbers (25 vs. 20 or 20 vs. 15), where the benefit of a smaller class might be outweighed by other factors (teacher time allocation, availability of “special” teachers, etc.).

If you’ve got a fixed budget, it may be that you’re better off paying teachers more, or giving teachers more prep time, or whatever, than simply going for the smallest possible class size.

But, of course, people voting Republican are not aiming to maximize educational outcomes - they’re aiming to reduce the cost of education so that they can keep more of their “hard-earned money”.

I agree with that. The problem is that many Republican candidates and voters seem to care about what you said below along with weakening public education and strengthening private schools via vouchers. I am not automatically opposed to vouchers for what it’s worth, however as a large majority of American schoolchildren attend public schools, we should be focused on making our schools a healthy learning environment and focus on public schools since after all our tax dollars fund them.