Review of Research on School District Size

In this section, we review the research on school district size. While the review covers forty four journal articles, books, or reports that address the issue of school district size, it should not be considered exhaustive. Some articles and reports that have not been covered in this review, due to the unavailability of the source, have been listed at the end of the section. Likewise, this review examines the research on school district size, not school size, except in cases where authors make connections between district and school size. While school size is an important issue, it is not solely determined by district size and therefore falls outside the scope of this section. Finally, the literature reviewed in this section covers studies conducted primarily by education researchers. There are a number of issue areas and related bodies of research, such as tax policy, organizational theory, and political science, that bear upon the question of school district size. This review does not cover these fields.

This section brings to light numerous limitations within the research on school district size that any responsible reader must consider before drawing conclusions about appropriate policies on school district size. To give readers a sense of the historical context of the debate over school district size, we have presented the research in chronological order. As you will see, much of the research was conducted in the 1960s and 1970s; only six of the forty four articles here reviewed were written in the 1990s. Research methods have evolved considerably over the past 30 years, and readers must recognize the possible limitations of research conducted in such different times. In addition, as the Fox (1981) article described below explains, many of the studies on school district size are undercut by considerable methodological flaws that go above and beyond the evolution of research methods. Furthermore, much of the research addresses the issue of district size in the context of rural consolidation. Studies that examine school districts with 1,000 to 20,000 students most likely offer little insight into the challenges confronting large urban school districts today.

With these limitations in mind, one additional point must be made. This review of the literature generates, perhaps, only one appropriate generalization. All of these studies support the assertion that the context of a given district, its history, politics, and geography, must be considered when determining the optimal size of a school district. While quantitative studies and case studies of other cities and states can provide some guidance, it is ultimately the history, politics, and geography of a particular district that will shed the strongest light on questions about the optimal size of a district for accomplishing what we all seek -- high quality education for all students.

Dawson, H. A. (1951). "Trends in school district reorganization." Phi Delta Kappan XXXII(7, March): 302-307, 312.
Dawson, director of the Rural Research Service of the National Education Association in 1951, describes the historical trend toward school district consolidation and explains the history of unified school districts in California. He explains that the Legislature passed a law consolidating elementary, high school, and junior college districts into unified districts to do away with the duplicative governing bodies that had existed for the separate districts.

McLure, W. P. (1951). "School district finance in district reorganization." Phi Delta Kappan XXXII(7, March): 321-326.
McLure, a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana, uses examples from a number of states and districts to argue that consolidation of districts would allow communities to support "efficient schools," defined as "a maximum of educational service at a minimum cost per pupil"(p.321). He bases his support for consolidation on what he professes to be its ability to accomplish three primary goals: increased financial support for education, equalization of educational opportunity, and provision of a wider range of special services within schools.

Terrien, F. W. and D. L. Mills (1955). "The effect of changing size upon the internal structure of organizations." American Sociological Review 20(1, February): 11-13.
Terrien and Mills analyze data from school districts in California for school year 1951-1952. The authors divided the districts into strata based upon the county and district budget, and half of these districts were randomly selected for the study's sample. The remaining sample was divided into elementary school districts, high school districts, and unified districts. For elementary and high school districts, small districts were designated as those with ten to 50 students; medium districts, from 50 to 150; and large districts, from 150 and over. For unified districts, small districts were designed as those with ten to 250 students; medium, from 250 up to 1,000; large, from 1,000 and over. From this sample, Terrien and Mills find that "...the proportion of the organization which was administrative rose from small through medium to large sized districts, showing a significant difference between small and large groups in each case.... [T]he school administrator may expected that the percentage of his organization which is devoted to administrative tasks may rise as his organization grows"(p.13).

Conant, J. B. (1959). The American high school today: A first report to interested citizens. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company Inc. Conant's report is frequently cited as the prime written justification for the consolidation of schools and school districts in the 1960s and 1970s. Conant writes: "The enrollment of many American public high schools is too small to allow a diversified curriculum except at exorbitant expense.... The prevalence of such high schools -- those with graduating classes of less than one hundred students -- constitutes one of the serious obstacles to good secondary education throughout most of the United States. I believe that such schools are not in a position to provide a satisfactory education for any group of their students -- the academically talented, the vocationally oriented, or the slow reader. The instructional program is neither sufficiently broad nor sufficiently challenging. A small high school cannot by its very nature offer a comprehensive curriculum. Furthermore, such a school uses uneconomically the time and efforts of administrators, teachers, and specialists, the shortage of whom is a serious national problem"(p.77).

Callahan, R. E. (1962). Education and the cult of efficiency: A study of the social forces that have shaped the administration of the public schools. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Callahan presents his understanding of the history and social forces that produced the consolidation of America's school districts from 1910 through 1929. He focuses particularly on education administrators' adoption of the era's business values and practices, often referred to as "scientific management." He summarizes the result of the transmission of values from the private sector to education in the following way: "The tragedy itself was fourfold: that educational questions were subordinated to business considerations; that administrators were produced who were not, in any true sense, educators; that a scientific label was put on some very unscientific and dubious methods and practices; and that an anti-intellectual climate, already prevalent, was strengthened"(p.246).

