With State Budget Crunch, Class Size Movement Takes the Backburner

April 14, 2003 With State Budget Crunch, Class Size Movement Takes the Backburner In the 1990s, all across the country, particularly in California, class-size initiatives to reduce the student-to-teacher ratio were popular with the public and were generously funded by states and federal government. Unfortunately, with the reality of shrinking state budgets, class-size initiatives are on the top of the list of education initiatives to get cut. During the economic surplus conditions of the Clinton administration, the federal government pledged $12 billion to class-size initiatives. Before these initiatives, the average class size nationally was approximately . . .