Articles: Small School News

WNC ahead of the curve in school reform: Asheville High among schools trying to get smaller to reduce dropout rate, by Raju Chebium, in the North Carolina Ashville Citizen-Times, August 3, 2005.
Article looks at trend to implement small schools in Western North Carolina (WNC), considering national studies, shortage of statistics, Gates Foundation view, and available options.

Huge classes hurt learning, by Paulette Perhach, in the St. Augustine (FL) Record, July 31, 2005.
Florida schools are breaking very large high schools into small-school-like academies. “Studies have shown that the size of a student's learning environment greatly affects his or her experience.When the size of the environment is reduced, the benefits become apparent within a year or two.”

Gates Foundation Puts $2.3B Into Education, by Peggy Andersen, The Associated Press, appearing in numerous publications nationwide, May 15, 2005.
The foundation has supported “new visions of education, with smaller schools and more personalized instruction to prepare young people for the working world and post-high school learning.” Gates call for “the new three R’s”: Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships, and a commitment by school districts to support the vision.

Medford studies small-school success stories, by Anita Burke, in the Mail Tribune (Jackson County, OR), March 13, 2005.
Teachers and administrators from Medford OR high schools have been visiting successful small schools across the country to pick and choose what approaches will work best for their upcoming small school conversion. When they visited Boston Arts Academy, a small Boston Pilot school, one of the teachers noted, “Students were extremely passionate about learning. School didn’t end when the bell rang. They spent evenings there preparing for performances.” The article has interesting observations of small schools across the country.

A new class of public schools: Performance schools will be free to chart their own educational course, with less red tape, by Maureen Kelleher, in Catalyst, October 2004.
“Chicago’s new small schools will have unprecedented freedom in how they spend money and set up curricula.…The framework for performance schools has features in common with an initiative in Boston created 10 years ago, where district-operated ‘pilot schools’ were given budget autonomy and freed from union regulations.” The article looks at some of the successes and challenges of Boston Pilot schools, in relation to the newly implemented Chicago Performance schools.

Small schools movement hits Oregon, by Julia Silverman, KATU 2 News, September 24, 2004.
Story of successes and problems in bringing small schools to Oregon. Concludes with Tom Vander Ark, Education Director of the Gates Foundation, “in order to successfully go small, schools need four things: help from outside experts, multiyear grants, clear direction from administrators and a pipeline to other schools going through similar changes.”

A bold experiment to fix Chicago’s schools, by Tracy Dell’Angela and Jodi S. Cohen, in the Chicago Tribune, June 27, 2004.
Chicago plans to open 100 new schools, many of them small schools and charter schools, often using existing school buildings while being run independently or with major help from business. A comparison is made with Boston’s Pilot schools.

Schedule change rejected at Hope, by Gina Macris, in the Providence Journal, June 23, 2004.
Teachers in Hope High School, which has been converted to three small schools, rejected a call to change the class schedule. The change had been requested by Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson, with the approval of Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, for academic and financial reasons.

In the News: Albert Holland, in the Bay State/Boston Banner, June 3, 2004.
Health Careers Academy headmaster Albert Holland won the prestigious Ambassadors in Education Award, presented to him June 1 at Northeastern University’s Curry Student Center Ballroom. One of only fifteen such recipients nationally, Holland was recognized for his imaginative efforts to connect his students to the community.

Small schools expo comes to Roxbury, Boston/Bay State Banner, January 15, 2004.
Announcement of the Pilot/Horace Mann/Small Schools Expo taking place in Madison Park Technical Vocational High School.

Developing Communities of Instructional Practice: Lessons from Cincinnati and Philadelphia, by Jonathan A. Supovitz and Jolley Bruce Christman, in CPRE Policy Briefs (Consortium for Policy Research in Education), November 2003.
This study looks at implementation of personalized learning in a “small” setting, namely team teaching in Cincinnati and small learning communities in Philadelphia. It finds that, while the teaching atmosphere improved almost universally with the shift to small communities or teams, improved learning was not a corollary unless the shift was coupled with an explicit emphasis on techniques and approaches to improve instructional practice. When such emphasis was put in place, the benefits to student learning were higher than when similar emphasis was put into a large-school setting.

Boston High School Renewal: Small school initiative, article in Jobs for the Future Newswire, July 18, 2003.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $13.6 million to Boston for the creation and development of small, effective high schools over the next four years. The Center for Collaborative Education will provide substantial assistance in the design, launch, and implementation of these schools.

Gates Foundation Providing $31 Million for Small Schools, by Greg Winter, in the New York Times, February 26, 2003.
“The Gates foundation blames the prevalence of huge, impersonal, underfinanced high schools — particularly common in poor, minority neighborhoods — for the paltry graduation rates. Crowded to the point of anonymity, educators argue, these schools are ill-equipped to reach struggling students before they give up.”

Education in Utica to enter new millennium, by Cecilia Le, in the Utica Observer-Dispatch, January 12, 2003.
Article tells the story of the Millennium Project, the coming conversion of Utica’s large Proctor High School into small themed houses. “Working with the district is the New England Small Schools Network, part of the fledgling small schools movement gaining steam nationwide for the last several years. The 2-year-old organization is guiding Utica and five other school districts as they implement the massive reform.” NESSN Associate Stephen Spring is quoted.

Payzant pushes plan to overhaul high schools: Redesign would create ‘learning communities’, by Megan Tench, in the Boston Globe, December 16, 2002.
Echoing a national trend, Payzant’s plan calls for creating “educational complexes” of smaller, career-focused schools or campuses targeting special populations such as students who repeatedly have been held back or new immigrants.

School Size, School Climate, and Student Performance, by Kathleen Cotton in School Improvement Research Series, May 1996.
This study looks at 30 years of research that challenges the assumptions of the advantages of larger schools.