What the Research Says About Small Schools

8/9/2019 What the Research Says About Small Schools

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What the research says about small schools

June 10th, 2010

Common belief about school size is changing. Schools as we know them were

created with the industrial revolution. Prior to that students learned throughapprenticeship with their parents or friends. Sometimes they attended schools insmall one-room schoolhouses for a few years. Learning was individualized andskills repeated until mastered (Collins and Halverson, 2009).

With the industrial revolution parents began to work in factories and cities.Schools needed to adapt to educate the masses. They got bigger. They werewonderfully successful in providing education for pretty much everyone. Aseducation became more expensive the common belief was formed that a highschool needed to have over 1000 students to be economical.

With the increase in technology and its impacts on society, education is facing

some big changes. There are shifts toward individualized education and learningplans. The Ministry of Education provides each school board with millions ofdollars to support this idea of individualized pathways and programs in highschool. Differentiated instruction is the hottest topic for professional developmentsessions.

The theory of bigger is better was likely originally borrowed from the belief thatbusinesses were more efficient the bigger they got. Gooding and Wagner (1985)did a meta-analysis of studies comparing business size to efficiency. They foundthat larger businesses definitely produced more product, but that the unit costwas not improved. In the case of industries that depended on human labor

opposed to technology, the efficiency actually decreased, as the company gotlarger.

In recent years there have been studies looking into the ideal size for a highschool. Gregory (2000) states, Since 1970, essentially all research favors thecreation of small high schools. Many of these studies are located in the UnitedStates. Some are in Canada, England and others in the Netherlands.Conclusions from these studies generally state that the ideal population of asecondary school ranges from 400 800, with some going as low as 300students (Bingler 2002). Two examples of these studies include:

400-800 students for secondary schools being the upper limit.

(Williams 1990)

500 750 students (Stephenson, 2002)

Social, emotional and academic reasons stated for the advocacy of small schoolsinclude the following:

Increased attendance and lower drop out rates (Fowler, 1995;


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Fowler & Walberg, 1991; Rutter, 1988)

Increased student participation in school community and extra-curricular activities (Cotton, 1996; Fowler, 1995; Stockard &Mayberry, 1992)

Lower incidence of behaviour problems and vandalism (Stockard &Mayberry 1992)

Students with the lowest socio-economic backgrounds arenegatively affected the most in larger schools (Cotton, 1996;Fowler, 1995; Howley, 1994; Lee & Smith, 1996)

The two biggest arguments for closing and combining small schools into largerschools are that they are more economical and that they offer more courseoptions and programming for students.

Based on studies, the first argument that larger schools save money, appears tobe unfounded. There appear to be two main reasons for this. The first is that asthe population of a school increases so do the resources needed to run it. Fox(1981) determined that as long as the maximum class sizes are generallyreached the savings from other costs rarely meet projections. The increase intransportation costs quickly match the decrease in any administration costs.Administration, building and custodial costs increase with the influx in population.Most of the case studies Fox (1981) looked at did not meet their projectedsavings for these reasons. When looking at building size, Howley (2008) foundthat high schools smaller than 600 students actually cost less per square foot.The same study demonstrated that small high schools cost no more than largerhigh schools per student.

The second reason the argument that combining secondary schools does notsave money is related to how the calculation is actually done. Most studiesrecognize that there will be a very minimal decrease in cost per student whencomparing larger to smaller high schools. However, if the calculation is done ascost pergraduate, the numbers look very different. The increase in success ofstudents plays a big role. Rarely is there any cost saved and larger schools caneven end up costing more per graduate (Bingler, 2002). If the goal is to producegraduates then calculating the costs per graduate makes sense.

It is important to do the math carefully when considering combining schools to

create larger ones. All costs should be considered including renovations to newbuildings, increase in transportation costs, increase in administration, increase incustodial and building maintenance including a buffer for the increase invandalism that may occur.

The second argument for combining schools is usually that larger schools offergreater programming and variety in courses. An increase in population does notalways lead to an increase in courses offered. More sections of courses will need


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to be offered, but not necessarily different courses. A study by Barker and Gump(1964) determined that in larger schools with 65 times more students comparedto smaller schools only offered twice the course selection.

In one study by Pittman and Haughwout (1987), an increase in studentpopulation by 100% only led to 17% more course offerings. Lastly, Monk (1987)determined that school size only affected course options up to a population of400 students. Schools larger than 400 did not have a significant difference incourse selection compared to smaller schools.

