School Size

School trends since the early twentieth century have culminated in the existence of overpopulated schools and corresponding academic and behavioral consequences. Initiatives to revert large schools into smaller, more intimate environments are sanctioned by well-known advocates including Bill and Melinda Gates, who have provided substantial monetary sustenance to such proposals. Reasons why communities resist transitioning into an educational system consisting of several smaller schools are provided. Both parents and teachers support the idea of small schools, although both groups lack the initiative to proactively endorse such an endeavor. There have been several projects that overturn the pattern of stockpiling students into large educational arenas by generating smaller schools, or by breaking down existing schools into smaller compartments. This phenomenon is known as the "school-within-school" model and will be addressed herein regarding the benefits, drawbacks, guidelines, developmental issues, and personal examples surrounding such an approach.

Keywords House Concept; Magnet Schools; New Century High Schools Initiative; School-within-school model; School Size; The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Overview

Concurrent with each generation is the creation of a unique set of values, norms, and societal influences that dictate ideal educational practices and standards. Before the industrial revolution, most children stayed at home to provide help on the family farm, and were simultaneously home-schooled by their parents (Knox & Schacht, 2008). At the turn of the 20th century families segued into lifestyles that reflected upward mobility; dual-income parents left behind their rural habitats and farming industries in favor of city life, which granted easier access to employment at nearby factories. Children were schooled outside of their homes, although it was not uncommon that they relinquished their studies before graduation in order to assist the family. During this time America became gentrified through urbanization and rampant immigration, and educational experts saw the practical need of retaining students in order to instill citizenship skills and train them for their eventual transition into the workforce. In order to educationally engage the masses, the formation of the "factory" approach began, which sought to target large audiences of learners in lieu of the old schoolhouse structure (Toppo, 2003).

This model prevailed for several decades, and by the 1970's the "bigger is better" mantra was in full effect. Schools were devised to serve large burgeoning suburban communities, and sought to employ experts who would address a plethora of student issues while offering a broad and diverse curricula (DeJong & Locker, 2006). Moreover, the teaching philosophy during this era operated from the "bell curve" perspective, which contended that in any given classroom teachers should anticipate one-fourth of the class to excel, one-fourth of the class to struggle, and expect mediocrity from the remaining half (Wasley, 2002).

One of the ongoing debates that education specialists deliberate is optimum school size. According to the National Education Association, on average California public schools contained the most students per teacher (25.6) and Vermont’s contained the least amount of students per teacher (9.4) in the fall of 2011 (NEA, 2013, p. x). Total student enrollment for the 2012–13 school year was estimated at 49.3 million, a slight increase over the preceding year, and representing 30.6 million elementary school students and 18.7 million high schoolers (p. 66).

Ideal School Size: Large or Small?

In attempt to ascertain ideal school size, there are two prevailing theories that are considered: scaling schools up by increasing enrollment through the process of consolidating several undersized schools into one large consortium, and scaling schools down in favor of smaller, more intimate environments. Black (2006) depicts data suggesting that students from poor communities benefit from small schools and affluent students from affluent families fare well in larger school environments. Critics of small schools point out that there are fewer course selections; whereas small schools provide essential classes such as English, larger schools with an expansive personnel might offer more sophisticated or unique options such as 19th Century British Literature. Also, smaller schools in rural areas are often poor, and contend with related issues such as low reading and math scores, and are less able to employ appropriate specialists to deal with students who have disabilities or are not native English speakers.

Furthermore, DeJong and Locker (2006) point out that proponents of large schools focus on the broad social circles that accompany institutions with substantial student bodies, as well as the numerous amounts of athletic opportunities. Hart (2006) expands on the sports theme as a value that governs high schools within many Texan communities, oftentimes overriding academic success. Although the large high schools in Texas are typically equipped with modern facilities such as science labs and technology, the drop-out rates are staggering. Bill Ercoline, a former school board member, commented on attending a graduation ceremony in the 1990s, during which only half of the senior class received diplomas. At the end of the decade Mr. Ercoline dedicated himself toward nullifying such a devastating trend by proposing that a new neighboring high school be built, promoting more intimate student-teacher relations. The reaction from the community was overwhelmingly negative; they protested such a movement because it would uproot the football team's reputation by diffusing the powerhouse that it had become (cited in Hart, 2006).