Barker, R. G. and P. V. Gump (1964). Big school, small school. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Barker and Gump's book addresses the issue of school -- not district -- size. It is, however, among the first studies to question the prevailing wisdom of the time that larger schools were more efficient and therefore better. Barker and Gump uses data from Kansas schools, ranging in size from 35 students in grades nine through twelve to 2,287 students. Nearly all of the schools in the study had fewer than 900 students. Based on their sample, Barker and Gump write: "The proportion of students who participated in district music festivals, and dramatic, journalistic and student government competitions reach a peak in high schools with enrollments between 61 and 150. The proportion of participants was three to twenty times as great in the small schools as in the largest schools. The number of extracurricular activities and kinds of activities engaged in during their four-year high school careers was twice as great in the small as in the large schools"(Cited in Sher and Tompkins, p.68).

Hirsch, W. Z. (1964). "Local versus areawide urban government services." National Tax Journal XVII(4, December): 331-339. Hirsch presents a framework to determine which public services should be provided by which level of government -- local, county, state, or federal. The framework's criteria include scale economy, geography, legal and administrative ability, legal and administrative ability, functional sufficiency, and maximization of citizen participation consistent with adequate performance. With regard to education, Hirsch determines that local governments serving between 50,000 and 100,000 residents can efficiently and adequately provide educational services, so long as the federal, and in some cases state, governments contribute to equalizing the distribution of income across districts.

Swanson, A. D. (1966). The effect of school district size upon school costs: Policy recommendations for the State of New York. Buffalo, Western New York School Study Council, State University of New York at Buffalo. Swanson reviews some of the research on New York's history of district organization. Previous studies indicate that: (1) the size of the school district population was directly related to potential efficiency, (2) very small or very large districts were adversely affected by size, and (3) districts with a total population between 20,000 and 50,000 were not adversely affected. Swanson places particular emphasis on the case of large school districts, arguing that "(1) the nature of the population in the core city of metropolitan areas requires special educational programs which are more costly than the programs required in other communities of the metropolitan area; and (2) the phenomenal growth of municipal costs resulting from the nature of the population, density of the population, and the central position of the core city in relation to its metropolitan area has reduced big city ability to meet the financial requirements of its schools thereby placing it in greater need of financial support from outside the community than present measures of [tax] "ability" would indicate"(p.13-14).

Kiesling, H. (1967). "Measuring a local government service: A study of school districts in New York State." The Review of Economics and Statistics XLIX(3, August): 356-67. Kiesling examines 1957 data from 97 school districts in New York State to examine relationships between per-pupil expenditures, the size of the administrative unit, and educational performance. With regard to school district size, Kiesling concludes: "no evidence has been found to support the popular idea of economies of scale in school district performance" (p.366). However, Kiesling notes the limitations of studies that evaluate school district "performance" as a function of achievement scores. He writes: "It should be emphasized that no claim is being made that scores capture the whole of educational quality. It is assumed, however, that they capture a large enough part of the educational quality dimension to be greatly useful to policy makers"(p.358).

Hirsch, W. Z. (1969). Reorganization of large school districts. Los Angeles, Institute of Government and Public Affairs, UCLA. Hirsch's 1969 testimony before the California Senate Committee on Education summarizes the findings on the pros and cons of consolidation and decentralization of school districts. He writes: "Three major virtues have been claimed for local governmental consolidation: savings due to economies of scale, improved conditions for coordinated planning for orderly growth, and equity in the financing of government services" (p.4). With regard to economies of scale, Hirsch argues: "Our empirical studies of scale economies indicate that while very small school districts are likely to benefit from scale economies, consolidation into huge school districts is likely to produce major diseconomies"(p.4). With regard to planning for growth, Hirsch writes: "Very large school districts appear to suffer from a geometric increase in the difficulty of successfully communicating intentions and procedures, establishing a harmonious system of incentives, and achieving adequate cohesion among numerous individuals in sub-units with sharply conflicting wills"(p.5). With regard to equity in financing, Hirsch notes that larger districts do enable greater financing for poorer areas within the large district, but he argues: "we do not need consolidation into one larger school district for the sake of fiscal equity. Instead, we can broaden the tax base so that it covers a wide area which contains a number of smaller school districts"(p.5). Hirsch does not explain how an area might create such a tax structure. Hirsch concludes that "the problems surrounding school district reorganization are vast and complex and experts in the field have at best only partial answers to key issues"(p.9).

Holdaway, E. A. and T. A. Blowers (1971). "Administrative ratios and organizational size: A longitudinal examination." American Sociological Review 36(April): 278-286. Holdaway and Blowers review earlier educational and non-educational research on administrative size and present the findings of their own cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of 41 urban school systems in western Canada. Their findings include: "(1) the larger school systems showed a strong tendency to have smaller administrative ratios than did the smaller school systems -- this usually occurred regardless of the definitions used for administrative ration and system size; and (2) this tendency to smaller administrative ratios as size increased over the five-year period (of the study) was not generally observed for the school systems taken individually"(p.284-285).

