Lynn Walsh

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

Small-schools plan in San Diego criticized; Terry Grier pitched similar plan to HISD trustees in January
Wed Jun 2 17:13:00 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

A California program of smaller schools — which mirrors a plan HISD Superintendent Terry Grier pitched to district trustees here in January — has been criticized recently for failing to boost student achievement.

According to a package by the TV station KPBS, 10 small high schools in the San Diego Unified School District, which Grier headed for a year-and-a-half, are performing below average.
school bus

KPBS said the San Diego district received an $11 million grant in 2003 to turn large high schools in the district into small “school-within-a-school” campuses, but now “state test scores show students’ academic performance at about half of those small schools is well below average.”

The Voice of San Diego in 2008 pointed out that four years into its experiment with small schools, dropout rates were worse at some small schools than at their larger counterparts, and that paying for them cost 16 percent more per student than the per-pupil cost at the district’s large schools.

According to the Voice of San Diego:

“Test scores have risen at many small high schools — but so have scores at many large schools. Attendance rates vary widely among the individual schools, with some reporting stellar numbers and others at the bottom of the heap. Small high schools are among the school district’s most exemplary schools, and among its most challenged.”

Grier was superintendent of the San Diego district from March 2008 until September 2009, when he took the helm at HISD. The small schools model was started in San Diego before Grier became superintendent and continued during his tenure.

Now, Grier has brought the conversation of small school models for high schools to HISD. In January, trustees were presented a small schools plan for HISD high schools.

Texas Watchdog reported that a New York group, the Institute for Student Achievement, presented a model to create high schools of up to 400 students each. Each small school would have its own principal but share a building and resources with other small schools.

“‘We need a model that is research-based. We do not have time to tinker,’ said Terry Grier, Houston Independent School District superintendent. ‘We have failing schools that are not serving our children.’”

Not only is the academic performance of the newly created small schools under question in San Diego, but the district has also questioned the costs of the more expensive small-school model, according to the Voice of San Diego:

“Small schools are typically more expensive than large ones because a smaller group of students is afforded its own principal. Financial staff estimated that small high schools cost $768 more per student than large high schools (in 2007). And a task force charged with weighing costs and salaries in San Diego Unified eyed the small high schools, saying they needed to be analyzed and made more efficient.”

So what does this mean for HISD?

Seeing how the small-schools plan is performing in San Diego “does raise red flags,” HISD board president Greg Meyers said. “But, it puts the pressure on us to make sure we are doing our due diligence to ensure success” in HISD.

“There is not one cookie-cutter approach that will work for every school,” Meyers said. “We are looking at different models for different areas, different schools and different communities.”

Texas Watchdog also put in a call and e-mail earlier today with Grier’s chief of staff, Michele Pola. We’ll post an update if we hear back from her.

Contact Lynn Walsh at 713-228-2850 or lynn@texaswatchdog.org. Photo of a school bus by flickr user Old Shoe Woman, used via a Creative Commons license.