New Horizons for Learning: Transforming Education

Small Schools and The Issue of Scale: Executive Summary

by Pat Wasley

A new study, Small Schools: Great Strides, demonstrates that small schools help students to succeed. Researchers Patricia Wasley, Michelle Fine, Sherry King, Linda Powell, Nicole Holland, Robert Matt Gladden, and Esther Mosak report that small schools, particularly small high schools, help students to succeed. Small schools are seeing increased student achievement, decreased dropout rates, and lower levels of violence even among the most disadvantaged urban students. Additionally, small schools increase parent, community, teacher, and principal satisfaction with their schools. These findings are based on a two-year study of Chicago's small schools -- a strategy that other urban centers, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York among others, have underway.
This Bank Street College study, funded by the Joyce Foundation, focuses on small Chicago schools founded between 1990 and 1997 and tracks their progress through 1999. About 150 small schools were created in Chicago during this period. Small schools are defined in this study as elementary schools serving fewer than 350 students and high schools serving fewer than 400 students. The study's conclusions align closely with the work done by other researchers around the country, offering hope for those seeking to improve the quality and conditions in urban public schools. Among the most important findings are the following:

Student attachment, persistence, and performance are stronger in small schools. Students in these schools have better attendance rates, significantly lower dropout rates, and higher grade point averages than do students in larger schools. They also fail fewer courses and demonstrate increased persistence in progress toward graduation. In small elementary schools, fewer students are retained in the same grade than their larger host schools.

Improvement in standardized test scores are apparent. Reading scores have increased in small schools. In the best of the small schools, teachers are targeting reading as an area for their own skill-building. In other small schools, the average standardized test scores are holding steady, which is an improvement given that more students are taking the test.

Violence occurs less frequently in small schools. Small schools provide a remedy for much of the isolation and alienation, often associated with incidents of teen violence, which is found in very large schools. Students in small schools are known by teachers and peers. This increased sense of identity and community has lead to fewer incidences of violence. Students feel safer because the values of democratic citizenship are fostered and conflict management is exercised.

The conditions in small schools are more conducive to learning. In small schools, the intimate environment encourages learning. Teachers know their students well and have high expectations for them. Students employ critical thinking in their courses and teachers use a broader range of strategies to engage students.

Parents and community members are more satisfied with small schools. Small schools have greater involvement by parents, community members, and business leaders than larger schools. This increased involvement leads to increased satisfaction among parents and community members and a more productive working relationship with school staff.

The environment for teaching professional is better in small schools. Teachers in small schools are more likely to report a strong professional community and great job satisfaction. Teachers engage in more professional development, build coherent educational programs for students across grades and disciplines, create more focused learning environment for students and moderate their teaching strategies to fit students' needs. Teachers in small schools also are more likely to report that they feel creative, reinvigorated and recommitted to teaching, an important gain in light of the current national teacher shortage.

Small Schools: Great Strides includes the following key considerations for reformers:

Small schools need support from within and outside the system to flourish. In Chicago, the administration is dedicated to supporting the creation of small schools. CEO Paul Vallas has recently established a goal to create smaller schools. Further support is provided when schools are paired with external partners, providing resources and assistance that influence classroom practice and serve as a stabilizing force, especially in schools with unstable management

Certain minimal conditions must be in place to foster start-up of small schools. Small schools succeed only when teachers and administrators have time in advance to plan vision and mission of the school. Such time allows teachers and principals to act as a unified team, to build mutual understandings about the school's mission and to build structures, rules and consequences for parents and students. The schools also need stability in personnel and space. The best schools develop a community that includes parents and external partners. Instead of complaining about the skills students don't have, the best schools build a curriculum, assessment and pedagogy that supports students.

Certain minimal conditions must be in place for ongoing development of small schools. Teachers in the best small schools continually refer to their vision and mission statement. Small schools demonstrate a commitment to best teaching practices through ongoing attempts to identify and use best practices. Schools that solve learning problems by relying on data fare better than do those that rely on trends. In addition, the relationships that schools have with parents and partners continually change so that the relationships have an opportunity to grow and deepen. And the quality of instruction is better when teachers work hard to stay current with best practices.

Cautions apply. First, being small is a necessary but not sufficient condition for improvement. IF a school does not meet its improvement goals within five years, it should be dismantled. Second, small schools are fragile. many in Chicago closed within their firs two years of operations. Because they are more interdependent, the departure of a principal or teacher can be difficult to overcome. Third, small schools cannot survive unless there is a change in the systems that support them. Because most school systems are designed to support large schools, systems have to be redesigned to support small schools. Fourth, small schools are not the panacea. They are not the solution, but rather a key ingredient in a comprehensive plan to improve education.

To see all of the executive summaries for Small Schools: Great Strides, click here: http://www.bnkst.edu/news/ExecutiveSummary.pdf To see the reports, Small Schools: Great Strides, click here: http://www.bnkst.edu/news/SmallSchools.pdf
About the Author:
Patricia Wasley is the Dean of the School of Education at the University of Washington. She can be reached via email at pwasley@u.washington.edu.

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