Sabulao, C. M. and G. A. Hickrod (1971). "Optimum size of school districts relative to selected costs." The Journal of Educational Administration IX(2, October): 178-192. Sabulao and Hickrod's 1971 study examines the "economic efficiency" of elementary, high school, and unified public school districts in Illinois. Economic efficiency is defined as the lowest cost per-pupil, with district size a function of average daily attendance and costs determined by average per-pupil expenditures. Capital expenditures were not included, and thus the analysis is limited by its failure to include the costs of facilities. Based on a quantitative analysis of the data, the authors conclude: "For optimum efficiency the unit district (a unified K-12 district) should be organized with 5,000 ADA where feasible. A larger optimum size could be set at 12,500 ADA and a maximum of 20,000 ADA in areas where the population warrants. Each state or each province should conduct its own size studies. It is a reasonable hypothesis that the 'optimum' size in one state or province may not be the 'optimum' size in another state or province"(p.191).

Coleman, P. (1972). "The perils of bigness: The case against large school districts." Educational Administration Quarterly VIII(2): 58-78. Coleman reviews the Canadian and United States literature on optimal school district size and "contends that existing empirical research on the question of optimal size of school districts does not yet provide educational decision-makers with clear guidelines as to how such values as economy of operation, citizen participation, diversity of programs, and institutional flexibility can be maximized"(p.58). Coleman weighs into the debate, ultimately, against large districts due to size and citizen participation, but cautions against generalizations regarding school district size: "[A]dministration is more art than science and variations in its features from school system to school system result from personal decisions, historical accidents, and unique clusters and characteristics in the environment of the system"(p.60).

Johns, R. L., K. Alexander, et al. (1972). Financing education: Fiscal and legal alternatives. Columbus, OH, Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company. In Chapter 6, Kerns et al. discuss the role and responsibility of school districts, emphasizing the district's influence on issues of school funding. With regard to equity across districts, the authors write: "Those states which have made significant strides in reducing the number of school districts have found that the wide disparities in available fiscal resources generally are reduced as the number of school districts within a state is reduced. The same result would occur if several operating districts were grouped into an area taxing unit, but retained their operational independence"(p.175). With regard to the use of funds by school districts, the authors cite research that indicates the size of a school district does not significantly influence its educational expenditure patterns (p.170).

Mullins, C. (1973). "School district consolidation: Odds are 2 to 1 it'll get you." American School Board Journal 160(11, November): 23-26, 57. Mullins' 1973 piece, written for school board members, outlines the pros -- efficiency, higher-quality and consistency of educational programming, equalization of funding across districts, and racial integration -- and cons -- inefficiency of large bureaucracies, busing, local control -- of consolidation, concluding: "The point seems clear enough: No universal conclusion exists to hold that consolidation is some sort of panacea for all of education's ills. Like the bikini, it isn't for everybody and never will be"(p.26).

White, F. and L. Tweeten (1973). "Optimal school district size emphasizing rural areas." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 55(1, February): 45-53. White and Tweeten analyze data from 27 school districts in Oklahoma to determine the optimal size of a school district, defined as "that which has minimum long-run average costs with resources combined in a least-cost manner"(p.46). Focusing particularly on optimal size for rural districts, White and Tweeten state that the optimal size ranged from 300 ADA for areas with low density to 1,075 ADA in high-density areas. The authors conclude: "This paper has shown that differences in high school curriculum and student density cause significant differences in optimal size and minimum attainable costs. A more extensive curriculum requires larger school districts to efficiently utilize the program. In sparsely populated areas, school districts could not expand in size to take full advantage of economies in instruction because transportation diseconomies were an overriding factor"(p.52).

Tyack, D. B. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Tyack presents the history of the consolidation of educational administration throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In particular, he explains how education professionals from the 1930s through the 60s pushed to increase the size of schools and districts to emulate the corporate model of "scientific management," wherein the goal was higher "productivity" for less cost. Proponents of consolidation also argued that scientific management of the schools, rather than political control, would remove the corruption of politics from the schools. There were numerous points of resistance in the path toward consolidation, but ultimately the transformation of lay control to bureaucratic control of schools, to the "one best system", was one of the largest changes in American governmental, administrative history.

Bidwell, C. E. and J. D. Kasarda (1975). "School district organization and student achievement." American Sociological Review 40(February): 55-70. Bidwell and Kasarda's 1975 study examines data from 104 school districts in Colorado to determine whether environmental factors -- including district size, fiscal resources, percent non-white in the population of the district's community, and the education and income levels of the parental risk populations -- influence organizational effectiveness and student achievement. With regard to district size, the authors found that "at least for Colorado districts, increasing size created an organizational dilemma. It was associated with well-qualified staff and low administrative intensity (and therefore, we have argued, with minimal diversion of human resources away from front-line tasks). But large size also meant more students to teach and thus higher ratios of students to teachers.... If this finding holds true, unless a school district has a large absolute amount of disposable funds to invest in teachers, increases in size should have at least partially self-defeating consequences for students' achievement"(pp.69-70).

