Smaller High Schools Improve Student Performance

By Dr. Marciene Mattleman

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - In the past 15 years, many large high schools have been broken up into smaller units. Some stay in their buildings, others move. It's not the space that matters; it's the concept - getting to know and help kids succeed better, know their families, better supervision.

New York City has closed 31 large, struggling high schools since 2002 and has replaced them with small schools. Findings have just been released from 84 of the city's 123 academically non-selective "small schools of choice," mostly serving low-income students and those of color.

The study compares outcomes of those attendees with their peers who lost the admissions lottery and enrolled in other high schools and concludes that small schools raise on-time graduation rates by 9.4 percent and boost college enrollment by 8.4 percent.

Education Week also cites another important finding - that forty-nine percent of students from small schools enrolled in postsecondary education after graduating on time.