Rudy Crew addresses the issue of school size in The New York Times online forum. This week the Kansas City Board of Education approved the closure of nearly half of its schools in response to low enrollment and a $50 million budget deficit. The board believes the closing will “improve achievement by allowing the system to focus its resources.” The New York Times asks, “How much does school size matter? And what are the lessons learned from Kansas City?”

To read all comments in the forum, click here.

The New York Times
Friday, March 12th, 2010
“Room for Debate” – A Running Commentary on the News

Many Factors Beyond Size

In my judgment school size is much less a determinant value than instruction. Focusing on school size is simply looking at a big picture through a very small lens and missing the real opportunity to address the larger shifts needed in our public education system to recognize, accept, and respond to the challenges of declining revenues and student enrollment.

The value and emphasis should be placed on the way schools are organized and with effective teachers who have content knowledge. We need to deliver instruction in exciting, compelling and diverse ways.
In New York City and Miami-Dade, I looked beyond traditional constraints and moved past the tried-and-true perspectives in creating the Chancellor’s District and the School Improvement Zone. These initiatives were achieved without the acquisition of new resources, but with the re-alignment and re-deployment of existing human and financial resources.

In both cases, I collaborated with community and business leaders, elected officials, school administrators, teachers, parents, and unions to leverage innovation, promote effective models, and provide cover for new approaches that would inevitably need time to prove themselves worthy or not.

Advancing teaching and learning through instructional strategies, including utilization of the arts, is at the core. It’s fast becoming the approach of U.S.C.’s Greater Crenshaw Education Partnership and is a tipping point issue for competitive federal grants.

All of these tactics matter so much more than school size, and these remain true across socio-economic, ethnic, and language boundaries. The largest of schools can be broken down into academies to provide the needed relationship between teachers and their students.

In fact, they can actually add value because of the economies of scale and the ability to offer a wide range of program options.

In the quest for higher performing schools, there are so many factors that outrank school size. We must remain focused on efficiency and effectiveness and ensure that decisions serve the bigger picture and make it brighter for all students.

Rudy Crew served as chancellor of New York City Schools from 1995 to 1999 and superintendent of Miami-Dade County Schools from 2004 to 2008. He is a professor at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education and president of Global Partnership Schools.