Back to Newsletter

Fulfilling the Promise of Small High Schools
By Larry Myatt
From Phi Delta Kappan, June 2004

Small high schools offer the kinds of environments we need if we are to try out some of our newer ideas in school redesign, Mr. Myatt argues. States and districts should pay attention to what these new institutions are making possible.

SMALL HIGH SCHOOLS are big news, and rightfully so. They are showing us new ways to provide the social and emotional structures needed to support high achievement. Moreover, if we are open to learning from them, they can help us think differently about curriculum, assessment, and standard setting and can contribute much to the renewal of the teaching profession. Whether it's creating small neighborhood schools, scaling up successful national models, or implementing the small learning community conversion strategy to help our large comprehensive high schools become kinder and gentler places, the small high school movement offers a welcome window on the future of secondary education.

For decades, the American high school has remained insulated from new ideas and reasoned changes by a thicket of extraordinarily interlocked statutes, regulations, college admissions policies, and contractual agreements, as well as by our society's own myths and revisionist memories. There is growing consensus, however, that many of the new, highly functional small schools are more trust- and community-oriented, with staff members who are freer and more likely to carve out new working relationships, design new systems, and set different priorities. This agreement to "co-construct" new schools from within offers unprecedented opportunities for the long-overdue redesign of our high schools. Initiatives such as those funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are banking on this premise.

The planners of small schools have also begun to change the conversation from "cost per pupil" to "cost per graduate." Small high schools cost a bit more up front, but there is no shortage of data and experience showing that funding a completed education is much more cost-effective than dealing with the poverty, unwanted pregnancies, crime, and unemployment that too often accompany life on the margins. The pressure on inner-city schools to address social inequities remains enormous, but few large high schools, in their planning and priority setting, have shown the ability to respond to the real needs of students and families. Featuring small "houses," well-developed advisory programs, the looping of students and teachers over several years, and proven community engagement strategies, small high schools can reduce the frequency of negative behaviors both in and beyond school by creating intimacy and deep relationships with students. These are nimble institutions, committed to and capable of providing the care and concern that today's students and families require. Small, responsive schools are, quite simply, more likely to keep students until they finish the coursework required for a diploma and to help them leave high school with authentic skills and realistic plans for the future.

Beyond the growing public awareness of the "Columbine effect" of alienation and unhealthy social stratification in many large schools, there is abundant evidence that small high schools are better at creating and sustaining the healthy intellectual and social climates needed for the richest kinds of teaching and learning. Small school size is consistently linked to positive outcomes in school climate, test scores, college attendance, and postsecondary employment. Qualitative studies of smaller schools have observed a genuine sense of belonging for both students and teachers, higher expectations for student engagement, and fewer distractions within the learning environment. These are precisely the conditions under which teachers can help students take greater responsibility for their own learning and establish both the culture and tools of inquiry-based instruction.

Small high schools, tied strongly to their neighborhood institutions, are becoming deft at inviting community business and higher education partners into the schools on a regular basis to help teachers and students "tune" their work and to assist in developing performance rubrics that align with workplace and college standards. These industry, social service, and higher education professionals are increasingly joining with parents and teachers from the wider community to judge ritualized public performances in which students display their problem-solving and research skills, teach concepts and big ideas, and respond to questions and scrutiny. These critical thinking skills rank among the highest in the taxonomy of learning, differing starkly from the thought processes associated with the standardized testing menu of multiple-choice and short-answer questions and five-paragraph essays.

Surveys consistently reveal that parents trust and value their local schools and teachers. Small high schools, such as those in New York's New Visions initiative or Boston's Pilot Schools, have capitalized on this good will and have created vibrant professional cultures of ongoing reflection and self-assessment.