Sher, J. P. and R. Tompkins (1977). Economy, efficiency, and equality: The myths of rural school and district consolidation. Education in rural America: A Reassessment of conventional wisdom. J. P. Sher. Boulder, CO, Westview Press: 43-75. Sher and Tompkins review the literature on school district size, focusing particularly on rural school districts. They conclude: "Most of the research not only fails to document the alleged benefits of consolidation, but also fails to acknowledge potential liabilities"(p.45). Research supporting consolidation, the authors argue, fails to account for certain costs -- transportation and related to costs under a consolidated district and distribution of centralized purchasing. Sher and Tompkins examine the question of equalization of financing, which has been among the primary justifications for consolidation. They suggest that a communities' taxable wealth is more relevant than is the size of the school district -- reforming school finance, they argue, is a better means of equalizing funding than is consolidation.

Guthrie, J. W. (1979). "Organizational scale and school success." Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 1(1): 17-27. Guthrie's paper "(1) describes the historical trend toward large organizational units for schooling, (2) samples the evidence regarding the economic instructional, and political effects of such a movement, (3) suggests a series of research strategies and questions deserving of attention in order to better exert influence over the future"(p.17). Guthrie suggests that the trend toward consolidation of districts and schools has failed, in most instances, to produce the economies of scale, the improved instruction, or the community support for education which have been the rationale for centralization. He does note, however, that "for one group of students, larger schools do appear to make an important instructional difference. We refer here to badly handicapped students for whom the majority of small districts are incapable of providing adequately.... Large school districts generally have sufficient numbers of students in need of such specialized services to bear the added instructional costs"(p.22). Guthrie concludes his article calling for a multi-disciplinary study of classroom, school, and school district size, noting the questions raised by such a study span the fields of education, economics, organizational theory, and political science.

Webb, D. L. (1979). "Fiscal implications of school district reorganization." Journal of Education Finance 4(Winter): 342-357. Webb examines some of the literature on economies of scale for school districts and conducts a case study of school district reorganization in Colorado. He concludes: "Studies relating to effective and desirable sizes of school districts indicate that school district size is not an absolute, that the 'optimum' size will vary from state to state, and that size is but one of many factors related to educational quality and operational efficiency. However, these same studies indicate, as do the economies-diseconomies of scale studies discussed in this paper, that in every state there are some districts that are too large as well as too small in terms of efficiency of operation. As a result, these districts, particularly the small districts, have higher per pupil expenditures and tax rates. In states with a large number of small school districts, such as the Colorado case study examined in this paper, reorganization would seemingly result in significant economies of scale and equalization of tax bases which support the schools"(p.357).

Fox, W. F. (1981). "Reviewing economies of size in education." Journal of Education Finance 6(Winter): 273-296. Fox examines the research on economies of scale in education, arguing that much of the research is methodologically flawed. Regarding district-level analyses of costs, Fox writes: "Several factors must be included in the analysis for these results to be meaningful. First, the multiproduct nature of the school district must be taken into account, because elementary and secondary education are characterized by different types of output and different cost functions. Second, more than one school requires consideration of the multi-school characteristics of production as most economies are probably associated with school size. Another problem with district level analysis is that good surrogates for outputs and inputs in the production process are more difficult to develop than for single school analysis. Also, the production relationship itself may be biased because elementary education is not only an output of the educational process, but it is an input to secondary education"(p.280). Having noted the limitations with many studies on the issue of economies of scale in education, Fox concludes: "In sum, size economies results must be applied cautiously, and with full recognition of the unique characteristics of each place, because considerations, other than the finding that size economies exist, are vital to determining the cost implications of policy decisions" (p.290).

Gold, B. (1981). "Changing perspectives on size, scale, and returns." Journal of Economic Literature XIX(March): 5-33. Gold's article is a study of economic theory on questions of size and scale in organizations and industries. She writes: "From the standpoint of economic analysis, it is important to recognize that the widespread faith in the 'economies of scale' has not gained much support from the relevant theoretical and empirical literature" (p.5). While Gold does not address specifically the issue of school district size, she does emphasize that studies of economies of scale in all fields need to pay greater attention to the details of the case at hand. Otherwise, "dubious generalizations" (p.31) about economies of scale will continue to reign.

Rowan, B. (1982). "Organizational structure and the institutional environment: The case of public schools." Administrative Science Quarterly 27: 259-279. Rowan's article looks, briefly, at school district size in the context of organizational theory. Examining historical data on school districts in California, Rowan argues that organizational size alone is insufficient to explain structural expansion. Instead, structural expansion -- its occurrence or lack of occurrence -- is a result of institutionalized norms, standards, technical lore, and the organization's relationship to social networks. Rowan concludes: "The contention here is that studies of institutional systems, rather than of single organizations, are needed, as well as studies of how institutional environments in fields like education are affected by changes in other institutional systems, for example mental health or society as a whole. Only then will the intimate relation of organizational structure to the wider social system become evident and the promise of institutional analysis be fulfilled"(p.277).

Butler, R. J. and D. H. Monk (1985). "The cost of public schooling in New York state: The role of scale and efficiency 1978-79." The Journal of Human Resources XX(3): 361-380. Butler and Monk examine data from the 1978-79 school years of school districts in New York State to argue that larger school districts operated at lower levels of efficiency than did small school districts. Small districts are defined as those with fewer than 2500 pupils and large districts are defined as those with 2500 or more pupils. They conclude: "These results indicate that there is a sense in which small school districts operate with greater efficiency than similar large districts. Specifically, an increase in enrollment is associated with a smaller cost increase in the small compared to the large districts in New York State"(p.377).

