Literature Review: Converting Large High Schools into
Smaller Learning Communities
Table of Contents
Breaking Up: Converting Large Comprehensive High Schools into Smaller Learning
Communities.................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 2
Brief Overview of Research on Small Schools ............................................................................ 2
Breaking Up Large High Schools ................................................................................................ 3
Literature .................................................................................................................................. 3
Breakup Models........................................................................................................................ 3
Key Findings and Lessons Learned the Literature ................................................................... 4
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 6
References........................................................................................................................................ 7
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Literature Review: Converting Large High Schools into
Smaller Learning Communities
Breaking Up: Converting Large Comprehensive High Schools
into Smaller Learning Communities
Introduction
Large schools neither nourish the spirit nor educate the mind . . . . . What big schools do is
remind most of us that we don’t count for a lot
--Deborah Meier, 1995i
Following from their experience as failing comprehensive schools, some large schools in this
country are undertaking projects to break up into smaller schools, or academies. This movement
reverses the trend prevalent in the United States from the 1940s to the 1990s, of the widespread
consolidation of schools. During the last 50 years of the 20th century, the country experienced a
500% increase in student enrollment, but a 70% decrease in the number of its schools (Annie E.
Casey Foundation, 2001).ii According to the US Department of Education, more than 70% of
today’s students attend high schools with over 1,000 students (McNeil, 2000).iii
Brief Overview of Research on Small Schools
The rationale for creating large schools was to offer more resources and a wider curriculum to
students while taking advantage of economies of scale. However, research has demonstrated that
large schools and high enrollment often create impersonal, institutional environments that make
students feel alienated, teachers disempowered, and parents disenfranchised (Lee et al., 2000).iv
In another current study, Bickel, Howley, Williams, and Glascock (2001)v found an interaction
effect between school size and students’ economic status: as school size increases, performance
decreases for economically disadvantaged students. In other words, “school size imposes
increasing ‘achievement costs’ in schools serving impoverished communities” (p.2). In addition,
bureaucracy and centralization—with their tendency toward institutionalization—make change
difficult (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991).vi
The large-scale quantitative small schools studies of the late 1980s and 1990s established small
schools as more productive and effective than large schools, and also presented compelling
evidence that small schools benefit the school community: students, teachers, and parents
(Raywid, 1999 & 1996a).vii, viii Reviewing the literature on small schools, researcher Kathleen
Cotton concluded, “a large body of research in the affective and social realms overwhelmingly
affirms the superiority of small schools” (1996).ix One response to these research findings that
call for smaller schools is to subdivide large, comprehensive high schools into smaller, more
personal entities (Gregory, 2001).x Reformers view this option as “an effective way to improve
education without incurring [the] construction costs” associated with building a new autonomous
small school (Raywid, 1996a).
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Literature Review: Converting Large High Schools into
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Breaking Up Large High Schools
The Break-up movement is an attempt to achieve the benefits of smallness by modifying
preexisting large school facilities to accommodate smaller learning communities. Due to its
recency as a reform model, breaking up large, poorly performing schools is the strategy least
documented in the research literature.
Literature
Raywid reviews research on the divisions of large schools into subschools or subunits in New
York, Philadelphia and Chicago and describes the impacts of these downsized structures on
students and schools (1995). Wasley et al. present research findings that detail the early
successes of Chicago's small autonomous as well as downsized elementary, middle, and high
schools (2000).xi The U.S. Department of Education issued An overview of smaller learning
communities in high schools,xiia background paper that provides guidance to large high schools
and school districts interested in making high schools smaller (2001). Allen, Almeida and
Steinberg discuss key findings from a study of five Boston area high schools that spent the past
three years restructuring into smaller learning communities (2001).xiii Ancess and Ort (1999)xiv
and Cook (2000)xv write about the experiences of and the lessons learned from the Julia Richman
Education Complex in New York City, a former large, failing high school that was successfully
reconfigured in the early 1990s into six separate small schools that serves infants through high
schoolers. In a new ERIC Digest, Professor Gregory summarizes some of the literature on school
breakups and discusses the types of errors common among attempts to breakup large high schools
(2001).
