A Study in Size

In the early years of the small schools movement, most states did not allow charter schools, so teachers and parents focused on lobbying for change within their local districts. Eventually, cities like New York, Chicago, and Boston opened several small schools, and the movement spread throughout the 1990s. By 2000, there were about 3,000 small schools nationwide. Not all of them succeeded, but they did produce a compelling body of research showing that, in the majority of cases, small schools improve student grades, test scores, attendance, and safety, and reduce levels of violent behavior and drug abuse. This data drew interest from private corporations (nonprofit and for-profit), which brought a more top-down, businesslike philosophy to what was once a grassroots effort.

By comparison, San Francisco's Secondary School Redesign Initiative — a five-year-old plan to create small schools aimed at helping low-performing students — has run a much slower course. The Gates Foundation gave $1 million to the S.F. Schools Alliance (the nonprofit that bundles grants for SFUSD) for the 2003-2004 school year, most of which went toward the founding of June Jordan and Aim High Academy, a small-by-design middle school. Over the last three years, it also funded the redesign of Mission High School and Balboa High School as "small learning communities" (i.e., schools-within-a-school), the aborted expansion of Gloria R. Davis into a hybrid middle/high school, and other youth-related projects. There are no other small-by-design schools within the district — only small charter and private schools outside it — and no concrete plans for any new ones.

The district has yet to establish a standardized policy on how to fund and manage small schools, so administrators often end up having to beg for money just to cover basic resources. Last spring, for example, the teaching budget SFUSD offered June Jordan would have forced the school either to raise class sizes (meaning it would no longer be "small") or to cut courses students needed to graduate. After months of lobbying by parents and teachers, then-district superintendent Arlene Ackerman agreed to add one additional teaching position to June Jordan's budget, keeping the small model working.

San Francisco's small schools have also had to compete for central office attention with several reform plans — particularly Ackerman's baby, the elementary school-focused Dream Schools initiative, whose success and future are still in question. School board member and small schools advocate Mark Sanchez has even accused Ackerman of taking grant money intended for small schools and feeding it to Dream Schools. An ongoing audit has shown no wrongdoing, although the year the Dream Schools launched, June Jordan received 15 percent less funding per student than during the previous year, despite an increase in Gates Foundation support to $1.5 million. June Jordan's per-pupil budget continues to drop.

Notwithstanding these obstacles, S.F.'s small school students have performed well. Ninety-three percent of June Jordan juniors have already passed the state high school exit exam; the district average is 90 percent by the end of senior year. Based on last year's test scores, Aim High students scored better than 90 percent of demographically similar schools in California. In the two years since its redesign, Mission High's student scores jumped 22 percent, from among the lowest in their statewide demographic to about average, and Balboa High's scores have increased by about 11 percent in its first "small" year.

"For us, it's a natural evolution," says Matt Alexander, a co-founder, co-director, and teacher at June Jordan. "The thing started, we had funding and community interest, and the superintendent said, 'Great.' Now there's clear data showing we've been successful. It's time to take the next step."

Yet last year no new small schools or small learning communities opened in the city, as compared with seven new Dream Schools. The Gates Foundation's funding of the city's Secondary School Redesign Initiative dropped to $625,000, and the grant wasn't approved until November, months after the school year began. A major reason for the reduction was the district's lack of a clear policy direction on small schools, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

Representatives from both the Gates Foundation and the San Francisco Foundation, another prominent local education donor, indicated they're willing to put more money toward small schools if the district makes a concerted effort. For a variety of reasons — including leadership changes (Ackerman was forced out in September), a budget crisis, and bureaucratic caution — it still hasn't done so. For now, the district Web page devoted to the SSRI is frozen somewhere around spring 2005, with Janet Schulze, now the principal at O'Connell, still listed as its director.

"It's basically in hiatus, hibernating," Sanchez says. "We're in a holding pattern right now. If the school board comes up with realistic policies that funders can buy into, it'll move forward. If not, it'll slowly fade away."