Large districts hurt the disadvantaged
By Mary Anne Raywid
A recent front-page story in The Advertiser ("Income a factor in test-score disparities," Jan. 4) underscored once again the relationship between poverty and academic achievement.
We have long known that children who come from poor homes are less likely to succeed in school than children who are fortunate enough to come from wealthier ones. But the equally tragic truth is that the longer youngsters remain in school, the wider the gap grows between the achievement levels of the children of affluence and the children of poverty.
And this in a democracy, where public schools are supposed to be the great leveler — or at least to extend the opportunity of mobility to all children.
Yet, as some outraged researchers have warned, public schools have all too often operated in precisely reverse fashion. They operate, that is, in accord with the Matthew Principle expressed in the Bible: "To them that hath shall be given, and from them that hath not shall be taken away." Youngsters from poor families, that is, as the years go by, slip further and further behind, and so their self-esteem is taken from them, too, as their scores and grades drop.
And researchers have exposed how our foolish commitment to size has a great deal to do with this: We have been convinced that big schools were better than small ones, and we have acted as though large school districts were preferable to smaller ones — with Hawai'i having gone overboard in this department, averaging among the nation's largest schools and representing the only state with just one mammoth school district.
But now the evidence is clear, making such practice absolutely unforgivable: It is not only large schools that penalize disadvantaged students, but also large school districts that do so.
In more affluent communities, school and district size have much less impact. But the higher the level of poverty in a community, and the more youngsters who are affected by it, the more damage larger schools and a large school district can have.
And small schools can far more effectively combat the negative effects of poverty on academic achievement when located in a small school district than when situated in a large one.
In one study, conducted in Arkansas, smaller districts — as quite distinct from small schools — cut poverty's power over student achievement by more than half (Johnson, Howley & Howley, "Small Works in Arkansas," Rural School and Community Trust, March 2002).
So depending on how serious we are about helping the children of the poor, and about making good on those No Child Left Behind progress requirements, perhaps we ought to start thinking seriously about smaller districts as well as about smaller schools.
We have tried a number of other things that don't seem to have worked very successfully. Perhaps it's time for a new approach. And there is certainly quite a bit of evidence to recommend this one.
Mary Anne Raywid is a veteran educator and author, an adjunct professor at UH-Manoa and a professor emerita of educational administration and policy studies at Hofstra University.
