There is a consensus that small schools are better ... but what is small? School Redesign Network states:
An important starting point for exploring this dilemma is to realize that there is no such thing as an “ideal” school size because small size is not the goal – it is simply a means to an end. For years, researchers have been doing quantitative studies on school size in an attempt to find the perfect size where student achievement is at its peak – and, since results have varied, there is still no general agreement on the one best size (see Irmsher 1997 and Gladden 2000 for overviews of the research).
We know that small size by itself does not produce results; rather, it is an important enabling condition that allows schools to move away from the traditional comprehensive model and create more effective organizational designs that support improved teaching and learning. Rather than trying to find an ideal size for your small learning communities, the key is to ensure that the size and configuration you choose are explicitly and carefully designed to support your desired design features, which in turn support powerful teaching and learning.
Researcher Tom Gregory notes that when large schools break up into small learning communities, they often choose the sizes of the schools-within-a-school (SWAS) for administrative reasons rather than to support the design features they want to achieve, which leads to problems:
Many small school practitioners use the design criteria Gregory suggests – a small enough faculty so they can work together easily to create and sustain a common vision. For example, Deborah Meier, founder of Central Park East Secondary School in East Harlem, says that her faculty ended up being too large:
If we had it to do over again we’d have been even smaller – with no more than 300 students – so that the entire faculty could more easily meet together to talk things out. (1995, p. 36)
At a recent seminar on small learning communities, educational consultant Dick Corbett described his criteria for size based on a design principle of personalization – that the school should be small enough so that every adult knows every child’s name:
Anonymity is one of the biggest cracks in the classroom floor in poor schools. If the school is too big for every adult to know every child’s name, then the school is simply too big. (2002)
Meier makes a similar point about personalization and relationships as a key factor for determining how small a school should be:
Long before we have figured out how to redesign classrooms, use computers and other advanced technologies, or do any of the other overwhelming innovations being daily touted, we can do away with one foolish mistake and proclaim that the day has come when every child is entitled to be in a school small enough that he or she can be known by name to every faculty member in the school and well known by at least a few of them, a school so small that family can easily come in and see the responsible adults and the responsible adults can easily and quickly see each other. What size is that exactly? It can’t be too small, but surely it can’t be larger than a few hundred! If that strikes us as shocking, we might for a moment look at the size of the average elite independent private school and wonder why we haven’t learned this lesson until now. (1995, p. 117)
Yet rather than putting forth a new “ideal” size, these examples are intended to illustrate how design can and should drive decisions about size. As author Matt Gladden puts it, “Instead of arguing whether the ideal size of a school is 400 or 700, we suggest that a school’s size needs to respond to its context and goals” (2000).
Gladden offers several useful factors to consider that may influence the size of a small school or a school within a building (SWB):
[A] school needs to consider its student body, organizational structure, and programmatic focuses. A school that serves a traditionally “at-risk” student population, whose modal experience of school is alienation, may need to be smaller so students and teachers can more intensely interact. Similarly, SWBs might need to be smaller than freestanding schools because SWBs constantly have to negotiate organizational, academic, and social forces in the larger school. In other cases, a SWB, however, may have to be above a certain size to gain access and respect from the larger school. Also, a school’s size should be responsive to its mission. If a high school plans to get jobs for all of its seniors, the school needs to make sure its size does not exceed the school’s ability to find students jobs. (2000)
As you can see, Gladden’s list includes both design factors (what size would best support a traditionally “at risk” student population?) and political factors (what size would best allow a school within a building to become sustainable?). The political factors are important to consider, especially in the context of a large to small redesign effort, but they should not overshadow the design factors because if you cannot implement your design features effectively, you will not end up with the results you want. Moreover, it is important to remember that one size does not need to fit all – in many redesign efforts, small learning communities end up being different sizes depending upon their design needs and different levels of student interest.
In conclusion, the key to choosing small learning community sizes is to tie the decision closely to the design you want to achieve, which will enable you to achieve the improvements in teaching and learning that you have worked so hard to move toward.
