Kathleen Cotton, an educational research specialist at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in Portland, Oregon, notes that "a large body of research in the affective and social realms [of child development] overwhelmingly affirms the superiority of small schools."

"Although it is often assumed that large schools are cheaper to operate and provide richer curricula than small schools," Cotton is quoted in Planning Commissioners Journal (Summer 2000), "studies show that neither of these things [is] necessarily true."

Low-income kids, especially, feel the effects of big schools, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which reported "the gap in academic achievement between rich schools and poor schools is greatly reduced when schools are smaller."

The trend toward demolishing existing schools in favor of big, new ones represents something more than just shifting population and the obsolescence of old buildings. McMahon explains that state and national educational policies greatly favor building new schools over renovating existing ones. He notes that the Council of Educational Facility Planners International, a professional organization, established a formula governing the size of school grounds that is completely blind about land use patterns in urban areas. As McMahon explains, "A 2,000-student high school requires at least 50 acres, or more than almost any city, big or small, has available near its residential neighborhoods." (The National Trust for Historical Preservation is now working with the Council to develop a new formula that takes urban land use into account, reports Preservation magazine [July/Aug. 2001].)

An even bigger obstacle are regulations in most states that forbid funding of school renovations if the costs are half or two-thirds the price of building a new one. And The New York Times reports that school renovation costs are sometimes grossly inflated. The price tag for fixing up the 1914 Kokomo (Indiana) High School, for example, was figured at $20 million to $25 million, but the work was eventually done for $4 million.

Innovative efforts underway in Maryland show that a shift in

policies can make a dramatic difference in preserving neighborhood schools. As part of Governor Parris Glendening’s campaign to curb sprawl, the state has evened the playing field in funding between school renovation and new construction. In 1995, just 34 percent of state funding went to improvements on existing schools; in 1998 it was 84 percent.