The long-term picture is more sobering.
Although more students enrolled in both four- and two-year colleges, small school graduates did not graduate from community college in greater numbers than the comparison group. After six years, about 10 percent of students had earned an associate’s degree, about the same share as students who did not attend the small schools. The researchers also found no differences in employment or income.
There was one notable exception. Students who enrolled in four-year colleges were more likely to complete a bachelor’s degree if they attended a small high school. Almost 15 percent of students at small schools earned a four-year degree within six years, compared to 12 percent of their peers.
Joel Klein was superintendent of New York City schools from 2002 to 2011 during the overhaul. Klein said the data shows the small school effort has been worth it. He considers it one of his most important achievements, along with the expansion of charter schools. Closing large high schools and replacing them with new ones required considerable political will, he said, as he drew opposition from the teachers’ union. Teachers were not guaranteed a job at the new smaller schools and had to reapply or find another school to hire them.
New York wasn’t the only city to try small schools. Baltimore and Oakland, California, among others, have also used Gates Foundation money to experiment with the concept. The results were not encouraging.
Klein argues that other cities have failed to replicate New York’s success because they simply broke large schools into smaller units without building new cultures. In New York, aspiring principals submitted detailed proposals, just like charter schools, and schools opened incrementally, adding one grade at a time.
There were unintended consequences in New York as well. During the transition years between the closure of the old school and the slow growth of the new small schools, places were limited. Entries in the other large schools in the city rose. While some students enjoyed the intimacy of the new small schools, many more students suffered from overcrowding.
Whether due to political resistance, replication challenges, or shifting philanthropic priorities, the small school movement eventually died out. By 2010, would-be reformers had turned their attention to evaluating teacher effectiveness and school change strategies.
Today, with enrollment in many areas declining, school consolidation, not expansion, dominates the conversation. MDRC’s Unterman said some districts are now exploring whether elements of the small school model — counseling systems or “schools within schools” — could be recreated on larger campuses.
By all accounts, New York’s small schools are a vast improvement over the established schools they replaced. Most remain in service, a testament to their durability. The evidence they leave behind, however, also highlights a harsh truth. Improving high school can move milestones, such as getting more students to go to college. Changing the economic trajectories of college students may require more radical change.
This story about small high schools was created by The Hechinger Reportan independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Jill Barshay’s Evidence points and others Hechinger Bulletins.
