As far as middle schools and high schools being less numerou, I guess it depends on the community. Here we have 88 elementary schools, 25 middle schools and 22 high schools (not counting Catholic schools which are a big part of our local educational offerings). I think the smaller number of locations at the higher levels is probably the ‘college prep’ part of their work. I helps prepare kids for larger schools and more diversity in the classroom. I know even with my high school of 1000 or so I was very overwhelmed my first couple of weeks on a college campus of 10,000 or more.

BTW, citywide school boards were originally justified by “progressives” a hundred years ago because they eliminated the overrepresentation of ordinary blue collar workers, tradesmen and small business people in the neighborhood school boards.

But maybe my hometown is an outlier. Surely there’s some data out there that compares administrative costs of larger and smaller school districts.

There’s a lot here to unpack and think about. Obviously much of it is aspirational. I was really struck by this paragraph.

Beyond this, though, I’d like to see programs set up that actually addressed community needs. For instance, in areas with large forests and forest-fire problems, including fire science options at the high school level makes a lot of sense. Focused trade school options are also vital, because as I’ve said countless times, not every kid is an academic and predisposed to liberal arts, college, and so forth. (One interesting thing to note about the “terrible” condition of schools, and especially graduation rates, is that they’re not really any worse than they were five decades ago. Only now there are fewer blue collar jobs available to non-school types. So we should cater our schools to creating skilled workers such as carpenters and masons as well as lawyers-and-doctors-to-be. And yes, there is real room for some private involvement here, in apprenticeship type programs….)

Leveraging the assets of a community (environment/commercial) to bolster schools’ educational programs is something I’m partial to as an engagement tool.

The common criticism I’ve heard of that approach is that it creates a system that is focused on the educational needs of the local business community and reduces social mobility somewhat, at the cost of the educational needs of the students and undermines an attempt to build a culture that pushes each student to develop to their own potential somewhat independent of the workforce needs of the local business community.

I don’t know what you think of that, I think it’s about two parts conspiracy theory, one part marxist, with a dash of reasonable concern.

However, I do think there is somewhat of a trade off between local bias a positive tool for educational advancement and engagement and local bias as an inhibitor of a more cosmopolitan awareness.

I also think you’re right about the shift in employment options and availability – at the same time, I’d say the obsessive focus on sending kids to college has probably done more to increase the dropout rate rather than decrease it.

However, it’s hard to gain traction for increasing trade school or votech options because people hear “minorities can’t go to college or leaving children behind,” rather than what you’re actually saying.

Finally, I’d say the single largest obstacle to your smaller schools program isn’t funding but, in fact, the law. The system would be impossible to implement in the South and probably a concern in and around major cities elsewhere because smaller, more local schools would increase segregation and racial imbalance. One of the contributing factors to the location and size of schools today is to provide remedies for segregation or to avoid desegregation litigation.

So even if there were legislative/community support for such a move, it’s unclear just how vulnerable your school regime would be to successful litigation that it was unconstitutional. Or more accurately, didn’t go far enough to successfully address unconstitutional segregation resulting in racially imbalanced schools.

There’s a lot to still think about here, enjoyably thoughtful post as usual, E.D.

Dan’s comments point to a big reason why over charters and vouchers I prefer expansion of magnet programs at comprehensive high schools (and middle schools). I think they’re a fairly workable solution to providing more choice, flexibility, smaller learning communities, among other benefits while retaining the advantages of larger, comprehensive schools that Dan mentions.