Further Insights

By and large, however, contemporary educators who are interested in the scholastic growth of students tend to lean towards smaller school sizes in order to promote educational advancement. Research demonstrates the widespread academic benefits of smaller schools, including higher test scores and lower drop-out rates, college attrition (Ash, 2007), as well as mandating higher levels of both teacher and student accountability (Johnson, 2002). Moreover, the development of a strong teacher-student rapport espouses corresponding mentorship and role-modeling, which are highly influential predictors that guarantee student success (Hunter-Cox, 2003). Large schools, on the other hand, can be a platform for many negative goings-on, including increased drug usage, isolation, and violence (Agron, 2003). This is partially because it is easier for students to "slip through the cracks," and adopt an "another face in the crowd" attitude. Indeed, many of the highly publicized acts of violence that took place on school soil were within the confines of a profusely enrolled academy (e.g., Columbine High School's population during the 1999 tragedy: almost 2,000 students).

Support for Small Schools

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a philanthropic organization that endorses the belief that small schools impart productive and intelligent members of society. Their association has invested more than five billion dollars in education reform, part of which includes emphasizing the merit of smaller schools, demonstrated through their mission to break down existing schools into smaller units, as well as creating small-scale academies (Riley, 2011; Robelen, 2006).

The appeal for small schools is apparent. Black (2006) indicates that the ultimate enrollment for small schools should be 350 students at the elementary level and 900 for high school. However, Hoff (2004) reflects on the fact that small schools that are already in operation run the risk of being closed down due to financial constraints despite the significant strides that are achieved. The test scores at Solace Elementary School in Syracuse, New York, which consists of 128 primarily African-American students, is a prime illustration. In 2006, each student passed the standardized math test and 91% passed the reading test, when just three years prior the passing rates were significantly less (i.e., math: 41%; reading: 38%). Nevertheless, the cost of keeping the school functioning was $1.2 million, which made its existence controversial, and many people wondered whether the cost outweighed the high performance rate. In 2008 the district shuttered the school, and a nonprofit launched a new school in that same location (Mulder, 2010).

Julie Woestehoff, from "Parents United for Responsible Education," suggests that instead of expending significant cost toward the creation of new and small schools, monies should be spent on generating improvements at existing schools. She remarked, "It's infuriating to see money spent on supposed solutions that dance around the problem" (as cited in Gewertz, 2006, p. 3).

Parents and teachers were polled on their thoughts regarding the re-stratification of contemporary large school structures into the construction of several smaller ones. Both parents and teachers feel that large schools are ripe for disciplinary issues to exist among students who feel lonely and isolated, while smaller schools foster a sense of community and provide teachers with the ability to target potentially troubled students and to appropriately intervene, thus annulling problems such as high dropout rates. Incidentally, despite such convictions, neither parents nor teachers consider it a priority to enact smaller schools, citing such a movement as both impractical and costly. Additionally, most teachers fear that parents collectively would dispute such a transition and create widespread upheaval; in reality a small fraction of parents (38%) parallel the same level of trepidation. Johnson (2002) infers that communities formulate strong attachments to the schools within their districts, and the prospect of tearing them up, even for positive reasons, might toy with their levels of emotion, dedication, and nostalgia.

Certainly there is a middle ground between the move toward small schools in contrast to the larger ones that already populate the U.S. DeJong and Locker (2006) describe three solutions that serve as a compromise for the controversy surrounding large vs. small schools:

• The House concept

• Magnet Schools

• School-within-a-school

The house concept is primarily utilized by middle or high schools. This approach employs a "team of experts," including a set of teachers, counselors, etc., for a select group of students. This method ensures that teachers will work with a small segment of the student population, thereby enhancing a more intimate relationship and a sense of investment and affiliation. The team of teachers and counselors might meet on a weekly basis and talk about pressing concerns, such as delinquent students, or enriching the curricula based on the needs of their particular set of students.

A second solution that schools might use to counterbalance large populations is the formation of magnet schools. Magnet schools specialize in catering to the needs of students by targeting a specific theme or vocation, including art, cosmetology, and auto-mechanics.

School-Within-a-School Model

Finally, the third solution to compensate for high volumes is termed a school-within-a-school model, which, as the title suggests, are multiple compartments that are distinguished by particular variables (e.g., grade level, academics, etc.) contained within the same building. The school-within-school design is a popular option because members create their own small community that decentralizes school utilities and establishes a sense of unity and camaraderie. For example, at Chiles Middle School in Florida, the school-within-school model is broken down into grade level, each of which has their own set of facilities, guidance counselors, administrators, classrooms and teachers. In a large school environment, such a setup can superimpose a sense of familiarity and kinship ("Reducing School Size," 2004).

