Now, you may be right that a 0.04-0.12 standard deviation improvement is large within the field of educational interventions. All that proves is that the entire field of educational interventions has produced little/no gains.
This is how small 0.12 standard deviations is: http://imgur.com/BJDHc
You and the authors can attempt to spin that as something significant, but it doesn't contradict Patrick's original assertion. He claimed that smaller classes "do little, if anything, for education." You cited a source showing that they do little. You didn't contradict him.
Here is my citation, which shows that smaller classes "do little, if anything, for education": Spyros Konstantopoulos and Vicki Chun, What Are the Long-Term Effects of Small Classes on the Achievement Gap? Evidence from the Lasting Benefits Study, American Journal of Education 116, November 2009.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=research+class+size+student+achievement
I beleive that you are misreading the Konstantantopoulos and Chun if you think that it agrees with you. An achievement gain of that size in education is actually quite significant and both the abstract and text make this clear. To dismiss the fact that the study followed a third grade class for five years and showed improvement down the line by saying that "they don't even bother to look past grade 8" is more spin than reasoned analysis.
Once again, please provide the links to papers that show that smaller class sizes do not have a long-term positive impact on student performance. So far it seems you are much like the anti-CSR group I mentioned previously, all spin and bullshit. Prove me wrong.