SMALLER SCHOOLS, BETTER PERFORMANCE

HERBERT J. WALBERG, NY TIMES -A huge amount of research,  including my own, in more than 25 states shows that other things being equal, smaller schools produce higher academic achievement than larger schools.

 

Bigger schools tend to be impersonal, departmentalized and bureaucratic.

 

The "small school effect" was discovered in the 1960s, and the "Canadian effect" refers to small schools in less crowded states near the Northern border that tend to do well even discounting the effects of socioeconomic status and other demographic factors.

 

Why did American schools become ever larger? James Conant, a president of Harvard University in the 1930s and 1940s, argued that large schools allow more diversity of courses such as Latin, Greek, and vocational preparation. In supporting large schools, economists argued that consolidation of schools would avoid duplication of principals and other school leaders. These arguments led to the large-scale consolidation of both small schools and small school districts.

 

What education leaders failed to recognize is that large institutions tend to be impersonal, departmentalized and bureaucratic. They tend to treat their staff and those they serve as numbers rather than distinctive individuals with unique needs.

 

High schools, which tend to be larger, face these problems most acutely. But the rise of middle schools took on some of these problems since they became departmentalized by subject matter, and students may have as many as six teachers, none of whom know them well. Schools, particularly elementary schools, begin the transition from the family to larger adult institutions such as colleges and businesses that serve people from larger geographic areas.

 

In elementary school, children are more likely to be with other children they know from their neighborhoods. They have the same teacher for much of the day and who is likely to know the child's parents, siblings, and neighbors.

 

But elementary schools have grown in size, and families are more mobile than in the past. Thus, elementary schools have become increasingly impersonal despite younger children's need to be treated as individuals rather than members of categories.