David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

those intimate classrooms. Virtually
everywhere in the world, parents and
policymakers take it for granted that
smaller classes are better classes. In the
past few years, the governments of the
United States, Britain, Holland, Canada,
Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, and
China—to name just a few—have all
taken major steps to reduce the size of
their classes. When the governor of
California announced sweeping plans to
reduce the size of his state’s classes, his
popularity doubled within three weeks.
Inside of a month, twenty other
governors had announced plans to
follow suit, and within a month and a
half, the White House announced class-
size reduction plans of its own. To this