Yet, as with all new "big ideas" and trends, efforts to create small schools are susceptible to pitfalls, distractions, and the lure of deceptively easy solutions. The burgeoning interest in small schools has created a growth industry for people and businesses with, and often without, knowledge and experience in the small schools arena. Just as in the past - with ideas such as school-to-career, multiple intelligences, cooperative learning, standards-based reform, and test-based accountability - we are seeing a proliferation of "expert" consultants, make-it-easy handbooks, and "how-to" websites.

One hopes, however, that over the last two decades we've learned that good ideas and programs that work in one school cannot simply be grafted onto others. Not a case of "Honey, I shrunk the school," these new models cannot and should not simply be miniature comprehensive high schools. Smallness, in and of itself, is not a recipe for excellence. We must avoid the cookie-cutter approach at all costs and, instead, bring to small schools development a constructivist orientation based on the values and beliefs that will align our schools with the social, economic, and cognitive realities of the 21st century.

Small high schools, by virtue of their personnel profiles, must think differently - I would argue, in more enlightened terms - about curriculum organization, staffing, and scheduling. The small school model presents an opportunity for a more intelligent integration of the arts as well as other key components of the programming that we are used to calling "extracurricular." Rather than sacrificing those activities that have been the social glue holding large schools together, small schools can and should maintain sports, clubs, and cultural activities on a campus basis, involving community collaborators more deeply in the planning and conduct of these important "extras."

One important step in helping small schools to continue on the road to success would be to focus funding and support on two key areas: leadership development and improved coaching to support those leaders. Being a leader of a small school is a special opportunity with special challenges, requiring extraordinary interpersonal abilities, technical and craft knowledge, and time management skills. As I often describe it, leading a small school is like being a bodega owner. (For those who may not know, bodegas are small, neighborhood "mom and pop" stores in cities with healthy Latino populations.) The bodega owner shows up early to unlock the grate, spritzes the fruit, puts up the sale signs, meets the delivery drivers, chases the cats away from the dumpster, and relates intimately and knowledgeably with anyone and everyone concerned with his or her business in the neighborhood.

Small school principals cannot employ "vice admirals" to do their bidding - overseeing staff, counseling, discipline, academics, operations, and so on. Instead, they must know and care deeply about their staff members as individuals, as well as about their students and families. They are obliged to have a working familiarity with the surrounds of the school; technology; assessment; operations; and issues of language, culture, and diversity. They must relate to their small faculties as a teacher does with his or her classroom - pushing the right buttons; modeling a positive, "can do" attitude; and zealously protecting the core values of the small learning community while still being open to fresh ideas. It's a different skill set and orientation from those needed to lead a large high school. We must take pains to grow and support leaders of small schools with state-of-the-art training, professional development, and leaves and fellowships that renew and inform.

Overdue, and more important than ever, is a new focus on the role of coaches in efforts to restructure our schools. Although a relatively new business, coaching has become the strategy of choice in supporting the development of small schools. Funding coaches is now a substantial part of the school improvement budgets of most districts. The coaching model is expected to help build capacity and encourage strategic action, yet it remains largely dependent on external "intermediaries" and a broad range of coaches to choose from. We need to look more closely at the coaching phenomenon and explore both its best practices and the nature of its impact.

As Ted Sizer, Elliot Eisner, Peter Senge, and others have articulated, the practical challenges caused by the mismatch between the ways in which young people think and learn and the present patterns and programs of our schools are immense and remain virtually impossible to overcome in large high schools. Small high schools represent just the kind of environment needed to host an intelligent review of differing curriculum models; project-based instruction; and rigorous, community-based standard setting. States and districts should energetically and open-mindedly monitor this work. Paying attention to these promising new institutions can add vital richness to our school redesign efforts and develop and support enduring new models.

LARRY MYATT is the headmaster-on-assignment to the Office of High School Renewal of the Boston Public Schools; the cofounder of the Center for Collaborative Education, Boston; the founder and former headmaster of Fen way High School, Boston; and the director of the Greater Boston Principal Residency Network, Northeastern University. Copyright 2004, Larry Myatt.