Background/Context: There is general agreement that most public high schools should be smaller than they are. Although the small-schools movement attracts considerable support, there is a general reluctance or inability to close large schools and to build many new small schools. A more cost-effective approach is to divide larger high schools into…

Describes the process used to identify a rare sample of U.S. public secondary schools, those that are divided into "schools-within-schools" and provides descriptive information about the 55 schools of that kind that were found in a national search in fall 1998. Offers some tentative conclusions about the school-within-school reform approach. (SLD)

Consistent with the Williams v. California suit, our focus in this article is on educational equity, particularly the interface between equity and school organization. We concentrate on two structural issues, school size and school overcrowding, and one specific school structure, schools-within-schools. We organize the article as an interpretive…