Should we have smaller classes?

The big question in the debate on class sizes is not whether smaller classes produce better academic results - the answer to that is, “of course they do” - a more pertinent question is, “by how much?”

The deputy director of education at the Institute of Education in London concludes that better teaching methods will give a better return simply because we cannot recruit enough teachers of suitable quality.

So perhaps we should recruit as many good teachers as possible, weed out those who don't perform, and then support them in every way possible.