Why take liberties in school-size discussion?

How ironic that an op-ed commentary titled, “Bigger schools may not be better for Maine students” (BDN, Jan. 16), provides no evidence relevant for Maine. Although the research criticized by William E. Davis [professor of education and director of the Institute for the Study of Students At Risk at the University of Maine] evidently does not qualify in his eyes as “quality national research,” at least it is based on facts in Maine. Davis rightly argues that the debate on school consolidation should not be based on “inaccurate and misleading” information. Unfortunately, though, this is what is provided in much of the Davis op-ed.

In the context of school size, Maine is different from the rest of the nation in two important respects. First, Maine does not have large metropolitan areas. The social and academic problems raised in the Davis article as are much more severe in inner cities. Second, Maine schools, on average, are much smaller than in the rest of the nation. In the 2000-2001, the average American school was 80 percent bigger than the average Maine school. The majority of “large” Maine schools are considered “small” in the national research.

The more misleading part of the Davis op-ed, however, is in the way that it frames the debate. That article repeatedly claims that smaller schools are better, period. If smaller schools are always better, then the optimal number of schools is one for every student. Similarly, if larger schools are always better, then the optimal number is one school for the whole state (indeed, one school for the whole world). Clearly, both of these notions are ridiculous. Statements that smaller or larger schools are better, period, are equally ridiculous. There are benefits of larger schools only up to point. Conversely, there are benefits of smaller schools only down to a point.

Clearly the debate should be about the optimal size, not blanket statements about larger or smaller. Not many reasonable people would argue that Bangor High School (the largest school in the state) should be much bigger. Nor would many argue that the state’s high schools with less than 100 students should be smaller. Thus, to blindly extrapolate to Maine evidence based on national data misinforms the public discussion.

It is particularly ironic that the Davis commentary emphasizes the concern that the dropout problem is worse in larger schools, because a quick inspection of the 2000-01 data on dropouts in Maine illustrates the above point particularly well. If Davis had downloaded this information from the Maine State Department of Education’s Web site, he would have seen that the correlation statistic between the dropout rate and school size was zero (actually it was very slightly negative, but essentially zero).

There is, however, some evidence that the dropout rate is higher in the state’s 13 high schools with more than 1,000 students (which is largish even by national standards). There is no evidence of a systematic relationship between the dropout rate and schools size for the state’s 106 secondary schools with less than 1,000 students. Thus, the data indicate that dropout problem is not an issue for school size until high schools reach 1,000-plus students. Moreover, the “Trostel study” indicates that there is not even a cost advantage from increasing school size at this point.

The Davis op-ed does raise an important point in the debate on school consolidation. There are important social benefits in small schools. Indeed, these are stressed on the very first page of the Trostel study. The tradeoffs involved in decisions about school size are very difficult. It is unfortunate, however, when those tradeoffs are blurred by taking liberties in reporting the evidence.

Philip Trostel is a researcher at the University of Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy and associate professor of economics at UMaine.