Benefits

The school-within-school philosophy is beneficial for many reasons (Paskal & Miller, 1975), in that it often directly reflects the ideals of the teaching staff, as opposed to larger schools that possess a generalized school climate to which teachers attempt to adhere. Simultaneously, such specialty schools hone in on the teacher's particular skill set or knowledge base, as opposed to expecting them to be a "jack or jill of all trades." Likewise, the school-within-school model also taps into the particular talents and abilities of the student body that it serves, and enforces that they develop profundity toward their particular craft. Hart (2006) describes how such a system has been imparted in several Texas districts by classifying students into sub-groupings who are followed each year by the same set of teachers. This sub-group also receives motivational perks, such as congregating into a seminar on a regular basis and receiving inspired speeches about their academics from a teacher who consistently tracks their progress. This method significantly counteracts the standard "mega-school" configuration, whereby each year teachers have an unbearable student count, and most often only learn the names of students in either the top or bottom 20th percentile.

Toppo (2003) describes schools-within-schools found in New York that are segmented by subject, including Science, Drama, Business, etc. Most impressive is the amount of effort school personnel take to ensure that students are involved, including making house visits when students wane in attendance—unthinkable among faculty at mainstream campuses who are generally spread thin by their tremendous caseload of students. Students receive more attention and teachers are able to keep abreast of acts of violence and poor behavior, disregarding the need for advanced security systems and metal detectors that reign in other New York schools.

Drawbacks

One of the drawbacks of the school-within-school approach, particularly among schools that are delineated based on ability or on self-selected interests (e.g., art, drama) is that students are compartmentalized into specific groups and run the risk of falling prey to stereotypes and restrictive expectations. Robelen (2007, p. 4–5) provides several statements from administrators, teachers, and students who are a part of various institutions that operate from the school-within-school model that captures this tendency:

• Administrator perspective: "Nine times out of 10, they select subunits because that's where their friends are going. Some of them pick for the right reasons, but a lot of the kids don't."

• Teacher perspective: "If there's a nose ring and purple hair, they're in Arts and Communication...automatically."

"It's just like in normal society-you have your rich group, you have your middle class, and then you have your lower class. I guess that's how you can characterize the system here."

• Student perspective: "I chose this subunit because I don't want to do a lot of work."

Some characteristics of effective school-within-school programs have been outlined by Paskal & Miller (1975) and cite that students and their parents should voluntarily elect to be in such a school structure, that the goals should be clearly defined and consistent with the larger school system, and that diversity between students should be maintained while forging a sense of unique identity that members collectively share. Moreover, basic skills need not fall to the wayside in lieu of the specialization at-hand, yet the distinct talents and interests that draw students together should be emphasized among teachers who are personal, engage parents and the community, and uphold state and national standards.

Gisolfi (1999) offers an interesting perspective on the school-within-school design by emphasizing how such a model can be advantageous for students based upon their developmental needs. More specifically, middle school students can radically profit from such an arrangement based upon the transition that they just made from elementary school, in which they were contained throughout the day in a solitary classroom and escorted to various destination points (e.g., library, cafeteria) by their teacher. Likewise, in a short amount of time middle school students again transition to high school, an institution that is more spacious and demands much more personal and physical autonomy. Instead of thrusting responsibility onto middle-schoolers prematurely, which by nature tends to be a timeframe that is riddled with insecurity and awkwardness, the school-within-school structure can provide a smoother passage into adolescence.

The New Century High Schools Initiative

As part of a New York educational plan to graduate more students, the formulation of a series of small schools called the "New Century High Schools Initiative" was devised, which focused on students who were underprivileged, struggling academically, or of minority status (Gewertz, 2007). At the outset, the statistics of students enrolled in the New Century High Schools were impressive: over 78% graduated high school with a dropout rate of only 3% in comparison to comparable schools with similar demographics, where 60.6% of the students graduated and 17.3% dropped out. However, in scrutinizing the data more thoroughly, it becomes evident that despite graduating overall higher levels, the ratio of New Century students who pursued advanced diplomas (i.e., the "Regents Exam") was much smaller. Students who obtained the Regents Exam and the Advanced Regents Exam at the New Century High School were 43.6% and 2.6%, respectively, compared with other neighboring schools (i.e., Regents Exam: 47.4% and Advanced Regents Exam: 19.6%). Additionally, students at the New Century High School were suspended at a higher rate (7.8%) than comparable schools (6.5%).

One possible explanation for such statistical discrepancies is that the New Century High Schools are proficient at helping retain students who might otherwise dropout based on their academic deficiencies and accrued behavioral infractions. Whereas this pool of students in comparable schools would have dropped out, they continued until graduation at the New Century Schools, but periodically found themselves accumulating more behavioral violations as well as lower academic scores than their classmates. Therefore, the statistics demonstrating lower performance and discipline at New Century Schools is a positive force, because it includes a set of students who would otherwise drop out of school. Gewertz (2007) describes a problem with the New Century High School System according to Michael Klonsky, a national advisor of small school initiatives:

The new schools don't want to recruit the toughest kids, so they get dumped back in the big, traditional, overcrowded, underfunded high schools. . . . So the new schools are getting better at the expense of the traditional schools. It's creating a two-tiered system of education in New York (as cited in Gewertz, 2007, Instructional Index).

