Research for Action is currently engaged in a two-year study, "Going Small: Public/Private Collaboration in Restructuring High School Education in Philadelphia." Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Going Small examines Philadelphia's approach to creating and supporting small high schools, how the district works with partners…

In this article, the author discusses how the transformation of the Academy of Citizenship and Empowerment (ACE) into small schools has turned her life as a life-long learner, a risk taker, and a role model for her peers. Three years ago at Tyee, the author did not display that same full potential at school when it was a large high school, because…

This study draws on ethnographic data from a year-long multimodal media production (MMP) course and the experience of an African American female adolescent who used the production of multimodal Hip Hop texts to express her creativity and growing socially conscious view of the world. The study demonstrates how students made meaning multimodally and…

In this study, the authors examined the demographic characteristics of students entering the new small high schools in New York City and contrasted them with the characteristics of students entering the large high schools that closed. They also determined whether these high school reforms altered how different types of students are distributed…

This paper addresses methodological issues arising from an experimental study of North Carolina's Early College High School Initiative, a four-year longitudinal experimental study funded by Institute for Education Sciences. North Carolina implemented the Early College High School (ECHS) Initiative in response to low high school graduation rates.…

As implemented in North Carolina, Early College High Schools are small, autonomous schools designed to increase the number of students who graduate from high school and are prepared for postsecondary education. Targeted at students who are underrepresented in college, these schools are most frequently located on college campuses and are intended…

This paper reviews research on small rural primary schools in Finland and analyses it under three thematic foci: the relationship between the local rural school and the surrounding community, the small rural primary school as a learning environment, and the teachers' profession in this context. Over 30% of Finnish primary schools are small rural…

Outlines the difficulties small schools are having in attracting qualified teachers. Urges that small schools organize to support such action as removal of salary differentials favoring large districts and increased teacher control in the training and certifying of teachers. (IRT)

Obviously, a small school has less staff and other resources than most larger schools. Nevertheless, the three major functions necessary for school improvement remain the same in all schools, namely (1) improving instruction, (2) providing learning supports to address barriers to learning and teaching, and (3) enhancing management and governance.

After years of non-stop increases--national k-12 per-pupil spending is up by "one-third" in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1995--schools now face the near-certainty of repeated annual budget cuts for the first time since the Great Depression. In some states and districts, reductions will be dramatic--well into the double digits. And…

For millions of children worldwide the only type of schooling to which they will gain access will be in small schools. Economically and socially disadvantaged areas support disproportionate numbers of these schools. Although small schools have many advantages, they also face myriad problems. This policy brief explores the existing international…

Background: Small schools have been promoted as an educational reform that is capable of improving student outcomes. However, a survey of the research on small schools indicates that much of the movement for decreasing school size is based primarily on correlational methods that do not control for selection effects in the data. In addition,…

Purpose: The special characteristics of small schools appear to set them apart from larger schools. In fact, small schools may be a discrete group in that their complexity may not be in direct ratio to their size. The special characteristics of small schools may include the absence of senior staff, administrative assistance on a part time basis…