In his online Class Struggle column, Jay Mathews praises a new book by Tom Toch called High Schools on a Human Scale: How Small Schools Can Transform American Education. While small schools are in vogue today, boosted in part by many dollars from the Gates Foundation, skeptics wonder whether size alone can determine school effectiveness. Toch's book contends that small schools may not have an edge if they don't have a coherent educational vision but that it's easier to attain such unity of purpose in a small school than in a large one.
"Smaller High Schools Proving to be Educationally More Effective," by Jay Mathews, Washingtonpost.com, March 25, 2003.
High Schools on a Human Scale: How Small Schools Can Transform American Education, by Thomas Toch, is due to be released by Beacon Press in April 2003. Its ISBN is 080703245X.