School organization and size should be used as levers of change because of their ability to be consciously designed as a tractable cost-effective way to increase academic achievement in general and special education students. The Institute has undertaken a number of projects focusing on how schools are organized and the influence on student outcomes.
Small Schools Effectiveness and Stability in Teachers and Students
Robin Jacobowitz and Meryle G. Weinstein
A two-year mixed methods study to explore the process and outcomes of small high school development in New York City across the past decades. We examine how school-level student and teacher populations change over time in small New York City public high schools, the organizational and instructional practices that contribute to positive small school learning environments and how changes in these populations over time may influence school practices. Funded by New Visions for Public Schools, the project produced two reports in 2006: one focusing on how student and teacher populations at the NYC small high schools change from year to year as they develop during the first ten years of their existence; the second examines student and teacher demographic characteristics over time, student outcomes over time, and organizational and instructional practices that contribute to positive learning environments in small schools. We anticipate that our findings will have important implications for how new small high schools are established and supported, as more and more small high schools are created throughout New York City.
How Should We Organize Primary Schooling? Grade Span, School Size and Student Academic Performance
co-Principal Investigators: Leanna Stiefel and Amy Ellen Schwartz, NYU, Ross Rubenstein, Syracuse University & Jeffrey Zabel, Tufts University
This research is one of the first efforts to systematically identify and measure the effects of school grade span organization on student achievement in a large urban school district. The project seeks answers to the following questions: What effect does the grade span configuration of primary schools have on student achievement? Do the observed effects differ depending on student characteristics, such as grade level, income, race, immigrant status, English proficiency, and eligibility for special education? How does the test score gap across students vary with school organizational factors, such as school size, grade span or articulation grade? What related factors (for example, the particular grades served, school size and composition, timing of transitions to new schools) mediate the effects of grade span configuration? We exploit the natural variation found in the country’s largest school district (New York City) and take advantage of unique longitudinal student data that will allow us to examine the performance of cohorts of students through seven years of schooling and as they transition from elementary schools to middle school. Our research focuses on identifying ‘optimal’ ways to organize schools and explore differences in optimal configurations across students of different backgrounds. The research is funded by the Institute for Education Science of the U.S. Department of Education and should be of value to educators, researchers and policymakers.
Cost Effectiveness of Small High Schools
Leanna Stiefel, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Patrice Iatarola, and Colin C. Chellman
Is it less expensive to raise performance in a big school than in a small school? Is there evidence that small school sizes are better for some students (e.g., disadvantaged students) but not others?
Small Schools and Teacher Recruitment and Retention
co-Principal Investigators: Leanna Stiefel and Amy Ellen Schwartz
How is recruitment and retention different in small and large schools? What are the characteristics of teachers who are recruited to small high schools versus larger high schools? Are teachers in small schools more likely to be recruited from outside the district? Are they recruited from large schools? How do the characteristics of teachers change as small schools mature? Do they begin to resemble the characteristics of teachers at larger, established high schools? Are levels of retention different?
Small Schools and College Preparation and Outcomes
co-Principal Investigators: Leanna Stiefel and Amy Ellen Schwartz
Do small high schools better prepare students for college than larger schools? Are the effects the same for all students or do they differ across groups of students (English language learners, immigrants, racial and ethnic groups, etc.)? Do small high schools deliver better college outcomes than larger schools in areas such as applications, matriculation and GPA? Are college outcomes produced equally well by small schools or are some schools too small, for example, to provide the in-depth, specialized work needed to prepare students for college? Do newly created small schools have a different impact on students than older small schools?
Systemwide Effects of Small School Reform
co-Principal Investigators: Leanna Stiefel and Amy Ellen Schwartz
To what extent did the creation of new small high schools succeed in increasing the performance of all the district’s students? Did gains in new small schools come at the expense of losses in the existing schools? What evidence is there that creating small high schools might be effective as a system-wide reform? How does such a reform “go to scale” such that it will have a larger impact on the entire school system? How do existing schools become small? How is a location chosen for new small schools?