COULD SMALLER SCHOOL DISTRICTS HAVE PREVENTED ATLANTA CHEATING SCANDAL?
Here in Atlanta, the cheating scandal at the Atlanta Public School system has been front page news every day. The new superintendent is cleaning house based on the findings of an800 page report from the governor’s office while the old superintendent has just retired and is laying low in Hawaii. In the years down the road, when this scandal has become a distant memory, the APS system will still be a behemoth, with over 54,000 K-12 students and more than 6000 teachers, staffers and administrators.
Could the idea of creating smaller school districts in large urban areas make more of a difference in their student’s scholastic achievement level?
1. The higher the level of poverty in a community served by a school, the more damage larger schools and school districts inflict on student achievement. In more affluent communities, the impact of school and district size is quite small, but the poorer the community, the stronger the influence.
2. The achievement gap between children from more affluent and those from less affluent communities is narrowed in smaller schools and smaller districts, and