(From American Teacher, April 1998)

A report on Milwaukee's much-debated voucher program further boosts the case for small classes. Princeton researcher Cecilia Rouse, in a study published in December 1997, looked at the achievement of Milwaukee voucher students and students in three types of Milwaukee public schools: regular schools, magnet schools and "P-5" schools. The last group--serving predominantly minority and extremely disadvantaged students--receives supplemental state funding that has allowed them to cut pupil-teacher ratios to about 17-1.

It turns out, Rouse reports, that students in the P-5 schools make "substantially faster gains in reading" than their counterparts in all the other types of schools. The P-5 students also made faster gains in math than students in both the regular public schools and the magnet schools and the same gains as the voucher students.

"This should make the people who talk about using vouchers to 'save' a few poor students--by sending them to private schools with small classes--stop to think," said AFT president Sandra Feldman writes in a March 1998 "Where We Stand" column. "Reducing class size could help districts get these good results for all of their children, not just a few."

Rouse ends her papers with some useful advice for policy makers" "If we really want to 'fix' our educational system, we need a better understanding of what makes a school successful, and not simply assume market forces explain sectoral differences and are therefore the magic solution for public education."