Other Views
Other Views
GOVERNOR Cayetano's suggestion to cut the public education budget by eliminating small schools is ironic, tragic and potentially disastrous. In schools, smaller is better
It is ironic because, for almost a decade now, schools on the mainland have been deliberately downsized in the interest of improving them and their effectiveness with students.
Many in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities are convinced that establishing small schools and turning larger ones into schools-within-schools are our best hope for education reform.
The idea of eliminating small schools is tragic because large schools are the problem, not a solution.
The evidence recommending small schools over large ones presents just about the clearest case we have for anything pertaining to schools. It finds small schools superior to large ones in just about every significant way:
Children learn more, learn better and are more satisfied.
Every one of these advantages is stronger for disadvantaged youngsters than for the more fortunate ones. Disadvantaged children are more dependent upon positive arrangements to succeed than are others.
It seems particularly tragic, then, that more than half the schools that the governor singled out for consolidation are Title I schools, where more than half the students come from homes of poverty.
Finally, the suggestion of cutting school spending by closing the state's small schools is disastrous because there is a strong correlation between school size and student violence.
One authority on youthful crime has said, "If I could do one single thing (to stop violence among juveniles), it would be to ensure that teens are not in high schools bigger than 400-500 students."
The average size of Hawaii's high schools is already the highest in the nation. The elimination of small schools would raise that average even higher, and at a time when educators across the country are trying to reduce school size in the wake of the Columbine High tragedy.
As has been said by educators and a concerned public, our large schools are disasters waiting to happen.
So what might we do instead of cutting the education budget?
The small schools movement on the mainland has some of the answers.
A lot of costly services are unnecessary at schools small enough for teachers to know students.
There is no need for security guards and security devices. There is no need for the division of labor that makes specialized jobs and functions, and accompanying support staff, essential in a large school -- like someone in charge of discipline, someone else in charge of attendance, counselors and librarians, etc.
TASKS are restructured so teachers are able to cover them. And assistant principals and deans may be unnecessary, too. In fact, a number of small schools have teacher directors instead of principals, or itinerant principals who are responsible for four or five schools.
By reallocating tasks this way, a great deal of money can be saved. Students are better and more effectively served, and schools are reformed.
New York's small high schools cost less per graduate than do its large, comprehensive high schools. Why, then, doesn't Hawaii follow suit and adopt some of these practices and accomplish several worthwhile goals at once?
We should stop trying to save money by resorting to decades-old solutions by doing the opposite of what is currently recommended in the interest of school improvement and student motivation.
Mary Anne Raywid is education committee chairwoman
of the League of Women Voters of Hawaii and a nationally known
expert on education policy and reform.