This report summarizes a series of studies on school size, poverty, and student achievement. These studies analyzed 29 sets of test scores from various grades in Georgia, Ohio, Montana, and Texas to examine the relationship between school-level performance on tests, school size, and community poverty level. The studies found that as schools become…

A study sought to identify the existence of neighborhood effects on school achievement that are independent of social class and family background among students from poor, rural neighborhoods. Ethnographic material yielded a concept of rural West Virginia neighborhoods in which residents expect their encounters to be friendly, informal, almost…

Research has revealed interactive effects of school size and socioeconomic status--as school size increases, the mean measured achievement of schools with disadvantaged students declines. The larger the number of less advantaged students attending a school, the greater the decline. The same school-level interactions have been found in California,…