Effects of School Size: A Review of the Literature with Recommendations

In this article the literature on the effects of school size is summarized to describe what is currently known about its relationship to economic efficiency, curricular diversity, academic achievement, and related variables. Two curvilinear relationships are identified: one for economic efficiency and one for educational outcomes. In both cases, increasing size initially brings positive effects but these trends are reversed as size continues to increase. The point of diminishing returns for educational outcomes occurs with fewer students than is the case for economic efficiency. Optimal school size can be defined by a range in which economic efficiency and educational outcomes both show positive relationships to larger school size. Recommendations are made to guide future research and to help educational decision-makers. Effects of School Size: A Review of the Literature with Recommendations For many years school consolidation was a popular approach to school reform among many legislators and school board members (Walberg, 1992), but enthusiasm for consolidation seemed to be waning in the 1980s (Guthrie & Reed, 1986). Current economic pressures on state governments, however, appear to be reviving interest in school consolidation. For example, the governor of Arkansas recently proposed an extensive reform plan that would reduce the number of school districts in the state from 310 to between 107 and 116 (Blomeley, 2003). In addition, rising enrollments are projected for the early part of this century (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1998) which should continue to strain educational budget and, thereby, create increased pressure toward consolidation as states seek greater economic efficiency. Proponents of school consolidation have based their recommendations on two major claims: greater economic efficiency and increased curricular offerings (Fox , 1981; Walberg, 1992). In spite of the face validity of school consolidation as a solution for educational problems, the research on school size indicates that the economic and curricular advantages of large schools are often exaggerated and that a variety of factors influence the relationship between school size and students’ academic achievement. Thus, educational decision-makers need to develop reform plans based upon a balanced consideration of all the important factors related to school size. In this paper, we provide an overview of the most important research on school size and a list of recommendations to help both researchers and local school officials in their consideration of this issue. 1 Slate and Jones: Effects of School Size: A Review of the Literature with Recommendations Published by OpenRiver, 2005 Before proceeding to the review, two caveats are in order. First, as is often true of studies conducted in schools, studies of school size are fraught with methodological problems. In most instances experimental designs with random assignment of students to schools of various size is not possible. As a result, decisions about the effects of school size must be based on the preponderance of the evidence, rather than on the basis of definitive studies. This approach to decision-making is based on the assumption that the strengths of some studies will ultimately compensate for the weaknesses in other studies and vice versa. As a result, our purpose in writing this paper is not to perform a critical analysis of individual studies. Rather, our purpose is to identify the general trends and concerns in the current literature on school size that are relevant to educational decision-making. The second caveat is that school size per se is not a direct causal factor affecting school quality. Rather, school size is indirectly related to academic outcomes through its relationship to a variety of other variables. As a result, the relationship between school size and various indicators of school size is likely to be very complex. Unfortunately, sophisticated studies addressing complex relationship are currently lacking in the literature. Academic decisionmakers, therefore, must guard against making simple decisions based upon studies relating only one, or a few, mediating variables to a limited number of outcome measures. Appropriate decisions must involve complex consideration of all relevant variables and with awareness of Monk and Haller’s (1993) caveat that size affects different schools in different ways.