Bilow, S. (1986). The size of school districts: Economic and psychological perspectives -- Organizational alternatives for small-rural schools in New York State. Ithaca, Cornell University. Bilow's paper presents an extensive review of the literature on the relationship between the costs of schooling and the size of school districts and includes an exhaustive bibliography. The first section of the paper provides a survey of what economists have written about economies of scale and questions whether bigger is really cheaper or more efficient. The second section examines empirical studies by psychologists attempting to connect size with other factors (such as buildings, teaching staff, and organization, all of which are needed regardless of the school size) and trying to discover the optimal size for schools by using input (expenditures) and output (schooling) measures. The final section discusses perceptions on whether students learn better in larger or smaller schools and considers what effects school size has on: participation levels in extra-curricular activities, and the effect of participation on learning; achievement; attitudes; and the lasting effects of school size on participation in adult life and social activity. Bilow writes with an interest in small, rural schools in New York, and notes: "There is no reason to suppose that rural schools and urban schools are similar enough that everything true of one is true of the other"(p.3). Bilow concludes: "It is clear that economies of scale are available in schooling. It is also clear that there exist diseconomies. What is not clear is the point at which the diseconomies surpass the economies"(p.23).

Coleman, P. and L. Laroque (1986). "The small school district in British Columbia: The myths, the reality, and some policy implications." The Alberta Journal of Educational Research XXXII(4, December): 323-335. AUTHORS' ABSTRACT: "The purpose of this article is to consider the problem of the small school district from a new perspective. We first examine the policy goals likely to be held by provincial ministries (or state departments of education) to try to understand the past popularity of district amalgamation as a policy mechanism, what problems it is intended to address, and why it is thought to be the appropriate solution to these. We content that the rationale for amalgamation is based on myths about the small school district [myths of the efficiency, equality, and equity of larger districts], and in the next section we attack these myths, using longitudinal British Columbia data in a series of statistical analyses and some case study data and interpretations. Finally, we argue that the essence of the problem in British Columbia is mean school size, not district size, and that consequently the solution lies not in school district amalgamation, but in revisions to the way in which school districts are funded" (p.323).

Strang, D. (1987). "The administrative transformation of American education: School district consolidation, 1938-1980." Administrative Science Quarterly 32(1987): 352-66. Strang's article presents a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of school districts in relation to state spending, urbanization, regional location, enrollment, and area from 1938 to 1980. He chooses to examine this period, because he argues that during this time "the local administrative units of American education were transformed from small and informal community arrangements into large professionally run bureaucratic organizations" (p.352). He explores the causes of this structural change in American education by analyzing variation among states in the speed and extent of school district consolidation, arguing "that the growth and formalization of district organizations through consolidation stemmed in large part from the expanding role of state bureaucracies" (p.352).

Walberg, H. J. and W. J. Fowler (1987). "Expenditure and size efficiencies of public school districts." Educational Researcher 16: 5-15. Walberg and Fowler present data from a study analyzing the relationship between average test scores of third, sixth, and ninth graders in New Jersey districts, district socioeconomic status (SES), per-student expenditures, and district enrollment. The authors found that higher SES districts, as expected, achieved more than lower SES districts. Per-student expenditures on education were insignificantly associated with achievement test scores, so that low spending districts on average achieved as efficiently as high spending districts. In general, the smaller the district, the higher achievement when SES and per-student expenditures were taken into account. According to the authors, these results call into question the practice of school district consolidation and suggest that educational policies and practices, not expenditures, offer the best chance of improving efficiency.

Friedkin, N. E. and J. Necochea (1988). "School system size and performance: A contingency perspective." Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 10(3, Fall): 237-249. Friedkin and Necochea review the research on school district size, presenting studies that find positive effects of large districts (economies of scale) and studies that find negative effects of large organizations (problems of coordination and control). The authors' own research examines school districts in southern California and find that "positive effects of school system size on performance will increase in magnitude the higher the SES of a system's pupil population"(p.240) and "negative effects of school system size on performance will increase in magnitude the lower the SES of a system's pupil population"(p.241). They use their research to support the hypothesis that "contextual variables influence the relative contributions of the positive and negative effects of size on performance"(p.245). Finally, the authors caution: "We are not ready to assert that large, low SES school systems ought to be broken into smaller units.... The settlement of the important policy issues that are raised by our theory await additional evidence of a different sort"(p.247), such as longitudinal data, individual system-level data, and different mechanisms for measuring achievement.

