Small schools - June 1, 2009
From: Dr. John E. Bierwirth, Herricks Public Schools
Date: June 1, 2009
Re: Dr. Bierwirth’s article,
For the past several years the Gates Foundation has poured billions of dollars into initiatives to create small high schools, particularly in urban school systems, on the theory that small schools would produce significantly better achievement. This initiative was pursued aggressively and with all of the financial and political support the Gates Foundation, the world’s largest, could muster.
In a recent announcement, which unfortunately received very little attention, the Foundation indicated that it had determined that small schools did not result in improved achievement. The Foundation instead concluded that the quality of teachers, not the size of the school, was the primary factor in increasing student achievement.
Al Shanker often said that no “great idea” is a great idea and no “reform” is really a reform unless it produces solid results. There has long been a tendency in education to trumpet a great idea or a reform at its inception and assume that it would produce the desired results. To some degree this was the case with the Gates Foundation small school initiative. However, to the great credit of the key leaders at the Foundation, they held themselves to a higher standard. No doubt the results were a significant disappointment to them but they heeded them and went public.
Researchers have determined that half of the one million students who drop out each year come from just 100 of the 13,000 school districts in the United States. Stemming this flood requires bold initiatives supported by solid funding with political independence from places like Gates. The flood will not be stemmed, however, by initiatives which do not produce the desired results.
