School inflation: the dramatic growth in school size during the 20th century yields evidence that bigger is not necessarily better

Education Next, Fall, 2004 by Christopher Berry

As school districts became larger and more complex, day-to-day authority over schools gradually shifted from elected school boards to professional superintendents and administrators. From 1930 to 1970, about 9 out of 10 school board members nationwide saw their positions disappear.

These centralizing trends were encouraged by state officials, who spearheaded initiatives to consolidate local schools as part of broader efforts to expand state control over public education. In other words, not only was local control over education weakened by the elimination of most elected school boards, but the authority of the remaining boards was also eroded as state governments gradually extended their authority over issues such as accreditation, curriculum, and teacher certification.

These changes met with fierce local resistance, especially in rural areas, where the school was often the community's central institution. Consolidation of the local district--in particular, the loss of the town school--often threatened a community's social cohesion and economic vitality. To achieve their objectives, state education officials often had to provide strong fiscal incentives or simply force consolidation by redrawing district boundaries.

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A series of related reforms, such as the lengthening of the school term, a decline in class sizes, and higher salaries for teachers, also took hold during this period. The overall effect was to transform the small, informal, community-controlled schools of the 19th century into centralized, professionally run school bureaucracies. The American public school system as we know it today was born during this brief, tumultuous period.

Previous Studies

Despite the dramatic scale and breakneck pace of these reforms, little is known about the consequences of district consolidation and the movement toward larger schools. The research literature of the 1920s through the 1970s focused mainly on resources rather than results. In general, researchers found that larger schools had better facilities, more highly qualified teachers and administrators, a greater depth and variety of courses, and more extracurricular activities. An influential 1967 report by James Conant, a former president of Harvard, concluded that large "comprehensive" high schools were more cost-efficient and provided higher quality schooling through a wider range of course offerings. However, Conant did not examine whether student achievement was any higher in large comprehensive high schools.

Beginning in the 1980s, scholars began to look at the relationship between school size and student achievement. These studies have been less favorable to large schools. Of seven studies reviewed by Mathew Andrews, William Duncombe, and John Yinger, only one found that performance increased as schools grew in size. The remaining six studies found decreasing returns to scale. One study found that African-American students in particular do worse in large schools; another found that the same was true of students of low socioeconomic status.