An additional dilemma resides in the fact that many of the New Century teachers are less educated, which can prove problematic over time when the schools become more advanced.

Somewhat similar effects have been observed in the New York City Small Schools of Choice (SSC), modeled on the New Century High Schools Initiative. Between 2005 and 2009, 68.7 percent of SSC enrollees earned a diploma and had an overall attendance rate of 80.9 percent, as compared to 61.9 percent graduation and 79 percent attendance in comparable schools, yet only 39.5 percent of SSC enrollees obtained Regents diplomas and 4.4 percent Advanced Regents diplomas (Bloom, Thompson & Unterman, 2010). However, a later MDRC report found that between 2004 and 2007, SSC students were more likely than their non-SSC counterparts to graduate and to graduate with a Regents diploma, by a margin of 9.5 percentage points and 7.2 percentage points, respectively (cited in Sparks, 2013).

Viewpoint

Dr. Patricia Wasley (2002) highlights her personal journey dealing with high teacher-student ratios. As a public school teacher, Dr. Wasley had a young boy named "Ray" in her class who was struggling with his schoolwork. At the onset of the school term, she held a conference with Ray's parents and guaranteed to keep track of his progress and implement preventative strategies when necessary. To her dismay, the semester slipped by, and Dr. Wasley found that she had not kept abreast of Ray's lessons. Disappointed that Dr. Wasley had broken her vow, Ray's mother decided to proactively intervene and scheduled an observation in Dr. Wasley's class during the school day. Instead of offering feedback surrounding Dr. Wasley's teaching strategies, Ray's mother commented on Dr. Wasley's astonishing teaching load that consisted of 7 classes of 40 students each, and wondered how she could effectively connect with any of them.

Dr. Wasley's experience with Ray proved to be enlightening, and she subsequently proceeded to work on several professional initiatives that enforced small one-on-one tutoring relationships as well as programs such as the school-within-a-school structure that offered intimate settings that were ideal environments for students to thrive in. As the following quote from a student enrolled in Dr. Wasley's school-within-school demonstrates, a smaller classroom ensures that students do not feel like an anonymous "nobody," and these students believe that their attentive and interactive teachers keep them afloat:

[Teachers] dog us every day. They're relentless. They call our parents. They really care whether we get our work done. There's no hiding in this school! (Wasley, 2002, p. 10).

Conclusion

This article conveys the importance of small, personalized school structures. While a larger institution holds appeal, particularly regarding athletic ability and a sense of familiarity, the research targeting school size firmly operates from the hackneyed statement "less is more." Unfortunately, because of the multitude of large-scale schools already in existence throughout the U.S., it would be financially impractical to solely focus on constructing new, smaller learning institutions. One possible remedy, however, is incorporating the "school-within-school" model that utilizes the physical structure of an already-established large school, by dividing groups of students into specific classifications based on grade, ability, or skill. More research on this phenomenon is necessary, particularly on salvaging old institutions, formulating new ones that are both small and intimate, as well as advertising such an innovative idea to parents and communities so that they will support the concept, while upholding academic success and integrity among students.

Terms & Concepts

House Concept: An approach used primarily by middle and high schools, which employs a "team of experts," including a set of teachers, counselors, etc., for a select group of students.

Magnet Schools: Independent schools that target a specific theme or vocation, including art, cosmetology, and auto-mechanics.

New Century High Schools Initiative: The formulation of a series of small schools as part of a New York educational plan to graduate more students.

School-within-a-School Model: Multiple compartments that are distinguished by particular variables (e.g., grade level, academics, etc.) contained within the same building.

School Size: A topic of ongoing debate among educational experts and the layperson alike. Proponents of large schools often cite athleticism and nostalgia as priorities, while the research suggests that students fare better at small schools.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: A philanthropic organization that has invested more than five billion dollars in education reform, and that emphasizes the merit of smaller schools.

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Suggested Reading

Blatchford, P. (2003). The class size debate: Is small better? Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.

Jepsen, C. & Rivkin, S.G. (2002). Class size reduction, teacher quality, and academic achievement in California public elementary schools. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California.

Krueger, A.B., Hanushek, E.A., Rice, J.K., Mishel, L., & Rothstein, R. (2002). The class size debate. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.

Phillippo, K. (2012). 'You're trying to know me': Students from nondominant groups respond to teacher personalism. Urban Review, 44, 441–467. Retrieved October 13, 2014 from EBSCO online database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=82763079

Tapper, T. (2013). On the small side. American School & University, 85, 38. Retrieved October 13, 2014 from EBSCO online database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=89462957