Studied the joint influence of school and district size on school performance in 367 schools with 8th grades and 298 schools with 11th grades in Georgia. Findings show substantial cross-level influences of school and district size at 8th grade and weaker influences at 11th grade, with equity effects strong at both grades and with a distinctive…

Previous studies found that the small size of schools or school districts mitigated the negative influence of poverty on academic achievement in California, Alaska, and West Virginia. The Matthew Project extends this research in four additional states selected to provide varied settings: Ohio, Georgia, Texas, and Montana. Data from each state were…

Recent research in West Virginia and California has linked school size to both effectiveness and equity, finding that as school size increased, the mean achievement costs for schools with less-advantaged students became more burdensome. An effort was undertaken to replicate this research in four states offering a variety of school settings and…

Schools and districts with large number of economically disadvantaged students are likely to have higher average test scores if both are smaller. Larger school sizes, up to a reasonable limit, improve average test scores in affluent communities. Achievement among larger schools in larger districts shows the strongest relationship with…

Recent research in West Virginia and California has linked school size to both effectiveness and equity, finding that as school size increased, the mean achievement costs for schools with less-advantaged students became more burdensome. An effort was undertaken to replicate this research in four states offering a variety of school settings and…

Research across seven very different states has shown that as schools get larger, the average achievement among economically disadvantaged students declines. A traditionally strong argument against smaller schools, however, is that they are too expensive. Large consolidated schools with narrowly specialized grade spans are typically offered as…

Many experts have endorsed small schools as educationally effective, often adding parenthetically that smaller size is especially beneficial for impoverished students. A recent series of studies, the "Matthew Project," bolsters these claims. This digest reviews recent thinking about small school size, describes the Matthew Project…

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,…

This paper examines pregnancy in early adolescence, among West Virginia females aged 10-14, as it relates to local economic and social contexts. Although research on adolescent pregnancy is substantial, it is generally limited to the experiences of older adolescents and premised on assumptions of methodological individualism--that the correlates…

In contrast to persistent "culture of poverty" explanations, studies of seemingly irrational risk-taking behaviors among West Virginia adolescents found that early pregnancy and dropping out of school were related to lack of economic opportunity and decline of traditional community cultural patterns without acceptable alternatives.…