What's So Big about Small Schools? The Case for Small Schools: Nationwide and in North Dakota. PEPG 05-05

A growing body of evidence points to the size of schools as a significant determining factor in academic achievement. Large schools are often far less successful at educating students than small schools. This paper shall first examine the data which support this claim and the reasons why small schools might work better. Finally, our conclusions will be applied to North Dakota small schools, which have been under pressure from state government to dissolve and consolidate. Academic achievement data will be analyzed to show that ND small schools in fact outperform ND large schools. (Contains 81 footnotes and 2 graphs.)