Small Schools Work And They're Cost Effective, New Report Finds

10/23/2002

From: Kathy Westra of the Rural School & Community Trust, 202-955-7177, Emily Hedrick of the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, 513-929-1132, or Steven Bingler of Concordia, Inc., 504-569-1818

CINCINNATI, Oct. 23 -- Research on the relationships of school size, poverty, and student achievement has shown that small schools are better for kids - particularly kids from poorer communities. Now, a new report goes head-to-head with conventional wisdom about economies of scale, illustrating that smaller schools can be cost-effective, as well. "Dollars & Sense: The Cost Effectiveness of Small Schools" is a collaborative effort of the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, the Rural School and Community Trust, and Concordia, Inc. In the report, a team of nine researchers with expertise in education, architecture, and quantitative research challenge the common belief that big schools are cheaper to build and maintain than are small ones. Their conclusion: investing tax dollars in small schools makes good economic sense.

"Dollars & Sense" shows that small, effective learning environments do not need to be sacrificed in order to achieve fiscal responsibility," said Barbara Diamond, Senior Program Officer at KnowledgeWorks Foundation. "This document will help policymakers across the nation see that small schools are a wise investment."

"There is a growing national consensus that small schools are better for children," said Rachel B. Tompkins, president of the Rural School and Community Trust, "but there are still many misconceptions about the costs of small schools. This report provides the documentation to set the record straight that small schools are not just effective, they are cost-effective."

"Planners and architects don't usually make the final decisions about school size, but their opinions about cost and practicality can carry a lot of weight in the conversation," said leading school architect Steven Bingler of Concordia, Inc. "With more and more parents and educators asking for smaller and more intimate learning environments located closer to home, creative planning and design teams are finding ways to meet these needs - and still conserve precious financial resources. The key is a will and determination to make it happen."

"Dollars & Sense" points to a number of alarming trends in school size: the rampant rural school consolidation policies of the past few decades, state policies that favor construction of huge schools over smaller ones and that discourage maintenance or renovation of older schools, and the alarming growth in the size of the average school from 127 students in 1940, to 653 today.

Diseconomies of Scale

The authors cite research on the host of educational and social benefits of small schools - benefits that include higher academic achievement, lower dropout rates, less violence and vandalism, greater teacher satisfaction, and more community involvement. Similarly, they point to research on the negative effects of large schools on students, teachers, and members of the community, as well as the "diseconomies of scale" inherent in large schools.

These diseconomies are rarely discussed when a new school facility is proposed, but are extremely important in figuring the true cost of building and maintaining a school. For example, large schools may appear on the surface to have a lower per-student cost. However, when the much-higher dropout rates of larger schools are factored into a cost per graduate, small schools become more cost effective. The long-term costs to society of school dropouts -- their lower earning power, higher arrest and jail rates, higher incidence of child abuse and neglect, and poorer overall health -- also argue powerfully in favor of using the cost per graduate in determining the true cost of a school.

Larger schools require costly added tiers of administration, more security personnel, and additional maintenance and operations personnel -- expenditures that significantly increase the per-student cost of a school, and that grow as a school becomes larger. Another major diseconomy in large consolidated schools is transportation -- fuel, buses, bus drivers, and maintenance. Yet, say the report's authors, the billions of dollars it costs to transport students every year are rarely factored into cost comparisons between smaller and larger schools. Finally, the economic costs when a community loses a school can be significant.

Reasonably Sized Schools

One of the most interesting findings in "Dollars & Sense" is an analysis of a database of 489 school designs submitted to design competitions between 1990 and 2001. These schools varied greatly in size, and were designed to accommodate between 24 and 4,000 students. First, the researchers divided the entire database at the median and compared the cost of schools above and below the median at the elementary, middle, and high school level. In this comparison, the schools below the median were somewhat more expensive than the larger ones, both in terms of cost per student and cost per square foot.

However, when the authors evaluated only the 145 schools in the data set that could be considered "reasonably sized" (1,000 students for high schools, 750 for middle schools, and 500 for elementary schools), the results were far different. Within this group of reasonably sized schools, the smaller schools were significantly less expensive to build, costing $105 per square foot (compared to $120 for the larger schools) and $16,283 per student (compared to $17,618 for the larger schools).

Single copies of "Dollars & Sense" are available free of charge by writing KnowledgeWorks Foundation, 700 Walnut St., Suite 600, Cincinnati, OH 45202, or the Rural School and Community Trust, 1825 K St., NW, Suite 703, Washington, DC 20006. E-mail requests can be sent to wainwrightf@kwfdn.org or info@ruraledu.org. To download a PDF version of "Dollars & Sense," visit http://www.kwfdn.org, http://www.ruraledu.org, or http://www.concordia.com.

------ KnowledgeWorks Foundation is Ohio's largest public education philanthropy. KnowledgeWorks Foundation provides funding and leadership for education initiatives throughout the state, and is focused on removing barriers to quality education. The Foundation is committed to sharing knowledge gained and lessons learned with others in Ohio and across the nation to help inform public policy. KnowledgeWorks Foundation is focused on three program areas: School Facilities Planning and Design, School Improvement, and College and Career Access. KnowledgeWorks Foundation is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, and currently holds more than $200 million in assets. Learn more about KnowledgeWorks Foundation at http://www.kwfdn.org.

The Rural School and Community Trust (Rural Trust) is the premier national nonprofit organization addressing the crucial relationship between good schools and thriving rural communities. Working in some of the poorest, most challenging rural places, the Rural Trust involves young people in learning linked to their communities, improves the quality of teaching and school leadership, advocates for appropriate state educational policies, and addresses the critical issue of funding for rural schools. For more information, visit the Rural Trust website at http://www.ruraledu.org.

Concordia is a national leader in the planning and design of innovative environments for learning. Over the past 19 years, research alliances have included the MIT Media Lab, Harvard University's Project Zero, the University of New Mexico, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Thornburg Institute, the Appalachian Educational Lab, and the WestEd Lab. With studios in New Orleans, Louisiana and Pasadena, California, the firm's work emphasizes collaboration and integration as tools for addressing the needs of diverse constituencies.