Breakup Models
According to the studies on large school breakups, high schools have implemented a variety of
different models to downsize into smaller learning communities, each typically serving 200 to
500 students (Gregory, 2001). Reported models include: house plans, minischools, multiplexes,
career academies, learning communities, clusters, charters, and schools-within-schools (Cotton,
2001). xvi The models differ in degrees of separateness, distinctiveness and autonomy, as well as
in terms of programs and organizational structure and practice (Raywid, 1995).xvii The
nomenclature is awkward and confusing. Researcher Mary Anne Raywid points out that there
can be variation within any single model and that the terminology distinguishing one model from
another, as well as the practice, can be “highly idiosyncratic” (1996b).xviii In a review of the
literature, research and development specialist Sarah Dewees concluded, “the literature on school
downsizing has been inconsistent in its descriptions of how large schools are divided into
subunits” (1999).xix
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Literature Review: Converting Large High Schools into
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Despite these problems in terminology, according to Raywid, the different models “established
over the years reflect some important practical differences as to the scope and ambitiousness of
the downsizing efforts undertaken and the autonomy ceded such units” (1995). Based on this
experience, several distinct models for breaking up a large school into smaller learning
communities can be identified:
•
House Plans. In a house plan students and teachers may remain together for some or all
coursework. A house can be organized on a one-year or multi-year basis. It is usually
overlaid upon the department structure of the traditional middle or high school that hosts
it, which restricts the amount of change the arrangement can create.
•
Mini-schools. This arrangement has some of the properties of a house plan and is also
dependent on its larger host school for its existence. But mini-schools almost always
serve students over a several-year period, and they usually have their own instructional
program, giving them more distinctiveness from one another than houses usually achieve.
•
Schools-within-schools. These are separate and autonomous units with their own
personnel, budget, and program, authorized by the board of education or superintendent.
They operate within a larger school, sharing resources and reporting to the school
principal on matters of safety and building operation. Both students and teachers choose
to affiliate with such a school (Raywid, 1999).
Key Findings and Lessons Learned the Literature
In her review of the research on the breakups of large schools in New York, Philadelphia and
Chicago, Raywid (1995) concludes:
[It] is clear that reducing the size of schools can increase student participation, reduce dropout
rates, enhance academic achievement, and enhance teacher efficacy. It is also apparent that
downsizing stimulates the move toward personalized, ‘communal’ schools, which bring
independent benefits with respect to enhancing student engagement and achievement . . . . . It
appears that downsizing may be necessary to making it possible for schools to effectively
initiate the changes recognized essential to improvement . . .. Such success depends in large
part on the extent to which the small schools concept has been adopted in principle and
implemented. Those units designed so as to permit them to become separate, autonomous,
distinctive entities have a much better chance than those which have not been (46, 44).
Similarly, Irmsher, in a review of school size research, comments, “putting several small schools
into an existing large school building can rejuvenate the school and enhance educational
possibilities.” She notes that the most successful school transitions “have been based on the
principles of cohesion, autonomy, focus or theme, and a constituency assembled on the basis of
shared interests. While the reasons for downsizing failures are still sketchy, reports usually cite
one of three shortcomings: insufficient faithfulness to the small-school concept, insufficient
autonomy and separateness, or failure to couple changes in the school culture with the structural
changes” (1997).xx
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Literature Review: Converting Large High Schools into
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In the U.S. Department of Education’s background paper, An overview of smaller learning
communities in high schools, (2001) the authors conclude:
Researchers emphasize that conditions designed to simulate small schools must be authentic;
that is, the more independent they are, the more likely it is that smaller learning communities
will match small schools’ benefits. “Schools-within-schools, pods, house plans are
administrative arrangements to simulate school size,” Ohio University researcher Craig
Howley cautioned.xxi “The problem with [some] simulations is that they don’t respect reality”
(Robelen, 2000).xxii Without a separate space, autonomous administration and budget,
designated faculty, and distinctive philosophy, small school simulations likely offer
diminished benefits, or none at all. (16).
