MODERN TIMES
Art Hobson
ahobson@uark.edu
NWA Times 31 Mar 2007
Do
We Really Want a 3000-Student High School?
Since
my earlier column "Whither Fayetteville High School?" (February 3, http://physics.uark.edu/hobson/ ), the FHS advisory committee recommended a single future
high school and that the current 10-12 grade structure be expanded to 9-12, and
the school board adopted both recommendations on 4-3 votes.
Furthermore,
the board voted to appraise the current FHS property in order to evaluate the
extent to which selling it could help subsidize the construction of a new high
school for 3000-4000 students. The
only suggested location for such a school is out beyond I-540. These decisions will have major effects
not only on future students and their families but also on the entire
Fayetteville community.
The current school is full at 2000
students. The enrollment
projection for grades 9-12 in 2011, when a new high school might be ready, is
2700.
But
this decision should be primarily about education, not money. Here, the evidence clearly shows that
3000-4000 is far too big. There
are lots of serious studies of this issue, and they indicate the superiority of
high schools having 400-900 students.
106 studies are summarized in Kathleen Cotton's "School Size, School Climate, and Student Performance." Nearly 100 studies are summarized in
John Slate and Craig Jones' "Effects of School
Size: A Review of the Literature
with Recommendations." And
Arkansas specifically commissioned Lawrence Picus' study "An
Evidence-Based Approach to School Finance Adequacy in Arkansas." They all conclude that 400-900 is the
right size.
The
school board's web site says a strong reason for the one-school recommendation
was, "Two schools would put small group extracurricular activities and
small [specialized] classes at risk." But the Slate and Jones study concludes that "Increasing
school size, especially beyond 400 students, does not typically result in a
large increase in curricular offerings." Also, "No more than 12 percent of students at larger
schools enrolled in courses that were not taught at the smallest [400-student]
schools." If larger schools
were compared with "smaller" schools of around 1500—probably
the smallest that this school board would want to consider—that 12
percent figure would be far smaller.
So the curricular arguments favoring enrollments of 3000-4000 over
enrollments of 1500 apply to a tiny percentage of students, and my guess is
that even they would find the overall drawbacks of such a huge school far
outweigh any possible curricular benefits.
The
school board has recommended school sizes many times larger than these
recommendations, with no stated justification. The only reason discernable in the news reports is that, for
one board member, "4,000 just doesn't feel right" while "3,000
for some reason feels better to me."
Citizens must demand that the board present more compelling reasons for
ignoring the experts' advice.
It's
written all over the newspaper reports that one big "reason" for the
one-school decision is football: "They
[the business community] were also strongly opposed to the prospect of
Fayetteville's athletic classification getting lowered if a second school was
built." "Many people who
wanted one new school cited not having to change athletic classifications." "Assistant Superintendent Dick
Johnson said athletics shouldn't be the deciding factor Ébut athletics are
important to a school's success."
"While changes in athletic programs shouldn't be a primary factor
Éit cannot be ignored, Principal Jim Price said."
I
disagree. Athletics should play no
role in this decision. Zero. We should be ashamed that the topic even
arose. It's no wonder, given such
pro-sports attitudes, that Arkansas winds up near the bottom of so many
measures of success, and that American students score poorly on international
tests.
Sports
addicts, reaching for debating points, argue that our teams shouldn't be
burdened with the extra travel distances required if our 7A classification is
lowered—while ignoring the far more extensive extra travel generated by a
single huge school in a distant corner of town. A rough calculation shows that the additional driving caused
by a single school of 3000 in the northwest corner of town, as compared with
two schools of 1500, is about 4 million miles per year, consuming 200,000
gallons of gasoline, emitting 2,500 tons of carbon dioxide, and totaling $2 million
in driving costs.
It's
striking that athletics have figured so prominently in this discussion, while
the effects on our fair city haven't been mentioned. Despite welcome signs of new development in midtown
Fayetteville, it's still impossible to do normal shopping near the square,
families are still moving to far-flung suburbs, and buildings are shuttered
along North College. Although
I-540 was originally conceived as, believe it or not, a bypass around Northwest
Arkansas towns, it's fast becoming the regional main street. Selling our centrally-located high
school in favor of a huge school in the suburbs will be a big additional step
toward this insidious "geography of nowhere" that's sucking the life
out of the real Fayetteville.
The
school board should remodel the present high school for a maximum of 1500, and
order a new second school of about 1500 students.