CREATING SMALL SCHOOLS FROM LARGE SCHOOLS
In the last five years, more and more districts across the country have opted to transform their large, comprehensive high schools into new small schools. The infrastructure of secondary education in this country overwhelmingly consists of large school buildings. To take advantage of these facilities and spare the expense of building new ones, schools and districts are electing in ever-increasing numbers to undergo conversion of their large comprehensive high school buildings into several smaller autonomous schools rather than start new schools from scratch. Even small school educators who believe that start-up schools face fewer obstacles than conversions acknowledge that the transformation of existing schools is essential if we are going to create enough small schools to serve all students.
The reinvention envisioned by many on the front of the conversion effort requires more than creating smaller schools. It requires a cultural shift in the way that students, teachers, district staff, and community members view what schools do, what students need to know, how they learn, and how they can best be taught. Like any significant social change effort, such a paradigm shift requires giving up deeply internalized ways of working to build a whole set of new practices and ways of thinking. This transformation requires deep shifts in instruction, school design, and school culture. The movement to create small schools, thus, is not about smallness in itself; it is about a movement to create a different practice and vision of schooling-a vision in which all students are known well and are supported to master significant intellectual challenges.
There have been few research studies that have examined the experiences of students in conversion high schools. A report examining schools in their first year of conversion by American Institutes for Research and SRI International (2004) found that students in conversion schools appear to be doing well, but the schools face many complex and challenging problems before institutionalizing and sustaining success. This study reports that students in conversion schools are known and cared about to a greater degree than in larger comprehensive schools and that parent-school communication is greater and more effective. Data on student achievement was mixed: some students felt more academically challenged, while others found school work easier. Clearly, this is a work in progress as the evaluation examines schools in their first year of conversion. Still, the data is promising.
CES has published a book, Choosing Small: The Essential Guide to Successful High School Conversion (Jossey-Bass, 2005), which offers those faced with the challenge of creating new small autonomous schools information for achieving the complex process of dividing large schools into small schools that are effective in educating all students. In this book, the Coalition of Essential Schools draws on its long-time experience in school design, plus research on completed school conversions, to provide strategic and practical guidance to educators who are either contemplating or undertaking a high school conversion process. To read the preface, click on the link below on download it here.