The 2016 edition of the "Digest of Education Statistics" is the 52nd in a series of publications initiated in 1962. The "Digest" has been issued annually except for combined editions for the years 1977-78, 1983-84, and 1985-86. Its primary purpose is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field…

This source book brings together research about improving the ways that learning, teaching, and schooling are organized, and how school and school district size may affect such efforts. Six scholars were commissioned to address the questions of how to define quality in education; how school and district size are related to educational costs and…

To examine the fiscal implications of reorganizing the Los Angeles (California) Unified School District (LAUSD) into smaller, independent districts, researchers compared LAUSD revenues and expenditures with those of the balance of the state and analyzed differences in expenditures per student within LAUSD. This report on their evaluation is…

This document contains the 12 issues of the newsletter "Rural Policy Matters" published in 2000. Issues examine recent educational research on small and rural schools; report on state standards and court litigation related to rural schools, the efforts of communities to save their local schools, and the condition of rural facilities;…

This paper presents findings of a study that utilized Elliott Jaques' theories of organizational depth structure and time span of discretion in administrative work to examine administrators' responsibilities in two Ontario (Canada) school systems. The theory predicts that the time-span of discretion associated with the administrative tasks will…

One third of public U.S. high schools enroll fewer than 400 students. Small high schools are challenged to maintain a broad curriculum with diverse course offerings. However, this digest demonstrates that many small schools provide curricula and programs comparable in quality to those of larger schools. Research findings include: (1) core…

Many educators see school downsizing efforts as the linchpin of school restructuring. Several forms that school downsizing efforts are taking are explored, along with a discussion of the reasons for which small schools are being established. The types of subschools that are being launched (houses, mini-schools, schools-within-schools) are…

This study examined the extent to which presidents of independent colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools commissioned economic impact studies and their views on the usefulness of such studies. Seventy-three presidents completed a survey questionnaire in the spring of 1997. Responses indicated that 21 schools had conducted an…

This paper presents research findings and the testimony of educators, students, and researchers demonstrating that small schools meet the essential conditions for providing high-quality education to all students. These essential conditions are: (1) students are known well by their teachers; (2) students are actively engaged in learning and in…

Small size is often cited by reformers and parents as the key ingredient necessary to create an effective learning environment. In New York City, the new public secondary schools have consistently smaller numbers of students than most existing high schools. The literature is unambiguous that smaller schools show better outputs than schools of…

The cost of providing an educational program is higher for rural, small schools and districts than for others. Nevertheless, recent studies suggest that small schools and districts may be a more efficient investment than large schools because the "learning value per unit of expenditure" seems to be greater there. This new idea expands…

The paper seeks to find a way to make rural education the focus of special efforts to develop electronic technologies, and to use rural schools as the developmental sites for configurations of technology that have broad and general utility. The first section suggests that smallness is an asset to rural education, for education in small units is…

This study was designed to correct misperceptions many Americans have concerning one-room schools and Old Order Mennonite and Amish education in the United States. It was also intended to quantify the number of U.S. public and private one-room schools. The paper briefly reviews the history of Amish and Old Order Mennonite schools. Recent research…

Small schools (with enrollments of 300 or less) are being rediscovered as models for effective schools. Currently 26.9% of America's school systems enroll over 500,000 students in more than 26,000 small schools staffed by 50,000 teachers. Small schools have pioneered many educational "innovations": non-graded classrooms, individualized…

The university as a system of formal authority is considered in the Canadian context. The structure of the 27 largest Canadian universities (ranked by operating income) is analyzed with reference to their organizational charts. It is assumed that the structure symbolizes an official style of authority and responsibility reflected by the number of…