Haller, E. J. and D. H. Monk (1988). "New reforms, old reforms and the consolidation of small rural schools." Educational Administration Quarterly 24(4, November): 470-483. Haller and Monk trace the history of the rural school and district consolidation movement from the 1940s through the 1970s, calling the move by state education bureaucrats to consolidate small rural districts "profoundly antidemocratic"(p.476). The authors trace the research on the issue of school size, arguing that "large, complex and bureaucratic schools are inimicable to the social and moral goals sought by reformers" of the 1980s. The authors express their own concerns that the reform movement of the 1980s "sends two inconsistent message regarding school district size" (p.472). On one hand, the 1980 reforms called for increasing academic opportunities and requirements, and therefore failed to repudiate the idea that large schools provided enriched academics. On the other hand, the reforms stressed the importance of the social outcomes of schooling, supported by caring climates, cooperative classrooms, and parent involvement, all of which are more likely to be found in smaller schools. The authors question the likely success of a reform with such contradictory messages regarding school size.

Berlin, B. M. and R. C. Cienkus (1989). "Size: The ultimate educational issue?" Education and Urban Society 21(2, February): 228-231. As editors of the journal Education and Urban Society, Berlin and Cienkus summarize the articles on class, school, and district size included in the February 1989 edition of the journal. Berlin and Cienkus derive three conclusions from the articles included in the journal. They write: "(1) Where the size of the district, school or class is controllable, smaller seems to be better; (2) For children of low SES, the need for smaller class size seems to be greater than for middle- or upper-SES children; (3) We must remember to fit the instruction to the instructional needs of our students, rather than to the organizational needs of the school" (p.231). But Berlin and Cienkus caution readers against quick conclusions, explaining: "As all the authors point out, size cannot be considered in a vacuum. The data seem to indicate that size factors have some influence on educational outcomes. But this influence is mediated by other factors (such as SES) and there are many social/political/geographic factors which determine the boundaries of school districts, the size of schools, and, of course, class size. Thus even unequivocal data would not necessarily lead to change" (p.228).

Jewell, R. W. (1989). "School and school district size relationships: Costs, results, minorities, and private school enrollments." Education and Urban Society 21(2, February): 140-153. Jewell's article presents the findings of a statistical analysis of the relationships among state enrollments, average district size, proportion of students enrolled in large districts (defined as districts with 20,000 students or more), and average school size. While Jewell notes that the accuracy of his data is limited by its reliance on average figures for states and districts, his relevant findings include: "(1) Minority public schools in the United States are concentrated in states that have large school districts and school districts that have large schools; (2) Students in states with smaller districts and smaller schools have higher SAT and ACT scores. Sizes of schools and districts, however, do not appear to be significant after controlling for the effects of state poverty levels on college entrance examination scores; (3) States with smaller average size schools and lower proportions of students in large districts have higher graduation rates than states with larger schools and higher percentages of students in large districts. This holds true even after controlling for the negative effect of minority enrollment proportions on graduation rates; (4) Per-pupil expenditure averages for the 51 systems have no significant statistical relationship with state enrollment sizes, average school district sizes, proportions of students in large districts, or average school sizes; (5) States with larger districts and larger schools have higher teachers' salaries and less favorable pupil/teacher ratios than states with smaller districts and smaller schools" (p.151).

McGuire, K. (1989). "School size: The continuing controversy." Education and Urban Society 21(2, February): 164-174. McGuire's article primarily addresses the research related to school size. Discussing the school size literature, he raises the question of the appropriate unit for analyzing costs and briefly examines the school district as the unit of analysis. In so doing, he presents a clear summary of the advantages and constraints of large school districts: "When is the district, not the school, the unit of analysis? If anything, looking at the district level amplified the fact that size economies bring opportunities and constraints. It has been argued that large school systems tend to have greater flexibility in the distribution of resources among schools (Friedkin & Necochea, 1988). And because large systems may be 'resource munificent,' they may offer higher salaries to attract expert personnel. They may more regularly maintain and upgrade their facilities, establish and expand support staff, and engage more systematically in research and development (Friedkin & Necochea, 1988). But with size come 'negative mechanisms' or constraints. As specialization in staff grows, program offerings expand, and administrative personnel increase, problems of coordination and control also increase. And in large systems, time and energy are more likely to be shifted away from core service activities. There is a tendency for services to be systematically shifted away from majority pupils and towards the minority of exceptional pupils (Monk, 1987). There are, in short, both advantages and disadvantages associated with size" (p.170-71).

Slater, R. O. (1989). "Education scale." Education and Urban Society 21(2, February): 207-217. Slater's theoretical article primarily addresses the research on school size, though his theoretical framework raises issues related to the study of school district size. Slater proposes that "Education culture, structure, and scale, then, exist as a triad.... Size, structure, and culture are correlated"(p.208). To make his case, Slater turns to sociological and political theories of utopia ("a social order or social structure that is felt to be a place of ideal perfection" (p.209)). He concludes his article: "From Plato to the present, then, social theorists have recognized the importance of size. But in broader political and social theory, size has only been important because of its relationship with social structure and culture. Perhaps the importance of class, school, and school system size rests on a similar triad"(p.216). One can extrapolate from his article that anyone considering the appropriate size of a school district must consider the culture one hopes to create within the proposed structure.

