Chapter Two: Teresa
DeBrito
Perhaps the best-known study of the
effects of class reduction was the
Project STAR (Student-Teacher
Achievement Ratio) in Tennessee in the
1980s. STAR took six thousand children
and randomly assigned them to either a
small or a large class and then followed
them throughout elementary school. The
study showed that the children in the
smaller classes outperformed those
children in the larger classes by a small
but meaningful degree. The countries and
U.S. states that subsequently spent