Critical Small Schools. Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform

Critical Small Schools: Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform features themost current empirical research about the successes and challenges of the small schools movement and theimplications of such for urban public educational policy. Situated in a climate of hierarchical reform, manyof the principles of the original small schools movement-which are rooted in community participation,innovative pedagogies and assessment, and equity and social justice-have become obscured by aneducational agenda that emphasizes top-down mandates and standards-based reform. With the increasedpopularity and the rapid proliferation of small schools, the emphasis on 'size only' has resulted in abifurcation of the small schools movement; on one end are the small schools which have embraced thedemocratic, participatory, and self-governing nature of the original movement, while on the other end areschools that have simply reduced their size without rethinking school structures and practices.This book distinguishes the small schools featured and researched in this volume from schools that are simply small and labels them "critical smallschools." By documenting the practices that take place in various critical small schools in New York City, we show how these schools have narrowedthe achievement gap and increased graduation and college acceptance rates. Although smallness is an essential feature in the design of these schools, itis certainly not the only one and...