Walberg, H. J. (1989). "District size and student learning." Education and Urban Society 21(2, February): 154-63. Walberg advocates for small schools and small districts, citing research that bolsters his case, such as Bidwell and Kasarda (1975), Guthrie (1979), Gold (1981), Rowan (1982), Turner et al. (1986), and Monk (1987). He makes statements such as, "if larger districts do worse, then the largest might be expected to do worst"(p.159). After conducting a review of the research that suggests smaller districts are more efficient than larger districts, Walberg proceeds to discuss his work with CURE, Chicagoans United to Reform Education, as a model for reforming large urban education systems. The plan calls for parental choice and the decentralization of administrative decision-making and finances to school sites.

Webb, F. R. (1989). "A district of a certain size: An exploration of the debate on school district size." Education and Urban Society 21(2): 125-139. Webb's article traces the debate over the "right" size of school districts, examining the research on size in relation to fiscal efficiency, school effectiveness, and community identity. Webb outlines the history of the trend toward consolidation of school districts in the middle of the century and notes that more recently, in the 1970s and 80s, some researchers and educators have drawn attention to unanticipated consequences of consolidation. Having reviewed the literature on the issue of school district size, Webb concludes that: "in spite of the massive amount of examination of school district size that has taken place, there still does not seem to be a definitive "right answer" to the issues under discussion"(p.126).

Williams, D. T. (1990). The Dimensions of education: Recent research on school size. Clemson, South Carolina, Strom Thurmond Institute of Government and Public Affairs at Clemson University. Williams' paper reviews the literature school and district size, and summarizes the literature as follows: "Recent research indicates that (1) small schools can be highly effective in providing quality education, (2) large schools may not provide the economies of scale nor the quality of education claimed to justify their largeness, (3) school size tends to be a dependent variable in the educational equation, and as such, it becomes a result of the influence of independent variables such as class size and district size, (4) school district size is the most significant factor in determining school size with consolidation/reorganization plans generally resulting in larger schools, and (5) school size is of particular concern in rural areas where small schools are prevalent and where proposals for consolidation should be weighed in the context of research findings on the relative effectiveness of small versus large schools" (p.1).

Humphrey Institute and North Central Regional Educational Lab (1992). Source book on school and district size, cost, and quality. Minneapolis, Minnesota University, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, North Central Regional Educational Lab. This source book contains articles by six authors commissioned to address the issue of school or district size. The papers are: (1) "Small is Too Big: Achieving a Critical Anti-Mass in the High School" (Tom Gregory); (2) "Modern Conceptions of Educational Quality and State Policy Regarding Small Schooling Units (David H. Monk); (3) "Remapping the Terrain: School Size, Cost, and Quality" (Paul Nachtigall); (4) "Size, Cost, and Quality of Schools and School Districts: A Question of Context" (Al Ramirez); (5) "Small is Beautiful" (Bethany Rogers); and (6) "On Local Control: Is Bigger Better?" (Herbert J. Walberg). The articles that address school district size are reviewed in this paper.

Monk, D. H. (1992). Modern conceptions of educational quality and state policy regarding small schooling units. Source Book on School and District Size, Cost, and Quality. Minneapolis, Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and North Central Regional Educational Lab: 35-49. Monk reviews his findings from previous studies of rural school and district size to derive several recommendations. While Monk notes that existing research on school and school district size is not as conclusive as policymakers might wish, he suggests: (1) a larger school or district enrollment does not guarantee desirable results; (2) recommended school sizes have been declining over time, with recent reform efforts emphasizing the restructuring of education, local decision making and autonomy, and establishing "schools within schools" in settings where the school has been judged as too large; (3) each reorganization is highly individualistic (thus reducing the role of "expert knowledge"); (4) as measures of learning outcomes become more refined and more widely available, it becomes less important for the state to specify sizes and organization structures for schools and districts; and (5) policymakers should remain receptive to novel approaches to reorganization, since the remaining small schools and school districts in the United States are almost without exception "Hard cases" to which conventional approaches are not applicable. In place of the "all or nothing" reorganization approach typically sought by state departments of education, a range of alternative approaches has emerged, including cooperatives and clusters, locally designed partial or gradual reorganizations, and cross-function reorganizations in which a single administrative structure oversees all rural community services (including education).

Nachtigall, P. (1992). Remapping the terrain: School size, cost, and quality. Source Book on School and District Size, Cost, and Quality. Minneapolis, Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and North Central Regional Educational Lab: 53-71. Nachtigall's chapter of the Source Book reviews the literature on school and district size, cost, and quality with a particular focus on rural schools and communities. He concludes that "(1) seeking economies of school through school consolidation are, at best, elusive, (2) as we pursue school reform in search of better education, increasing numbers may increase, not decrease costs, (3) to the extent that closing schools contributes to the demise of rural communities, the dollars saved are a high price to pay for the loss of those communities" (p.55). Nachtigall argues that policymakers should examine the issues of school and district size, cost, and quality from the perspective of "maintaining healthy viable communities." Finally, Nachtigall states: "the search for efficiency and effectiveness [should] be refocused from the consolidation of schools to redesigning schools in such a way that they become central players in community development" (p.65).

