District Spending in Small and Large High Schools: Lessons from Baltimore City, Boston, and Chicago. Executive Summary

In this paper, a companion piece to "Strategic Designs: Lessons from Leading Edge Small Urban High Schools" (ED544382), the authors analyze small high school spending in three urban districts--Baltimore City, Boston, and Chicago--to understand whether it is higher than in larger schools; if it is, why it is different; and the policy considerations connected to small school spending. Specifically, they examined two key questions: (1) How much do districts spend to operate small high schools? and (2) How do patterns of resource use in small high schools differ from patterns of resource use in larger high schools? They detail the methodology they used to address these two questions and present a discussion of findings, policy considerations, and recommendations for how school and district leaders can approach small school resource use and funding. [For the full report, see ED544392.]