“The Relationship between School Size and Social Capital”
Article by Presley Cobb
Description:
High school has problems that may not be understood by the average person. Two critical factors are school size and class size. There is overwhelming evidence proving that the size or number of students within both the school and the classroom can harm a student’s academic achievement and social skills. Research has determined that a small high school is considered to range between 400 to 800 students, with anything above that considered a large school. So let’s look at the good and bad qualities of a large school versus a small school.
One benefit of a large school is that they have a large diversity of students. This creates an environment where students can find the people they fit in with better. This diversity also allows students to develop social skills with new or different people.
Some of the downfalls of larger schools are:
- Decreased funds: large schools tend to have less money since they have to employ more faculty members
- A higher then normal drop out rate
- Decreased attendance rates
- Lower academic achievement
With school consolidation, the idea was for students to have more opportunities for club participation, since the schools now had the space to build them. Unfortunately, this was not the case. As the school got bigger, attendance at school dropped, and so did attendance in extracurricular activities dropped. So knowing this why are people still building larger schools? Despite the number of large schools that continue to be built, 1940 to 1990 saw an overall decline in the number of large elementary and secondary public schools. In these four decades the number of large schools fell from about 200,00 to 62037, a 69 percent drop, despite a 70 percent rise in the U.S. population.
Smaller schools seem to the answer, smaller schools seem to have a lower drop out rate higher attendance and academic achievement far surpasses the grades of a larger school. Research shows smaller schools do better then a larger school in nearly every academic category. Smaller schools have fewer teachers to have to pay fewer students to have to manage. This in turn makes some of the administrator’s job easier.
In spite of their benefits there are some problems with small schools. Fewer amounts of students and teachers mean a limited amount of foreign languages studied. It means that there are not as many extracurricular activities and that students tend to be in classes with students of varying ages and grades. A freshman may find himself in a class with juniors and seniors, possibly making him somewhat uncomfortable and unwilling to socialize.
Teachers believe that it would be easier to teach class with fewer students. I don’t think they know how right they are, studies show when a teacher has less students it is easier for them to concentrate on an individual student that may be having problems, instead of having to concentrate on keeping the class quiet or looking to see who is sleeping. In this design, teachers can also develop a personal connection with there students. This helps teachers develop stronger connections with their students outside of the classroom, like tutoring after school, or on their own time, and getting students to help the teacher beyond their educational experience.
Funding for Academic Year: 2004