Oakerson, R. J. (1992). Size, function, and structure: Jurisdictional size effects on public sector performance. National Rural Studies Committee: A Proceedings of the Annual Meeting, Las Vegas. Oakerson's article fits within the organizational theory literature and argues that the effect of size depends on the function that a jurisdiction performs and the multi-organizational structure in which a jurisdiction is embedded. He examines the school district size literature, concluding that increasing school district size increases certain inputs to the production of education, but does not leads to higher output (student achievement). He argues that smaller school districts may have access to resources (such as greater "social capital") that compensate for lower-level inputs. In some rural districts, Oakerson explains, consolidation may diminish a district's social capital by mixing together different communities of interest.

Ramirez, A. (1992). Size, cost, and quality of schools and school districts: A question of context. Source Book on School and District Size, Cost, and Quality. Minneapolis, Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and the North Central Regional Educational Lab: 73-93. Ramirez's section of the Source Book reviews research and reports on school and school district size as they relate to educational quality and finance, covering: (1) research on the relationships of size to course offerings, teacher qualifications, student achievement, student behavior, student participation, and school climate; (2) state level reports concerned with school or district consolidation efforts, with examples illustrating how cases for and against consolidation are typically framed; and (3) publications and reports on the issue of equity in school finance. Ramirez concludes that the research shows that any type of school (small or large, urban, suburban, or rural) can achieve successful outcomes, and "much of the confusion around size issues is related to asking the wrong questions or putting questions in the wrong context.... School district size is an even more elusive variable to judge since the nature and mission of the school district are not uniformly defined" (p.88). Ramirez also raises the consideration that new technology has the potential to make many size issues insignificant. Finally, Ramirez suggests that researchers and policymakers should consult those affected by size decisions to gain perspective on the historical, cultural, and political context of the affected community.

Walberg, H. J. (1992). On local control: Is bigger better? Source book on school and district size, cost, and quality. Minneapolis, Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and the North Central Regional Educational Lab: 119-134. Walberg reviews a selection of the research on student achievement and district size, citing the literature that supports his argument that smaller districts produce better student test scores. Examining data drawn from 1991, 1992 U.S. Department of Education reports, Walberg ranks states according to the average size of their school districts and their student test scores. Based on his ranking, Walberg concludes: "higher achieving states have smaller districts, smaller schools, and smaller state shares of school costs" (p.119.120). But Walberg's examination of the data fails to incorporate data on student socio-economic background, ignoring variations among student populations between schools, districts, and states that are likely to correlate strongly with student achievement.

Amos, N. G., & Moody, L. (1981). The relationship of school district size and cost factors to achievement of fourth and eighth grade students: Mississippi State University, Mississippi State Bureau of Educational Research.

Briscoe, A. O. (1972). The size of the local unit for administration and supervision of public schools. New York: AMS Press.

Duncombe, W., & al., e. (1995). Potential cost savings from school district consolidation: A case study of New York. ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION REVIEW, 14(3, September), 265-84.

Education Research Service. (1974). Summary of research on size of schools and school districts. Arlington, VA: Educational Research Service.

Fabian, E. J. (1975). Vermont school district organization report. Montpelier, VT: Vermont Department of Education.

Fonstad, C. (1973). What research says about schools and school districts... factors related to effectiveness: A report (4030). Madison: Wisconsin State Department of Public Instruction.

Fox, W. F. (1980). Relationship between size of schools and school districts and the cost of education. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economics, Statistics, and Cooperatives Service.

Great Plains School District Organization Project. (1968). Planning for school district organization: Author.

Hickey, M. F. (1969). Optimum school district size. ERIC Clearing House on Educational Administration at the University of Oregon.

Illinois State Board of Education. (1985). School District Organization in Illinois: Illinois State Board of Education.

Melnick, S. A., et al.,. (1986). A comparative study of the relationships between school district size and selected indicators of educational quality: Connecticut Association of School Administrators, Small/Rural Schools Committee.

Monk, D. H. (1984). The conception of size and the internal allocation of school district resources. Educational Administration Quarterly, 20(Winter).

Monk, D. H., & Haller, E. J. (1986). Organizational alternatives for small rural schools: Final report to the New York State Legislature (ERIC ED 281 694). Ithaca: Department of Education, Cornell University.

Ornstein, A. C. (1993). School consolidation vs. decentralization: Trends, issues, and questions. Urban Review, 25(2), 167-74.

Peyton, J. (1983). School district size (203). Frankfort, KY: Kentucky General Assembly, Legislative Research Commission, Subcommittee on Elementary and Secondary Education.

Reiss, W. (1970). Organizational complexity, The relationship between size of the administrative component and school system size. Eugene, OR: Center for the Advanced Study of Educational Administration.

Shapiro, D. (1973). Economy of scale as a cost factor in the operation of school districts in Alberta. Canadian Journal of Economics, 6(February), 114-21.

Sher, J. P., & Schaller, K. (1986). Heavy meddle: A critique of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's plan to mandate school district mergers through out the state.

St. Louis, L., et al. (1973). Economies of scale for a state system of public school districts. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 7(June), 295-303.

Wales, T. J. (1973). The effects of school and district size on education costs in British Columbia. International Economic Review, 14(October), 710-720.

Weaver, C. H. (1986). Report of the state superintendent of schools and school districts in North Carolina, 1986: North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

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