In their study of five Boston area high schools that restructured into smaller learning
communities, Allen, Almeida and Steinberg (2001) present five key “tensions or challenges” the
schools faced during their restructuring process:
1. Schools are finding it challenging to focus their efforts simultaneously on implementing
new district initiatives directed at preparing students for high stakes tests and on
restructuring the school into small learning communities using inquiry-based, contextual
learning strategies (9).
2. Schools are struggling with tensions resulting from how to fully cluster students and
teachers into small learning communities (12).
3. A strong curricular leader is essential to developing a strong and effective small learning
community. Schools are using a variety of approaches to ensure effective leadership
(13).
4. In going wall-to-wall with small learning communities, schools are balancing the desire
of teachers for input into staffing decisions with the need to ensure that students have
equal access to a range of pathways (16).
5. As schools have formed more small learning communities, bilingual programs within
those schools have struggled to maintain basic services to bilingual students and to ensure
equitable access to upper grade pathways; inadequate levels of staffing have compounded
the problem (17).
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Literature Review: Converting Large High Schools into
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Studying the Julia Richman Education Complex (JREC) seven years after the restructuring
process began, researchers Ancess and Ort (1999) present seven lessons learned from the JREC
conversion experience:
1. Campus self-governance: The leaders of each of the schools and programs in the
building formed a Building Council to govern the campus by consensus (23).
2. Individual school autonomy: “Individual school autonomy supports effective school
development and facilitates cross-school cooperation and collaboration” (23).
3. Anchor School: “The maturity of the Urban Academy enabled it to anchor the reform.”
The Urban Academy became responsible for building-wide issues, allowing the newer
schools to focus on their development (23).1
4. Building manager: “The conceptualization of the building manager as a facilitator and
an administrative coordinator who implements the decisions of the Building Council has
supported individual school development, cross school trust, cooperation, a collaboration,
and commitment to the success of the campus ”
5. Mixed-age and mixed-use campus: Both students and staff report on benefits “crossschool interactions and from services offered in the building. The building’s broad
diversity is a lesson in respect for difference and has contributed to the building’s sense
of community” (23).
6. Accountability as Commitment: “The JREC Complex model demonstrates that strong
complex and school-based autonomy in governance can produce a high level of
professional commitment and accountability to high standards of performance for
students and schools” (24).
7. The Relationship between the Local Education Authority, the Campus, and the
Schools: “New model schools require new model school systems” (24).
In Breaking Up Large High Schools: Five Common (and Understandable) Errors of Execution,
author Gregory argues that the breaking up is not only a restructuring process but also a reculturing process for the school, “Five common errors—of autonomy, size, continuity, time, and
control—bar many schools from crossing the big/small cultural divide” (2001).
Conclusion
Like the small schools movement, then, the break up movement is designed to bring
personalization to teacher-student relationships and focus in academic activities. Although
evidence to date is still limited, as more large high schools break up into smaller learning
communities, Professor Gregory predicts that “In the next 10 years we should know whether
creating truly new small schools out of existing large high schools is even possible” (2001).
1
Julia Richman was completely closed and new small schools were “hot-housed” in temporary spaces until
the campus was ready to re-open. This strategy allowed the new schools to develop their own culture,
“unaffected by the negative tone and climate of the downsizing school” (Cook, 2000, 104). This also
allowed construction work to proceed uninterrupted. When the campus reopened and the new communities
moved in, the Urban Academy, a 14-year-old coalition school was established as the anchor school in the
complex. It should be noted that this very strategy that contributed to the success of the Julia Richman
Education Complex differentiates it from most large school breakup models, making it more closely
resemble the autonomous small school model.
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References
i
Meier, D. (1995). The power of their ideas: Lessons for America from a small school in
Harlem. Boston: Beacon Press.
ii
Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2001). Small schools. Success in School: Education Ideas that
Count. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Available:
http://www.aecf.org/publications/success/smschool.htm
iii
McNeil, P. (2000, April 14). Smaller schools and learning communities: The wave of the
future? Presentation at the American Youth Policy Forum, Washington, DC. Available:
http://www.aypf.org/forumbriefs/2000/fb041400.htm
iv
Lee, V.E., Smerdon, B.A., Alfeld-Liro, C., & Brown, S.L. (2000). Inside large and small high
schools: Curriculum and social relations. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 22 (2),
147-171.