With all the funds and resources being pumped into Student Success and afocus on increasing graduation rates in Ontario, the combining of schools tolarger than 400-800 students needs to be considered seriously. It could have avery negative impact on things like EQAO scores, credit accumulation rates,graduation rates and general social tone of the school. While certain divisions ofthe Ministry of Education may be pushing for school boards to be more effectivein their allocation of students and funds, other divisions of the same Ministry

would be very upset if these statistical measures of success are reduced. Noaction is isolated and the combining of schools will have impact on many otherparts of the big picture. All of these effects need to be considered carefully.


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Works Cited

Barker, R., & Gump, P. (1964). BIG SCHOOL, SMALL SCHOOL. Palo Alto, CA:Stanford University Press.

Bingler, Steven; Diamond, Barbara M.; Hill, Bobbie; Hoffman, Jerry L.; Howley,Craig B.; Lawrence, Barbara Kent; Mitchell, Stacy; Rudolph, David; Wash(KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Cincinatti, OH; The Rural School and CommunityTrust, Washington, DC; Concordia, LLC, New Orleans, LA , 2002).http://www.kwfdn.org/resource_library/_resources/dollars_sense.pdf

Collins, A., Halverson, R. (2009). Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology.Teachers College Press, New York, NY.

Cotton, K. (1996). School size, school climate, and student performance. Close-

up #20. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

Fowler, W. J., Jr. (1995). School size and student outcomes. In H. J. Walberg(Series Ed.), & B. Levin, W. J. Fowler, Jr., & H. J. Walberg (Vol. Eds.), Advancesin Educational Productivity: Vol. 5. Organizational Influences on EducationalProductivity (pp. 3-25). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, Inc

Fowler, W. J., Jr., & Walberg, H. J. (1991). School size, characteristics, andoutcomes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 13(2), 189-202.

Fox, W. (1981). Reviewing economies of size in education. Journal ofEducational Finance, 6(3), 273-296.

Gooding, R., Wagner, J. A Meta-Analytic Review of the Relationship betweenSize and Performance: The Productivity and Efficiency of Organizations andTheir Subunits.Administrative Science Quarterly, 30: 462-481. 1985.

Gregory, Tom(University of Washington, Small Schools Project at the Center forReinventing Public Education, Seattle, WA , Dec 2000). School Reform and theNo-Man's-Land of High School Size.http://www.smallschoolsproject.org/PDFS/gregory.pdf

Gregory, T. (1992). Small is too big: Achieving a critical anti-mass in the highschool. In Source book on school and district size, cost, and quality. Minneapolis,

MN: Minnesota University, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs; OakBrook, IL: North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.

Howley, C. (1994). The academic effectiveness of small-scale schooling (anupdate). ERIC Digest No. RC-94-1. Charleston, WV: Clearinghouse on RuralEducation and Small Schools.

Lee, V. E., and Smith, J. B. (1996). High school size: Which works best, and for


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whom? Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American EducationalResearch Association, New York, NY.

Monk, D.H. (1987). Secondary school size and curriculum comprehensiveness.Economics of Education, 6, 137-150.Howley, C. (2008). Dont supersize me:Relationship of construction costs to school enrollment in the US. EducationalPlanning, 17(2). (prepublicaton version)

Pittman and Haughwout (1987). Influence of High School Size on Dropout Rate.Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Vol. 9, No. 4, 337-343 (1987http://epa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/4/337

Rutter, R. A. (1988). Effects of school as a community. Madison, WI: NationalCenter on Effective Secondary Schools. (ED 313 470)

Stevenson, K. 2002. Ten educational trends shaping school planning and design.Washington, D.C.: National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities.

http://www.edfacilities.org/pubs/trends.pdf

Stockard, J., & Mayberry, M. (1992). Effective educational environments.Newbury Park, CA: Corwin Press, Inc.

Williams, D. T. (1990). The dimensions of education: Recent research on schoolsize. Working Paper Series. Clemson, SC: Clemson University, Strom ThurmondInstitute of Government and Public Affairs.

Excellent Articles Suggested for Review

Allen, L. with Almeida, C. & Steinberg, A. (2001, August). Wall to wall:Implementing small learning communities in five Boston high schools. LABWorking Paper No. 3. Providence, RI: Northeast and Islands RegionalEducational Laboratory a program of The Education Alliance at Brown University.Available: http://www.lab.brown.edu/public/pubs/LABWorkPaper/Wall2Wall.pdf

Stevenson, K. (2007). Educational Trends Shaping School Planning and Design:2007. National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities.http://www.edfacilities.org/pubs/trends2007.pdf
http://epa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/4/337http://www.edfacilities.org/pubs/trends2007.pdfhttp://epa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/4/337http://www.edfacilities.org/pubs/trends2007.pdf

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What the Research Says About Small Schools