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It’s just different, because in a [big] high school there’s the popular [people]…and they got the basketball team and they got the football team.  That’s how it is in a big high school.  Everyone has their own certain crowds, so everyone doesn’t mingle all together.  Here, everyone mingles together.  We consider ourselves a community.  That’s why we call ourselves Egleston Community High School…. That’s basically why there’s not a lot of fights, because we’re trying to stay in the community, not breaking off in different pairs. 

–  Pilot high school student

Pilot Schools are small schools by design, optimally no more than 450 students, in order to build community.  Relationships among students and between students and staff are facilitated by smallness.  Small schools are a powerful way to increase student engagement and in turn student achievement.  In fact, “A large and consistent body of research suggests that we should be moving, not toward larger high schools, but expeditiously toward smaller ones.” (Tom Gregroy, 2000, p. 2, in Kathleen Cotton, “New Small Learning Communities: Findings from Recent Literature,” December 2001, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.)

Research supports the following important conclusions about small schools:

  • “Academic achievement in small schools is at least equal—and often superior—to that of large schools”
  • “Grouping and instructional strategies associated with higher student performance are more often implemented in small schools.”
  • Student attitudes toward school are more positive in small schools.
  • Small schools experience significantly fewer discipline problems and less truancy, violence, substance abuse, and gang participation.
  • Levels of extracurricular participation are higher and more varied in small schools, and students in small schools gain greater satisfaction from participation.
  • Student attendance is higher in small schools, while the dropout rate is lower.
  • “Students’ academic…self-concepts are higher in small schools.”
  • Small schools have a higher rate of parental involvement.
  • Teacher attitudes towards their work and their administrators are more positive in small schools.
  • Small schools are effective in combating the effects of poverty on student achievement and in narrowing the achievement gap that separates poor students from their affluent peers, as well as black and Latino students from white students. 

    – From Cotton, K. (1995)  Effective schooling practices: a research synthesis 1995 update.  Close-Up #9.  Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Education Laboratory. 

 A study on Pilot high school students showed that they choose to attend and stay enrolled in Pilot Schools because of strong academics, support, and school culture. (Doyle and Feldman, “Student Voice and School Choice in the Boston Pilot High Schools,” Educational Policy, May 2006, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp.367-398.) Students frequently referred to the smallness of their schools as a positive feature. A Pilot high school student linked small size with an improved learning environment:

It’s smaller.  When I really thought about it, as the years went on, I realized that I didn’t want to be in a big school.  That’s too many students…when you have a small environment it’s better.  It’s an easier learning environment.  You know who’s around you, you know who’s in your school.  Everything’s peaceful.  At their school [a large school], everything’s rowdy.

   In addition to supporting the educational benefits of small schools, research challenges the notion that large schools are more cost-effective.  A study on school size in New York City found, in examining cost per graduate, that

Small academies and large high schools are similar in terms of budget per graduate….Because the literature on school size indicates that small high schools are more effective for minority and poor students, the similarity in [financial costs] suggests that policy makers might do well to support the creation of more small high schools.” (Leanna Stiefel, Robert Berne, Patrice Iatarola, and Norm Fruchter, “High School Size: Effects on Budget and Performance in New York City,”Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Spring 2000, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 27-39.)

   As small schools tend to have higher graduation rates than large high schools, small schools may in fact have greater cost-effectiveness as compared to large schools. (Stiefel, same as above)