One the surface, lowering class sizes from 25 or 30 to 15 or 17 seems like something all parents would want for their children. More individual attention from teachers and more personal interaction with classmates in less crowded classrooms are desirable goals. Research showing a correlation between student achievement and class size is controversial and inconclusive, but common sense seems to dictate that the more personal time given to a child, the more productive and happier that child should be. So both our governor and legislature have been advocating adding more teachers.
Parents are happy, teachers unions are happy, and colleges of education are happy.
Now I hate to sound cynical, but when everybody is that happy, something must be wrong. Teacher salaries are not the only costs of lowering class sizes. If my student population is 500 and class sizes are 25, I need 20 classrooms. If my student population is 500 and class sizes are 17, I need over nine more classrooms. More classrooms mean more maintenance, more teacher manuals, more globes, more classroom computers, more desks, more phones, more audio-visual equipment, and more administrative tasks.