v
Bickel, R., Howley, C., Williams, T. & Glascock, C. (2001, October 8). High school size,
achievement equity, and cost: Robust interaction effects and tentative results. Education Policy
Analysis Archives, 9(40). Available: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v9n40.html.
vi
DiMaggio, P. & Powell, W. (1991). Introduction in The New Institutionalism in
Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
vii
Raywid, M. A. (1999). Current literature on small schools. ERIC Digest. Charleston, WV:
ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools. (ERIC Document Reproduction
Service No. ED 425 049). Available: http://www.ael.org/eric/digests/edorc988.htm
viii
Raywid, M.A. (1996a). Downsizing schools in big cities. ERIC Digest. Charleston, WV:
ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools. (ERIC Document Reproduction
Service No. EDO-UD-96-1). Available: http://www.ael.org/eric/digests/edoud961.htm
ix
Cotton, K. (1996). Affective and social benefits of small-scale schooling. ERIC Digest.
Charleston, WV: Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools. (ERIC Document
Reproduction Service No. ED 401 088). Available:
http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed401088.html
x
Gregory, T. (2001). Breaking up large high schools: Five common (and understandable)
errors of execution. ERIC Digest. Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and
Small Schools. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EDO-RC-01-6). Available:
http://www.ael.org/eric/digests/edorc01-6.htm
xi
Wasley, P., Fine, M., Gladden, M., Holland, N.E., King, S.P., Mosak, E., & Powell, L.C. (2000,
June 20). Small schools: Great strides: A study of new small schools in Chicago. New York:
Bank Street College of Education. Available:
http://www.bankstreet.edu/html/news/SmallSchools.pdf
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Literature Review: Converting Large High Schools into
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xii
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and Office of
Vocational and Adult Education. (2001, November). An overview of smaller learning
communities in high schools. Washington, D.C.: Author. Available:
www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/SLCP/slchighschools_research_09_01.doc
xiii
Allen, L. with Almeida, C. & Steinberg, A. (2001). Wall to wall: Implementing small learning
communities in five Boston high schools. Jobs for the Future and the Education
Alliance/Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University.
Providence, RI: Brown University. Available:
http://www.jff.org/pdfs%20and%20downloads/Wall_to_Wall.pdf
xiv
Ancess, J. & Ort, S.W. (1999, March). Re-imagining the big high school: The Julia Richman
Education Complex. In The Coalition Campus Schools Project: Seven years later. NY:
NCREST, Teachers College. Columbia University. Available:
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/NCREST/aera_ancess.pdf
xv
Cook, A. (2000). The transformation of one large urban high school: The Julia Richman
Education Complex. In (Ed. Evans Clinchy) Creating new schools: How small schools are
changing American education. NY: Teachers College Press. 101-120.
xvi
Cotton, K. (2001, December). New small learning communities: Findings from recent
literature. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Available:
http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/nslc.pdf
xvii
Raywid, M. A. (1995). The subschools/small schools movement--taking stock. Madison, WI:
Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service
No. ED 397 490).
xviii
Raywid, M. A. (1996b). Taking stock: The movement to create mini- schools, schools-withinschools, and separate small schools. Urban Diversity Series No 108. New York: ERIC
Clearinghouse on Urban Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. (ERIC Document
Reproduction Service No. ED 396 045). Available: http://ericweb.tc.columbia.edu/monographs/uds108/index.html
xix
Dewees, S. (1999, December). The School-within-a-school model. ERIC Digest. Charleston,
WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools. (ERIC Document
Reproduction Service No. EDO-RC-99-2.) Available:
http://npin.org/library/2001/n00509/n00509.html
xx
Irmsher, K. (1997). School size. ERIC Digest. Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on
Rural Education and Small Schools. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EDO-EA-97-5.)
Available: http://www.ael.org/eric/digests/edoea975.htm
xxi
Howley, C. & Bickel, R. (2000). When it comes to schooling … small works: School size,
poverty, and Student Achievement. Randolph, Vt.: Rural School and Community Trust, Policy
Program.
xxii
Robelen, E.W. (2000, February 9). Administration has big plans for small schools initiative.
Education Week, 19. (22). Available: http://www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=22small.h19
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