Small Public Schools:
Returning Education to Families and Communities

 

by
Gregory A. Smith

 

Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation
School of Education
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
PO Box 413
Milwaukee WI 53201
414-229-2716

 

Febuary 2000

 

 

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SmallPublic Schools:
Returning Education to Families and Communities

Gregory A. Smith, Associate Professor of Education

Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon

In debates over vouchers orcharter schools, many educators generally focus on the threat these innovationspose to the integrity of public schools. They rarely acknowledge the good sensebehind these efforts, however. People drawn to charters or vouchers hope toplace their children in educational settings that are more personal,supportive, and academically demanding. Some also seek to achieve a higherlevel of control over their children’s education than is possible in mostpublic schools. Critics need to give credence to these legitimate desires.

State mandates toconsolidate schools and standardize student assessment have contributed to theproblems these people are fleeing. Since the 1940s, school consolidation hasreduced the number of elementary and secondary public schools in the UnitedStates by a startling 69 percent—from about 200,000 to 62,000 -- even as thenational population has grown 70 percent. The schools children attendtoday are increasingly distant from their homes and neighborhoods, and are, onaverage, five times as large as those their grandparents attended ahalf-century ago. As schools have ballooned, students and parents find it moreand more difficult to feel that they are known and cared for by teachers oradministrators. Large schools also tend to leave more students on the margins,unable to find a place where they can discover and share their talents andinterests.

National efforts since the1980s to increase the accountability of individual schools and districts forstudent achievement have increased the distance between schools and those theyserve. No longer can school boards shape curriculum to meet local needs ordetermine appropriate levels of student performance. These decisions are now beingmade by state-level elected officials or bureaucrats influenced by federal andcorporate leaders.

So it should come as nosurprise that increasing numbers of Americans want to reverse this situation,either by using tax dollars in the form of vouchers to attend private schools,or by creating charter schools freed from bureaucratic requirements. Thesestrategies, however, risk undermining public education itself. Privatizing thisessential institution threatens to widen the gap between schools that serve economicallyprivileged students and those whose families are just getting by or worse. Leftunchecked, markets tend to reward people with resources and ignore thosewithout. There is no reason to assume that education is immune from this fact.

This is an outcome we mustprevent. Progressive educators and voucher or charter supporters of good willcould lead the way by calling a truce, reaching out to one another, andsearching for common ground. Their joint agenda could focus on returning thecontrol of public schools to teachers and the people they serve with the intentof supporting higher levels of achievement for all students. An emergingnational effort to create and protect small schools demonstrates how this canbe done.

Over the past severalyears, educators associated with the Cross City Campaign for Urban SchoolReform, a foundation-supported coalition of school reformers in several majorcities, have been showing how to establish and run small schools that are botheffective and affordable. The Annenberg Rural Challenge, a school reformproject supported by the Walter J. Annenberg Foundation, has been achievingsimilar ends in non-urban districts around the country. In cities such as NewYork, Chicago, and Philadelphia, educators and activists are creating smallschools where teachers, parents, and students play a major a role in shapingtheir schools’ mission, curriculum, and educational practices. In rural areas,they are fighting to keep remaining small schools from being consolidated andasserting their right to determine educational standards based on communityvalues and needs. In each instance, organizers are developing and maintainingthe forms of supportive and positive relationships encountered in the bestprivate schools. These public schools are delivering what the advocates ofvouchers and charters want.

Research studies since the1980s have tracked the impact of small schools on the experiences of students,teachers, and families. Reviews of these studies by Kathleen Cotton and RobertGladden report that:

  • Students in small schools are less alienated than those in large schools and less likely to cut classes, drop out, or engage in violent or disorderly behavior.
  • More students in small schools participate in extracurricular activities.
  • Students attending small schools are more likely to pass their courses, accumulate the credits needed to graduate, and go on to college; they also score as well or better on standardized tests as students in large schools.
  • Parent involvement in small schools is higher than in large schools.
  • Small schools are not necessarily more expensive than large schools. 1

These findings offereducators important research support for what many, if not most, have longbelieved: that small schools do indeed enhance the learning of all students. Assmall schools activist Michelle Fine writes, "Now that we know smallschools produce the optimal conditions for accountability and equity, policymakers have a moral obligation to provide such settings for all youth, especiallythose who have least benefited from public education to date—those who are pooror working class, and children of color." 2

The research also offerseducators an opportunity to make common cause with parents and citizensattracted to vouchers and charters, by showing that there is a way to meet theeducational needs of their own children, create more effective schools, and doso without debilitating public education.

The task now is foradversaries in educational debates about choice and equity to bridge theirdifferences and create more of the kinds of public schools we know willwork—schools that are small, personally supportive, linked to theircommunities, intellectually vital, and available to all students.

 

ENDNOTES.

1.       KathleenCotton, School Size, School Climate , and School Performance (Portland,OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 1996); Robert Gladden, "TheSmall School Movement: Review of the Literature," in Michelle Fine andJanis Somerville (editors), Small Schools, Big Imaginations: A Creative Lookat Urban Public Schools (Chicago: Cross City Campaign for Urban SchoolReform, 1998).

2.       MichelleFine, preface to Small Schools, Big Imaginations, p. v.

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