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August 10, 2005
OK - let's try THIS -- Smaller Schools?
The New York Times ran a long article yesterday on New York's smaller schools experiment. This attempt at saving secondary education in America is predicated on school size (rather than class size).
The hope is that schools with fewer than 500 students will create a more intimate learning environment, improving attendance and achievement by making it easier to identify students' needs. Themes like peace and diversity are used to make school more engaging, even as the curriculums focus on basic requirements, not vocational training or electives.I think the "engaging" part isn't much use, but the size might help. Everything's anecdotal after the first year (the attendance records haven't even been reviewed to see if small school improve attendance) but the experiment will expand by another 50 or so schools this year. We'll see. The article sounds hopeful, and I have to admit that my predjudice is that surely 500 students is better than 3,000 -- but then I attended a small high school and spent a very discontented year teaching in a very large one.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at August 10, 2005 6:57 AM