Critical Small Schools: Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform

Critical Small Schools: Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform features the most current empirical research about the successes and challenges of the small schools movement and the implications of such for urban public educational policy. Situated in a climate of hierarchical reform, many of the principles of the original small schools movement-which are rooted in community participation, innovative pedagogies and assessment, and equity and social justice-have become obscured by an educational agenda that emphasizes top-down mandates and standards-based reform. With the increased popularity and the rapid proliferation of small schools, the emphasis on 'size only' has resulted in a bifurcation of the small schools movement; on one end are the small schools which have embraced the democratic, participatory, and self-governing nature of the original movement, while on the other end are schools that have simply reduced their size without rethinking school structures and practices. This book distinguishes the small schools featured and researched in this volume from schools that are simply small and labels them "critical small schools."